free Online poker Education On When And Why To Play Passive Or Aggressive poker Demonstrated By A Real Life Professional Game Hand

today my free online poker training article is about passive and aggressive play, specifically I’m looking at when and why one style is preferable to the other. To support the discussion I am reconstructing a real life hand sequence from a professional poker game that illustrates the points involved and hopefully will get you thinking about how you approach various situations when you play.

Background
An aggressive player, traditionally, bets and raises. Passive players call bets and raises. To be passive, which is essentially to be cautious, can be a good way to play in major tournaments such as the WSOP where, for example, a J-10 in a flop of 10-8-4 is decent enough for playing with middle of the road care. You play this by, say, check-calling or betting small and perhaps, value-betting at the end if the board is safe. However, another sort of care must be taken in that being over-passive, as I will show in the example, can lead to loss.

The Blinds – 3000/6000

The Preflop:

A has As-Ah raise to 16k
B has Ks-Qs call 16k (Pot 50k)

Since B has a position over A and his K-Q is suited, he can afford a call. A, meanwhile, plays pocket Aces like any other raising hand in middle position, thus confusing B. If A only called his Aces it could make B think he has A-A and result in B calling or folding later should A give away more strength signals.

FLOP: 7s-2d-Qh

A bets 23k
B calls 23k (Pot 96k)

A’s gets are based mainly on the pure value of the Aces rather than the possible value of B’s hand. With three undercards falling (and the likely possibility of the Queen pairing someone, especially a caller from late position) his Aces are secure, provided that no face card falls later, because it may pair the kicker of the one holding a Queen. B too thinks his Queens hold value though he knows not enough should a King or Ace fall – an option now is to put A on a bluff with Ax or Kx, so he just calls.

The Turn: 7s-2d-Qh-8d

Now A bets with 55k
B calls 55k (Pot 206k)

A stays with his Flop actions and thoughts. B also stays the same. As there are no draws on the Flop (both may think a backdoor Flush unlikely) and his Aces still all undercarded A keeps on hammering B aggressively and B stays hammered in passive mode.

RIVER: 7s-2d-Qh-8d-blank

Now A bets 121k making the pot 372k
This bet forces B all in. Because all cards are undercards to A’s Aces, and all other board cards are undercards to B’s Queens, A thinks B now has a Queen which he may be willing to be suicidal with. So A keep the aggression going where a lot of players might slow down given that the Aces are only just a pair and so may check to stay safer or check-raise if they feel their Aces are decent, A however pushes B all the way to all in.

B thinks his Queens are good; that is why he has continued to the river. Then he does the orthodox maneuver. Is he up against A-Q he thinks? Unlikely he thinks so…

B moves all in on 121k

A aggressively hammered at B all the way from preflop to the post river all in death and B just kept accepting the hammering. At no time did A allow B a chance to play gracefully. B just call-called all the way to his chip death.

But it may be that B sensed an unusual strength in A that he just called and called. If he did, then he should have trusted his read in the river. The bets at Flop and Turn bets might offer cheap call spots and even if he thinks he is beaten then he can still draw, but by the river stage bet is not cheap and is enough to finish him off.

As you can see there are a lot of factors involved in this hand, the same goes for most poker hands. There is no right and wrong way in terms of if you should play aggressive or passive rather a time and place for everything and the trick to winning a lot at poker is being able to play all ways and adapt as conditions change.

Ok that is easier to say than do I accept, so the next advice is that practice perfects the art. And a very good way to practice what this free poker lessons online article is demonstrating is to play free poker practice games but not with real money on NoPayPOKER.com which is a free poker site where you can practice your poker skills with zero risk of money loss (it is also US legal) and then when ready try your hand for real cash.
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