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Loose-aggressive players are the most feared type of poker players, and in most cases, they are profitable players. You may encounter different types of loose-aggressive players, both good and bad. Below, we introduce the typical characteristics of these players, their strengths, weaknesses, and how to profit from them.
Before we begin, I want to tell you one thing: most of your profits do not come from these players. Loose-aggressive players are usually winners, and my advice is to teach you how to reduce their advantages against you and how to profit from some of their weaknesses.
Characteristics of Loose-Aggressive Players (based on loose-aggressive players in 6-max cash games):
- VPIP: Above 25
- PFR: Above 25
- Three-bet percentage: Generally above 7%
- Aggression frequency: Generally above 60
- Aggression factor: Generally 3 or higher
- Continuation-bet frequency: Generally high, but some good players try to reduce continuation-bets
- Reading ability: Generally good but not always excellent
- Raising/re-raising on the flop: Generally high
- Overall style: Plays many hands, understands win rates, and is very aggressive when raising
Strengths of Loose-Aggressive Players:
The biggest advantage of loose-aggressive players is their clear understanding of how important it is to take the initiative in poker games. They can find suitable opportunities to raise with weaker hands and win pots. Essentially, excellent loose-aggressive players have high winnings. I like to call them "masters of skill" because they always seem to be involved in the game, yet they manage to stay out of trouble.
Loose-aggressive players care a lot about their image, which allows them to get more reactions than cautious players. The more hands they play, the more weak hands they have in their range, which reduces the likelihood of them having strong hands. They often win big pots when they have big hands, and opponents hesitate to call when they bluff.
Excellent loose-aggressive players usually have a balanced hand range, ensuring that when they raise, even if opponents call, the profitability is not too high.
How to Beat Loose-Aggressive Players:
The biggest weakness of loose-aggressive players is that they play too many hands and raise too often.
Increase re-raising against their aggression:
To counter loose-aggressive players, the best approach is to adopt a loose-aggressive style while maintaining a cautious table image. What you need to do is find situations where your hand looks relatively strong and your opponent's hand looks relatively weak, and add some re-raising hands to these situations.
For example, in some situations where you usually only have big hands or very strong drawing hands, you can raise with weaker hands as a re-raise. These hands can be pure high cards, high cards with backdoor draws, or high cards with gutshot straight draws. Doing so allows you to exploit your opponent's excessive aggression (in situations where your overall range is still strong), as your opponent may think you are targeting them with these actions, but they have no way to know your overall range is still strong.
Also, the hands you use for re-raising still have a certain win rate. For example, if you have two high cards, you still have six outs to possibly improve to a big hand if your opponent calls. But this is enough to support your profit rate against your opponent's calling range.
Usually, when your re-raise on the flop is called, you should continue firing multiple times. But sometimes you may not want to do this, depending on how wide you assume your opponent's calling range is and what the turn card is. Only you can make these assumptions, as they are based on your understanding of your opponent's tendencies and the impression you give your opponent.
Slow play against them:
In most cases, I don't recommend slow playing, and fast playing is usually the best way to profit from your opponent's mistakes. However, against loose-aggressive players, it's quite the opposite. Because loose-aggressive players fire so often, when you have a strong hand, you want them to continue making these mistakes.
Typically, I don't recommend slow playing three strong cards on a strong drawing board, but against loose-aggressive players, this may be the best strategy (depending on how strong your opponent's aggression is). You know, loose-aggressive players have strong reading abilities, and they will assume that when you call twice in a row on a flush draw board or a straight draw board, you don't have any big hands like two pairs or three of a kind; if you did, you would have re-raised by now.
They will use this as an excuse to make value bets or re-raise with weaker hands. You need to add your strong hands to your calling range so that they can make the same mistakes when you have big hands.
Another benefit of doing this is that it can protect your medium-strength calling range. Once your opponent sees you have called three times with a strong hand, and he thinks you should have re-raised on the flop, he will automatically assume that these cards will be in your calling range in the future and will tend not to make as many re-raises against you, making your hand transparency higher when playing against you.
Slow play before the flop and re-raise on the turn:
Slow playing before the flop is a strategy I like to use against loose-aggressive players. In general, loose-aggressive players have a wide range for three-betting, so to counter this, you can use slow play with big hands or re-raise before the flop.
Whenever your opponent's three-bet percentage approaches 10% rather than 5%, I tend to slow play AA or KK before the flop. Because their range is so wide, they are unlikely to have big hands, so they often fold to a four-bet. Therefore, against these players, slow playing big hands before the flop becomes highly profitable, and similarly, a four-bet forces them to fold hands that would have been three-bet.
Conclusion:
Loose-aggressive players are usually profitable players, and in the long run, you won't win much from these players. Their understanding of hand ranges and win rates is what makes them profitable players. But as we said, their biggest weakness is that when they raise, they often don't have big hands.
To counter them, you must learn to counter their playing style by bluffing when you have big hands or forcing them to fold when you have nothing. Remember, maintaining a cautious image is the key to being able to use these tactics. But you have to take the risk yourself. |
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Post time 8-4-2024 07:32:53