passiveness vs. aggression

Are there any articles/books that really explain why aggression is better than passiveness in general when it comes to Texas Hold 'Em (doesnt neccesarly have to be referring to NL Hold 'Em, could be limit)?

I don't know if there's anything that breaks it down that specifically. The reasons are fairly self-evident though:

1. Aggressive players bet their good hands, passive players don't; ergo, aggressive players make more money when they have good cards

2. Aggressive players bet their bad hands (as bluffs), passive players don't; ergo, aggressive players have the potential to win money even when they have mediocre or bad cards

Passivity makes the most money when coupled with someone else's aggression. It's possible to do well playing passively against someone playing over-aggressively. But given a more standard game with all players operating within a range of passive or aggressive, not at either extreme, it's easier to make money by being somewhat more aggressive.

Aggressive > passive is pretty much Doyle's entire point in SS. Read it. Now.

Aggressive win when:

No one has a hand
They have a better hand

Passives win when:

they have a better hand.

2 > 1

Key here is you need to be playing passives who are smart enough to see the hand you're repping.

aggression gives you two ways to win a hand...

with fold equity and at showdown.


passiveness only lets you win at showdown.


youre doubling your chances.

Originally Posted by drmcboy

Aggressive > passive is pretty much Doyle's entire point in SS. Read it. Now.

Aggressive win when:

No one has a hand
They have a better hand

Passives win when:

they have a better hand.

2 > 1

Key here is you need to be playing passives who are smart enough to see the hand you're repping.

sackly.

I think there's more to it then that though. When a player plays passive, they don't get as much information about what the better holds, but the better in turn gets very little information about what the passive player holds. So its sort of an information sacrafice that the passive player forces on both players. Whether this is good or bad depends on the situation.

Passive players by the definition of their passiveness can't bluff, and so miss opportunities to steal pots. Passive players also don't value bet or value raise, and so miss opportunity to make money there. These two things are what really burn the passive player in the end..

Aggression also has informational advantages over passive play. You get a better sense of what an opponent has when you force him/her to make decisions based on his/her holdings.

as stated above, aggressive betting can be used to increase payouts, to steal pots, and to get information. i would add one more important virtue: it protects vulnerable hands against suckouts.

passive players do not adequately protect their hands in the early rounds and therefore get sucked out on very often, losing entire pots that would have been theirs if they weren't so passive.

EXAMPLE.

home game last night, $20 NL game, $0.25/$0.50 blinds.

guy limps into a 5way pot with T9s and flops 89T. he bets $1 into a $2.50 pot and gets called in two spots. turn is a blank and he again bets $1 into what is now a $5.50 pot. one guy calls. river is a 6 and he bets $1, his opponent goes all-in. he reluctantly calls and loses his entire stack to the obvious one-card straight.

sure, he was betting out, but he was betting like a pussy with TOP TWO PAIR. that's passivity for ya. an aggressive bettor would have bet the size of the pot or more to block the drawing hands.

sadly, this was immediately after i cracked some guy's AA with a rivered flush because he never bet enough to scare me out. i had made a point about betting more aggressively to protect your hand but obviously nobody listened.

ChezJ

when you play a passive player, you have to switch up your game slightly, start showing the nuts.. otherwise they will call your bluffs.

you just cant bluff the unaware.

it's true you can't bluff a typical LOOSE passive player. but you can absolutely bluff a TIGHT passive player who folds on the flop without TPGK.

both are passive. their bluffability has nothing to do with their passivity.

ChezJ

Originally Posted by ChezJ

it's true you can't bluff a typical LOOSE passive player. but you can absolutely bluff a TIGHT passive player who folds on the flop without TPGK.

both are passive. their bluffability has nothing to do with their passivity.

ChezJ

using my home games as an example .. people call down with any ace high.

my last game i destacked two players when i hit three queens on the flop and both my opponents called me down with ace high with me dropping the hammer on the river and getting both to call. i call it world poker tour syndrome.

and i do see the play alot online as well although they hold something like AK or something.

well again i would say that calling down without any kind of hand is "loose" as opposed to "tight."

if someone else flop trip queens with a higher kicker yet simply called you down instead of raising back at you, i would call that "passive" as opposed to "aggressive."

