Crazy thoughts about the live game
December 16, 2008 by trickyrock
Filed under News, Poker School
I have really enjoyed playing alot of ‘live’ poker recently, and have tried to think hard about alot of
situations that have come up, but also the different styles I see. I have been able to watch other players, and take soundings from them, and really tried to be open to ideas from other people’s games. I think that’s there is something for everyone to learn from every poker player, but that the player you will learn the most from is the player with the game most different to yours.
To this end, I have found myself thinking alot about the super-aggressive players. In this country, Sam Trickett plays a wonderful but also crazy game, and with great success. On the European Poker Tour, Dario Minieri has the perfect combination of craziness and diminutivity to be the only man who always builds a stack taller than himself. The player that has fascainted me more than any other is the great character that is Ali Mallu; despite seeming to making some undeniable mistakes, his crazy game has lead to a string of good results that is worthy of respect.
I’ve always known that this super-aggressive game, applying constant pressure in all types of spots, is one of the great ways to play, but I have found myself wondering more recently whether it is the way to play. There are so many naive beliefs about playing styles in poker, and one of the biggest ones is the defensive line used by a tight player; they would say that these super-aggro players are always only one silly move away from getting caught, and busting themselves. The probelm with this view is that, just like goalkeepers in football, the mistakes of a super-aggro players are the ones that everyone most easily sees.
Even if a super-aggro player does make a horrible mis-read or one bluff too daring once in a while, then there is probably still so much good about their game that makes them superior the standard player. The fear for an aggressive player is not the mistake of getting caught, but the mistake of missing an opportunity to bluff, and that is a wonderfully fearsome attitude for them to have. For every one noteworthy mistake the aggro player make, maybe the standard player is missing 3 or 4 opportunities for a winning move or thin value-bet. The only difference is that these mistakes are going unnoticed by the observers, and even by the players themselves.
There is a growing fashion for small-ball poker. This is something many people quote to discredit this aggressive style, but there is a key misunderstanding here. Small-ball poker and super-aggro poker are not too different things, just like tight and aggressive are not two different things. In fact, they can compliment eachother fairly well sometimes. For example, pot control becomes alot more possible when a player’ssuper aggresion means that opponents are far less likely to bet into them.
It is this kind of change in how other players react to the super-aggro player which I have realised makes it a really attractive style to play. There are all kinds of mistakes people make; the biggest one that poor players become paranoid about being bluffed and make calls in scenarios where even the super-aggro player just cannot be bluffing. The fact that these scenarios are likely to be on the river in inflated pots makes this factor all the more crucial.
However, there are a whole host of other advanatges that are not quite so obvious. Slightly more cunning players will try to “trap” the aggro guys too much. Not only can this be too obivous, but it causes them to start playing too passively, and make technical mistakes like giving free cards, and failing to make thin value bets and good bluffs themselves.
The latter comes from another massive advantage of playing the aggro style, and that is that players make the fateful mistake of confusing aggression with looseness. The aggro player is then favoured alot by mistakes opponents make like not bluffing them enough, and playing too obivously for value. The biggest of these advantages, however, is a substantial one in the ante stage of live tournaments, and that is that the big blind of the crazy player is targeted far less than it should be.
All these more subtle changes are going to help an aggro player even more if they are a tight player. This is one of the reasons why I wonder whether I should notch up the craziness in my game, as my preferred style is at the extreme of not defending my blind much, and being more likely to make a big laydown than a big call.
The best argument I can think of for this style is that it makes other players change their games. This is something that most players are not prepared for, and consequently they do not do it very well. Not only will players tend towards one extreme- either backing down too much to the maniac before the pot has been inflated, or standing up way too much for themselves by calling off multiple streets- but crucially, it can be very obvious which extreme people will take. Some players even signal their frustration with the aggressive kid continually nicking their blinds, and basically give the gift of a warning to change gears against them.
If I had to argue the virtue of an aggressive game in one idea, it would be this. An aggressive game opens up the boundaries of the game; it throws people out of their comfort zone, and forces them to adapt to situations in a way that the standard good player does not. If you are a player skillful enough to be one step ahead in adapting, then this is a cat well worth throwing amonst the pigeons.
I’m going to make it one of my resolutions for 2009 not necessarily to play more crazy, but to experiment, and test the boundaries of exactly where craziness can translate into success.
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This post is great – really interesting.
I recently played in the DTD anniversary cup, though didn’t manage to make it to the end of day 1 (pretty poor considering this is only 5 levels!)
