How to Deal with Aggressive Players

07 Oct 2024

Intermediate

This article is for medium-skilled players

What's up guys, Fedor Holtz here! Today I will share with you how to deal with aggressive players. I've been an aggressive player my entire career, and actually now I've tried to tune it down a bit. I just love to win pots, contest pots, and get out there. And I have some advice for you today on how to deal with aggressive players like me and others who love to put in bets and make your life hard. Let's start right into it!

First Important Thing to Understand

First, I want to kick things off actually with a more advanced concept, because I think there's a lot of you that make a mistake by just putting all aggressive players in the same box. Like oh, he's an aggressive player and he puts in too many chips, or maybe he bluffs too much or stuff like this, but there's actually a huge difference. 

What I want you to think about is more about the value to bluff ratio, or let's say two separate questions. The first question is - how thin are they value betting? And the second question is - how wide are they bluffing? Those two things stand in direct correlation because in the end, it's mostly about the value to bluff ratio and the density or how wide their value betting. 

Those two things are really important when you consider playing against an aggressive opponent in what lines to take or how to adjust or what the best exploits are against them. Why is that so important? Because if you play against an aggressive opponent (let’s assume he bets really thin for value), he sometimes bets hands. He's never supposed to bet, but he bets second pair for value. 

But maybe he value bets even much thinner than he's supposed to. Now you're just getting owned by him because he value bets you thinly over and over again. And on the other end of the spectrum is a guy that maybe also bets a lot, but he just loves bluffing. He just puts in bets with weak hands that are worse than ace high - just all the time. 

So whenever he can, whenever he has a hand that can't win any other way, he's just putting in a bet. Both aggressive players, but two entirely different opponents. And we have to deal with them in different ways. So that's the number one thing I want you to keep in mind: when you face an aggressive opponent, think about how thin is he value betting and think about how wide is he bluffing. After that try to put that in relation together with each other. 

Folding Bottom Range

So when we keep that in mind, how thin their value betting and how wide they're bluffing, there are some very easy or direct exploits. And let's start with number one, which is folding bottom equity range. This is not something we want to overdo heavily, but generally against aggressive opponents, where we know they put in too many chips on the flop, too many chips on the turn on the river and so on. Especially hands that don't make strong hands can't really improve very much. 

We're most likely going to fall to any aggression on turns and rivers. We want to be over-folding a little bit in a spot where we assume that our opponent is probably making the mistake of putting in too many chips lightly. That's where we want to thin out our range a little bit by folding a bit more than we're supposed to. We don't want to overdo this, but this is the first idea that we just start folding a little bit of our bottom range. 

Raise Percentage

Now, the second idea is to increase our raise percentage. That might be a little bit counterintuitive fighting aggression with aggression, but we want to choose the right hand class here. We actually want to take hands that don't want to trap. That's important, but have good characteristics to raise. 

So for example, a good draw, fighting aggression with aggression is oftentimes better because we have decent equity and we generate a lot of fold equity because he's most likely value betting too thin or just bluffing too much. And against that, it's actually quite nice to play our draws aggressively sometimes. That's one approach. 

Another one is to increase our bluff frequency. So in spots where we think, for example, he bluffs too much. So against that second opponent, where we think he's just over bluffing, that's going to be an opponent. We want to be bluff raising more because he just has so much air. So especially if our hand is very vulnerable, this is now more the first type against opponents that value bet very thinly. We want to play them more aggressive.

And we also want to value raise thinner for value. So if we know he's value betting very thinly, we want to go thinner for value ourselves. So that's something where you shouldn't be afraid. If you know that someone is just putting in too many chips, too lightly, don't be afraid to raise. It's going to be a really nice tool to face that aggression. 

Trap Some Hands

The third point I've touched on already, and this is actually essential. One of the biggest mistakes I see, and that players have made against me countless of times is they just don't trap. They want to fast play every hand and want to end the hand and get in chips against me right away. And that leaves their range pretty weak and vulnerable strong opponents that understand this day trap against aggressive opponents. 

You want to give him hope. You want to give him room to put in those chips. If you raise now with a hand that is just the absolute nuts and has 95% equity, and he can't improve, then you just take away for him the possibility to bluff it all off into you. And that is extremely important. 

So the third point is probably the one I would highlight the most is give your aggressive opponent rope trap against him. The more he's bluffing versus thinly value betting, the more you want to trap, and, finally, the more you also want to trap some more vulnerable hands. 

More Bluff Catching

Now let's get to the most dicey one, the fourth one, which is bluff catch more. I know this is difficult and I've seen it countless times. If I think back of the ace King and of the Silva against me and Peshka (shout out to you for putting in the chips in the end after a 12 minute tank). It's very difficult to bluff catch against aggressive opponents. 

You're not going to have an easy life, but it is still important to not be scared to bluff catch from time to time. And to really think each hand through what helps me a lot is to think of intuitive bluffs. So when you look at your opponent and you think the hand through from his lens, I really try to understand what type of hands and categories of hands he ends up with on the river. 

For example, gut shots or missed draws or over cards that I think he probably plays this way. And then I try to understand if he gets there with on the river, does he bluff all those combos or maybe half of them or two thirds, or like sometimes gives up or never gives up. Then I can roughly estimate how big that chunk is of hands. 

Sometimes when all the things get there, let's say all the gut shots or open enders get there, or a lot of them get there. He doesn't have that many intuitive bluffs anymore because the bluffs that he could get there with now I actually made hands. And so this would be a spot where I would not really want to bluff catch. But then on the other end, when I think it's a spot where he gets there with a lot of bluffs and would need to give up a lot of bluffs, then I think that's a really nice spot to bluff catch more. 

So keep that in mind to try to think the hand through from your opponent's perspective, and really try to think of those intuitive bluffs that he always bets on flop, always bets on turn, and then ends up there on the river with you can now start estimating whether you think he's the type of guy who never gives up or maybe sometimes gives up. That will give you a really nice starting point for you to make an educated decision about your bluff catcher. 

So really try to focus on that and get a better understanding of what their value range looks like and what their bluffs look like. I think then you're going to improve your win rates against those types of players significantly. 

Bottom Line

So now to sum it all up, fold a little bit more of your bottom equity, especially in spots where you don't really improve. Second, check raise a little bit more and choose your spots wisely there, especially with more vulnerable hands or as bluff in spots where you think they over bluff. Third, trap, trap, trap, especially in spots where they will bluff into you. And fourth - bluff catch more and really think through what type of bluffs they get there with to the river. 

So from now on, when you face an aggressive player, always think about how thin do they value bet? How much are they bluffing? This will help you face them much, much better and think of the four tips I gave you. It was a pleasure - see you guys in the next one!