ChezJ

Originally Posted by ChezJ

well again i would say that calling down without any kind of hand is "loose" as opposed to "tight."

if someone else flop trip queens with a higher kicker yet simply called you down instead of raising back at you, i would call that "passive" as opposed to "aggressive."

ChezJ

its passive that they dont play back at me. i guess i'll never understand the point .. if you think im lying when i lay out a bet, reraise me, if not fold. makes more sense, if im bluffing and i get played back at, i will lay the hand down.. calling down each street is a huge leak, playing sheriff hardly ever pays off.

Originally Posted by ChezJ

well again i would say that calling down without any kind of hand is "loose" as opposed to "tight."

if someone else flop trip queens with a higher kicker yet simply called you down instead of raising back at you, i would call that "passive" as opposed to "aggressive."

ChezJ

I think you're getting a few terms mixed up. calling down without any kind of hand is "liberal" as opposed to not calling as much which is "conservative"

Tight and loose have to do with pre-flop play, where tight is not playing as many hands as opposed to loose where you play everything.

Someone's pre-flop play and their bluffability are two completely different dimensions in describing a player.

i'm not the one mixing up terms... you're redefining standard poker terminology and cooking up entirely new definitions wholesale.

since when do the words "tight" and "loose" apply to VP$IP only? when did "liberal/conservative" and "straight/crooked" enter the poker vernacular?

this reminds me of the other thread where "aggression" suddenly meant nothing but "bluffing." sheesh.

if you can point me to a book that contains your new terminology, i'll take back what i said. until then, i'll stick to the definitions that sklansky, malmuth, and other poker professionals use.

to answer your original posted question, you should read "the theory of poker" by david sklansky. i think it will explain a lot of fundamental concepts that you may not fully grasp.

http://www.flopturnriver.com/poker-books.html

ChezJ

Originally Posted by ChezJ

i'm not the one mixing up terms... you're redefining standard poker terminology and cooking up entirely new definitions wholesale.

since when do the words "tight" and "loose" apply to VP$IP only? when did "liberal/conservative" and "straight/crooked" enter the poker vernacular?

this reminds me of the other thread where "aggression" suddenly meant nothing but "bluffing." sheesh.

if you can point me to a book that contains your new terminology, i'll take back what i said. until then, i'll stick to the definitions that sklansky, malmuth, and other poker professionals use.

to answer your original posted question, you should read "the theory of poker" by david sklansky. i think it will explain a lot of fundamental concepts that you may not fully grasp.

http://www.flopturnriver.com/poker-books.html

ChezJ

Well I made the terms up because no one had bothered to make them up before me and it got very frustrating talking strategy when the terms like "aggression" and "tight" were doing double duty describing different types of styles of play with the same word.

Terms dont need to be used by pro's to be used I just use them to save myself the headache of writing out what they actually mean everytime I use them.

It seems like no one can agree on what tightness really means for instance, since people seem to think that tight players will see very few flops AND be very bluffable.. well they don't have to both be true about a player, and yet the same word "tight" is being used to describe them. So I came up with a new word "conservative" to describe someone who is bluffable, to make it easier to advance my understanding of the game.

I have a whole post on this over in the "Playing the Player" forum, you should check it out. I might be wrong about what I said there, but since no one has bothered to write any literature on the subject before me, you gotta start somewhere.

Here's a quick, precise list of definitions:

Loose - plays many hands and may play them too far

Tight - plays only hands wherein some advantage is evident; gets out of the hand when expecting to be behind

Aggressive - bets more often than calls; makes bets that are significant relative to the pot

Passive - calls more often than bets; may make bets that are too small to have any effect (usually with bad/no reasoning)

my (lame) mantra is: If in doubt bet it out.

Originally Posted by JeffreyGB

Here's a quick, precise list of definitions:

Loose - plays many hands and may play them too far

Tight - plays only hands wherein some advantage is evident; gets out of the hand when expecting to be behind

Aggressive - bets more often than calls; makes bets that are significant relative to the pot

Passive - calls more often than bets; may make bets that are too small to have any effect (usually with bad/no reasoning)

Well if these definitions were correct, then a Tight Aggressive player wouldnt bluff, since by the definition of "tight" theyd be behind so they better get out. It just goes to show that you need more words than those to describe playing style..

