Poker 101:Bullying has it’s advantages
February 8, 2010
There are many circumstances in poker where applying pressure to your opponents can be of great benefit. Whilst your opponents wait to find the right hand to play, you are swiftly stacking up the blinds through aggressive preflop raising.
This type of aggressive play is best used in the latter stages of tournaments when the action gets short handed, as the larger size of the blinds means you can make a lot of chips in a short time. The problem with this type of play is that you have to balance this aggression with giving out the false idea to your opponents, that you are being selective about the hands you are raising with.
As you start to raise more hands in this position, your poker opponents start to judge your hands as potentially weaker, and expand their range of calling hands accordingly. This is why it is important to consider a few factors to make sure that if your bet isn’t overly believable, your opponents will fold anyway.
One such way to do this is by applying pressure on the bubble when there is one very weak stack who looks like going out soon. Your poker opponents might think you are weak, but they want to ensure they make it to the money anyway and so they play tighter. Also if you have made a few preflop all ins to pick up the blinds, try simply raising to three times the big blind. This makes your opponent think that the previous bets were just aggressive moves (which they suspect anyway), and this smaller raise, actually wants to be called.
Understanding how and when to be selective about your aggression, is the key to gaining the upper hand by the time you get heads up in a poker game. Once you have the chip lead, you should always keep the pressure on, but remember to try and make those bets somewhat believable too.
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