Aggresive opponents.

[Nicmavsfan28]

How should you play against an agressive opponent in a short handed game? Should i try to switch games, or should i not? What about betting stategies?

[ky70]

This gets tuff if u aren't catching any cards but you want to catch them in the act when u have a decent hand. If u r not short stacked, re-raise their raise from time to time, if they keep coming over the top of your reraise and you don't have a "real hand" u'll have to lay it down. The idea situation is to catch them bluffing at the pot when you have an actual hand, but if you don't catch any great hands you will have to take a stand with some decent cards and in some cases take a stand with some garbage cards as the aggressor yourself.

Remember that it's easy to bet with nothing but it's hard to call nothing. The problem is that a real aggressive player in a short handed game may not only bet with nothing but will also reraise with nothing.

One thing I love to do is to deal out a 4 person tourney wtih myself playing all 4 hands. The trick is to play each hand individually and as is if you don't know your opponents hand. This has helped me a great deal as of late as it becomes a real eye opener to the type of hands you actually end up folding to AND seeing the type of hands you can actually win with a timely bet. When it gets down to 2 handed it really gets interesting...I may be betting with a 8 4 offsuit but opponent will not call me with a 10 4 offsuit. This excercise helps you visualize what type of hands (often trash) your opponent may have in heads up situation and also lets you see what crap hands can win by placing bets. But be true to the excercise and play each hand separately as you would as if u can't see the opponents cards...if you would normally fold to a bet when u r holding junk, still fold to it here even though you KNOW the hand betting has junk also.

[pie taster]

In Super System II, Mike Cario gives three guidelines for dealing with aggressive players (Rule number 43)
1)Call more often
2)Raise less often
3)Seldom value bet

This takes away his ability to strong arm you or put you in a very uncomfortable "coming over the top" position.