A tight player doesn't play as many starting hands as a loose player. That means tight aggressive is someone who is picky preflop, but when they are involved in a hand, they are very aggressive bettors.

Originally Posted by fjuanl

A tight player doesn't play as many starting hands as a loose player. That means tight aggressive is someone who is picky preflop, but when they are involved in a hand, they are very aggressive bettors.

notice what you said is completely ambigious to whether to they fold when they think their behind or bluff their way out of the situation. Both styles are aggressive, but they differ.

Originally Posted by spino1i

Originally Posted by JeffreyGB

Here's a quick, precise list of definitions:

Loose - plays many hands and may play them too far

Tight - plays only hands wherein some advantage is evident; gets out of the hand when expecting to be behind

Aggressive - bets more often than calls; makes bets that are significant relative to the pot

Passive - calls more often than bets; may make bets that are too small to have any effect (usually with bad/no reasoning)

Well if these definitions were correct, then a Tight Aggressive player wouldnt bluff, since by the definition of "tight" theyd be behind so they better get out. It just goes to show that you need more words than those to describe playing style..

Not true. Advantage can come from aspects other than the cards. All it means is that a TAgg won't bluff out of position without a read. Possible that a LAgg wouldn't either (depending on skill level and such) but also very possible that he would.

The thing is, you can choose to try to let tight apply to both pre- and post-flop play, which dont have to be related. But thats not really telling the whole story.

Someone's pre-flop doesn't always predict their post-flop play. If I see the flop with any two cards, I could still be very conservative and end up folding most of the time (albeit a bad way to play poker).

I currently play LAG at 200 nl. I dont know if you would quite call it true LAG; I play as loose as the table allows me to, since the table is only so conservative. However, if I call the raise of a TAG player you better believe I fold when he starts betting big, so I'm definetely playing conservative. But against another LAG player I might be more interested in calling/raising his bets (playing liberal).

if you are trying to differentiate between tight pre-flop play and tight post-flop play, then just use those terms. seriously. manufacturing entirely new terms while redefining established terms is only going to increase confusion at FTR, not reduce it.

ignore me if you want, but when guys with 1,000+ posts to their name (e.g., 'Rilla, JeffreyGB) offer you advice, i suggest you listen. conversely, don't give too much credit to posters with only 100 posts at FTR. they are newbies.

ChezJ

Sklansky mentions example(s) about advantages of aggressivity when playing heads up limit in his book "holdem for advanced players".I think that it works with NLHE as well.

Originally Posted by spino1i

Are there any articles/books that really explain why aggression is better than passiveness in general when it comes to Texas Hold 'Em (doesnt neccesarly have to be referring to NL Hold 'Em, could be limit)?

You can take my word for it. Or you can try to play TPP for 10k hands and TAA for another 10k and compare.

-'rilla

depends on the hand, and who you're against. Aggression works both ways, you have to know when to NOT bet, just as much as when TO bet.

Passive players just seem to take the extreme and don't bet at all without a monster hand, or are very tricky with their top pairs.

Aggressive players can dig themselves in a hole if they are betting weak hands into guys who simply checked the flop, thinking their middle pair is good.

Originally Posted by jmontis

depends on the hand, and who you're against. Aggression works both ways, you have to know when to NOT bet, just as much as when TO bet.

Passive players just seem to take the extreme and don't bet at all without a monster hand, or are very tricky with their top pairs.

Aggressive players can dig themselves in a hole if they are betting weak hands into guys who simply checked the flop, thinking their middle pair is good.

agreed. sometimes passive play is called for.

Originally Posted by Element187

Originally Posted by ChezJ

it's true you can't bluff a typical LOOSE passive player. but you can absolutely bluff a TIGHT passive player who folds on the flop without TPGK.

both are passive. their bluffability has nothing to do with their passivity.

ChezJ

using my home games as an example .. people call down with any ace high.

my last game i destacked two players when i hit three queens on the flop and both my opponents called me down with ace high with me dropping the hammer on the river and getting both to call. i call it world poker tour syndrome.

and i do see the play alot online as well although they hold something like AK or something.

"world poker tour syndrome" LOL!