But, after 4-5 hours, with a nice stack, Will Fry moved to my table. He is the young player who recently won EPT budapest, though by his own admission did this by playing mainly a solid game, with a few moves – the standard tight-aggressive game. Now, with no monetary pressure on him, with such a big cash under his belt, he is taking steps to improve his game by experimenting with playing the super-aggro game. The effects were unbelievable. He was just inpossible to play against, raising the majority of pots, and frequently 4-betting when someone played back at him (and showing rags).
The sickest advantage of his play, though, seemed to be the effect on other players. Where you would expect others to stand up to him (as i tried a couple of times, failing miserably), the majority of players just tried to avoid him. Therefore, not only was his BB not being nicked, his tiny 2.25xBB raises were getting through in the vast majority of pots, whereas everyone elses raises were being mercilessly re-raised on a fairly agressive table.
One to try!
Hey Numpty,
Yeah,really interesing stuff. Maybe let’s keep this thread to keep our experiences on this style of play, and log our thoughts on it.
I think your point about his 2.25x raises hits the nail on the head. One of the great advantages of aggression against thinking players is that they are aware of the implied threat of having to call into an inflating pot on later streets, and often prefer to give up on early on. It is interesting that a raise this small could get through- the numbers for that raise working with antes in play would be pretty sweet.
I think the way aggression play really falls into place is that people will react in different ways, but it will become very obivous which way they are going to react. I have always thought the perfect table dynamic is to have some players playing too tight and some too loose, including ideally one or two stations! Only sometimes will the perfect game slip into place of being able to bully the thinking players, whilst losing the respect of the stations, who are clueless enough to not realise that of course you will not be pulling any bluffs on them. Basically,any variation of styles can only be of benfit to a good player, and this super aggression will only widen that gap.
This kind of agression adds dimensions to the game that you would not normally see. Aggression is a style that of course makes things more dangerous and sharpens the knife edge of elimination, but if a player is skillful enough, then the need for greater reading of hands and of the psychology in play can only be of benefit.
There are of course disadvantages. Variance is the enemy of a player that is able to beat a game, and this kind of play can of course send variance spiralling. Maybe it is these kind of disadvantages that we can try to log here, as it can only be these that stop it from being a great way to play.
Numpty, Bobby suggested a little banter game at Walsall on the 28th. There is a £50 15,000 chip event apparently. Maybe head there after seeing Wednesday continue their stroll towards the playoffs?
You gotta love poker !. I think a big problem people face is over thinking a situation. Take for instance Numpty talking about Fry.. Using agression to push the game.. If you think about it logically he cant have the nutz every hand !. You gotta be stronger in your play and leave no option for him to come back at you with a re-raise. hence his only logical decision is too fold
play fire with fire – its all for fun !
I agree to some extent, but I still think that if someone plays this kind of aggression really well, they still hold all the trumps.
Think about the table scenario from Will Fry’s point of view(this is based on what he told me). He sat down at the table knowing that most players would adapt by shying away from him, but one or two braver souls would see an opportunity to stand up to him. Not only does he know this, but he can have a pretty good guess which players this is likely to be.
Will told me he thought about is as simply as that Tom was young and talked a good game, and so he very correctly made the guess that Tom would be the first to 3-bet him. When this happened, Will had the balls to back his judgement with a 4-bet to about 7k, now getting deep into the stacks. Unless Tom had a super-strong hand, there really is very little he can do here. Tom will have suspected that Will could be still messing around, but knew there was a chance he had a hand, and correctly decided not to risk it all.
Will’s play relies on the reservations that are at play even in the best tournament poker. Tom was reserved here when faced with the 4-bet, but he was right to be. He could not be sure what Will had, and a player wth good judgement knows that there is no point playing a silly pot against a player like Fry when there are going to be much easier spots at the table. (Tom had junk himself here, but I think his decision would be even tougher if he had a hand even as strong as AQ or 99)
Fry’s success relies on two implications of his aggression. Firstly, if you go to the next street against him, your decision will only become tougher. Secondly, he knows that a balanced player will see the sense in avoiding him. After all, why throw stones at the big bully when there are plenty of midgets to throw rocks at?
I agree that Will’s play is continually walking the tightrope of danger, but for him elimination is not the greatest fear. Instead, his greatest fear is to think that he might have missed opportunities to win extra chips that the standard player would not. This can only be a winning mentality.
One of the great dangers of this kind of play is that every player comes to the point where they have had enough. A good player will respond by out-agressing the bully, and a bad one by just calling him down, but both are potentially of equal damage to the bully. One of the great skills that the bully has to put in place is reading the psychology of the game well enough to anticipate this point. It requires great people reading and concentration of the game. However, for a skilled player, this can only be good news. This kind of wild play forces everyone at the table to draw on skills they might not have anticipated, and if the bully can be sharper at using these skills, it can only be right for him to open the game up like this.