Champion of Poker

Maniacs or to give them another name…..loose aggressive players are perhaps the most difficult players to combat in poker games. Well actually any poker style can be profitable if your opponents cannot exploit it properly. A calling station isn’t a good poker player but if you continually try to bluff them then your style is turning their weakness into a strength!

It is the same with maniacs (loose aggressive) as their constant barrage of bets, raises and re-raises make them formidable opponents. They know that given the right type of timid opponents then they can make them fold all sorts of mediocre hands and they can end up taking pots down with absolute junk.

It seems that whenever you bet they raise or whenever you check they bet. When you are running cold then they tend to absolutely murder you. The thing is with loose aggressive players is that their constant aggression has two distinct advantages. Firstly they take advantage of timid and cautious play. The second advantage is that they also beat players who are running bad!

There is a third advantage as well and that loose aggressive play can play huge dividends as well in other ways because it can seriously tilt players when you outdraw them or you are sitting there with a big hand like AA on the very hand that they decide to play back at you with. This is a very interesting yet often overlooked factor of loose aggressive play.

You make a raise with AA after raising or re-raising the last ten hands. Your opponent in the cut-off is starting to get a little steamed that you are denying him opportunities so he raises and you four bet him…they have Q-J and shove which you call.

Here in this instance your previous play has tilted them into overplaying their hand and getting stacked. So how do you combat loose aggressive players? Well for a start you are far better off having position on them. You can then attack their range rather than them attacking yours. You will have position on them rather than the other way around. Re-raising to isolate will give you a strategic advantage.

Although do be aware of loose aggressive players who simply refuse to be bullied in this way and play back at players who three bet them. Another option may be to leave the table as well and this is an option that is rarely exercised. If you are constantly getting your steal raises called or three bet or you are getting pots taken away from you post flop by loose aggressive maniacs then you need to make the proper adjustments.

If those adjustments are not very palatable then your best remaining option may be to leave the game. If more players left poker games or sought out a new seat then more poker players would be winning poker players. Making money in online poker is a complex variable of interwoven factors that carefully interact with each other to create an online poker strategy that will make you money.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson