Aggression

You hear every one of the top pros and the tv analysts say it.... BE AGGRESSIVE! But when I think back to all of the BIG melt-downs that I've seen on the WSOP and WPT events that are televised, they were mostly caused by too much aggression. I do believe that aggression is necessary and should be a part of our arsenal, but perhaps tempered a little.

Just within the past two weeks, I've played very aggressively several times and in every case but one... that I can remember, when we turned the cards over, I had the best hand, but in several of the critical hands.... the best hand didn't hold up. Critical meaning that I'm either in a NO RE-BUY tournament or the RE-BUY period is over. Two weeks ago in a tournament and I was in the big blind with 8, 6os and there were a couple of limpers. The flop was 10, 8, 6. Jason and I ended up getting all our chips in the pot, he had Q, 10os against my two pair! The percentages on the tv screen under the representation of our hands would have had me as huge favorite BUT the turn was 5 and the river another 5... so his two pair beat my two pair. Also against Jason, I pushed all-in at a short-handed table with pocket 3's and he calls with A, Qos and flops two pair... I believe that there are times that I am too aggressive at least with the size of my bet. I have trained myself to act quickly in those circumstances to represent strength, but had I taken another minute or two, rather than the huge over-bet or all-in, I could have accomplished the same goal with a smaller bet and not put a huge portion of my chips or all of my chips at risk. When I played in the US Poker Championship, I experienced this specific problem, I knew that I was ahead when I put my chips in the pot but also knew that while I was ahead, I didn't have the stone cold nuts. Sure enough, the aggressive maniac in the hand with me had flopped bottom pair with a flush draw against my top-pair, top-kicker and ended up rivering trips which knocked me out of the tournament. Had I won that hand, I would have been near the chip lead with about 40 players remaining. I won't lay that down.

I was given a Daily Desk Calendar "Phil Gordon's Little Green Book" for Christmas and just yesterday, January 8th was a very familiar theme on the page per day calendar. It was under the heading of Poker Truths and it stated.... "All I can do is get my money in the pot with the best hand. No matter how hard I try, I can't control the cards after the money is in the pot. All I can do is get my money---as much money as possible---into the pot when I have the best hand."

I have been doing quite a bit of reading of Phil Gordon material recently and I like much of what he says.... one thing is that he believes is that poker is not about winning money, it is about making the right decision at the time. I absolutely agree and work every day to learn so that I make the right decision at the right time! If I make better decisions more often than the players who I am playing against, I will win. Yes, they will suck-out occasionally, if they didn't, they wouldn't come back, but over the long-term, I will win, and win consistently.

Oh well.... Let the suck-outs begin!