Gunning For The Right Opponent

Here's a common scenario: you sit down at a poker table, and you immediately spot an aggressive player. Depending on his/her position relative to yours, you may already be plotting to take the guy down, and you enjoy when he or she takes a beat, even if undeserved. Knowing that is important to make profitable moves against players' differing tendencies, it is understandable that you would want to try to take the guy down. And you're right, sort of.

Poker is about making money, and doing it in as unemotional manner as possible. If you are gunning for a particular opponent, especially one that has a tendency to be very aggressive, you might find yourself ignoring the other players at the table, especially those who have weaknesses that are even more easy to exploit than an aggressive player, e.g. one who draws too much or one who folds too much. Gunning only for an aggressor will put you in a lot of very awkward situations, as you are going to be forced to play big pots against them, and they will often be tricky players who will be forcing a lot of difficult decisions on you. Don't get me wrong, playing big hands against these players will often yield big pots (so long as your hand holds up), but also understand that these players will often get paid off huge when they have a big hand, as no one will believe them. Good, aggressive play is crucial to playing poker. You should be doing it some yourself. Bad, aggressive play is still bad play, but it will require a decent hand or big draw to play correctly against.

Here is some advice for playing against aggressive players:

• in deep stack poker (30+ big blinds), re-raising aggressive players with big hands or big draws is often a good way to get your opponent to fold, if that is what is desired.
• in shorter stack poker, you are going to probably need a real hand, and you should probably let your opponent do the leading to get the pots as large as possible, unless the aggressive player is not only an aggressive raiser but also an aggressive caller, in which case you should do the leading.
• understand that aggressive players will have their antennas up more if you call against them than if you raise, as they are very used to players attempting to raise them. Call with draws; raise with real hands.
• do everything in your power to stay unemotional in situations with these kinds of players, and your decisions will probably be more correct than if hormones are driving them.
  

Understand that everything I just said above has contrarian philosophies that oppose it. Bottom line: adjust to your opponents, rather than emotionally reacting to them.