Playing Agressive Poker - Go Hard or GO HOME!

Posted on May 7, 2008
Filed Under poker blog, poker strategy

Like the song says “you’ve got a choice to make - you can go hard or go home!” When playing poker, you’ve got to be aggressive. If you’re weak, your opponents can smell it. Of course, there are times to back down, but for the most part, I favor aggressive play.

I was coaching my wife the other day as she played poker online and she thought I was too aggressive, but she soon saw how people would just fold to her. Bottom line is if no one is betting, you can either do nothing and take a chance on someone else stepping up, put out an “information bet” - a reasonable but no too strong bet to test the waters, or just be aggressive.

So when should you not be too aggressive?

1. If there is a pair on the board and you don’t have trips, and there are a lot of players, you might was to tread cautiously.

2. When you are bluffing. This should be pretty obvious, because if you get called, you may have to put the rest of your chips on the line on a gamble or fold and lost all of those chips.

Anyhow, I have adopted the motto of the NHRA (the only other worthy sports sanctioning body) which is “Go Hard or GO HOME”. With that, I leave you this video: