A humble question

Limit hold'em has never been my game, I've tried to keep away from it, but I seem mysteriously attracted to it in some some strange way. I'm still in a learning process and have a humble question...
After been reading a lot of the mid/high stake hands in this forum - must you play the game in such a super-agressive manner? It seems all players are cocky youngbloods who'd never chicken out and raises and re-raises with very questionable hands if there's just one chance in hell they are ahead. Am I wrong to suggest a lot of the players posting here have strong egos rather than a winning aproach to the game? And finally it would be interesting to know if there's someone reading this who thinks he/she represents a different player, a somewhat straightforward style, and still doing well in high stake limit hold'em poker?

[brick]

Tommy Angelo teaches a style that is less agressive.
I think you would call his style 'super postion sensitive' rather than 'straight forward' or 'super-aagressive'. He posts on this site and has website with many essays.

thanks, I found his posts, looking forward to read em!

[DcifrThs]

i have a long winded reply that i will try to shorten.

-"super-aggressivity" is correct in some settings, sometimes overapplied or more readily applied than would be best, but the results clearly lean towards that style given certain restrictions. there are outliers from the restrictions.

- most high limit games are shorthanded. a predominant amount of aggressivity prevales at these limits and hands, and these limits and hands are the ones posted on this board, so it appears that this board backs these hand posts' actions in all similar settings- as could be interpreted selectively

- further, being more aggressive and playing more marginal hands puts you in more marginal situations, and those resulting in possible correct aggression are the ones posted.

- playing in higher limit games leads to more shorthanded pots. as above, shorthanded pots are the most aggressive.

and so on, sample selection bias and selective interpretation, from which we all suffer

NOTE: i just realized i wrote the above in the present tense using "are" instead of "most likely would be" or "most likely to be" or "more likely" or other probabalistic wording.

Barron

[DcifrThs]

to more directly answer your question, tight passive can certainly work wonders in the correct setting. its just that those hands aren't as likely to be posted as more aggressive ones whether that aggression is correct or not.

Barron

[Schneids]

Being aggressive sometimes lets me win pots because neither my opponent nor me have flopped a hand but my opponent cannot call.

Calling = you need the best hand
Betting = you need the best hand OR opponent needs to think he may not have the best hand.

Two ways to win > one way to win

Most pots in higher stakes games are played heads up, so it becomes much more likely that an opponent has whiffed @ hitting the board.

That is the reason for seemingly "insane" looking aggression.

[citanul]

and of course, as an extension of this, to help explain some of these 3 bet the flop and turn with A high hands, if your opponent is on to the whole idea of "being aggressive helps me pick up hands where we have both whiffed," you eventually get to "being more aggressive than my opponent helps me pick up pots where we've both whiffed and he's played back at me when i took stabs at the pot."

something like that at least.

c

[mosta]

people aren't going to post a lot of hands of the form: I raised him with no pair, he reraised, and I folded--ie, postings severely underrepresent the amount of early folding going on.

also, I never would hvae moved from 3-6 (where I was winning, somewhat suprizingly to me now) to 20-40 until I learned 1. you can win more money in making your opponent fold than in showing down the best hand (as someone already replied) and 2. you don't need top pair to have the presumptively best hand.

[w_alloy]

[ QUOTE ]
Am I wrong to suggest a lot of the players posting here have strong egos rather than a winning aproach to the game?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes you are.

You seem to think agressiveness and ego are inexticably linked. This is far from the case. The egos in the forum are because of the stakes far more then the aggressiveness.

Read some limit poker books and you should understand. Also, you should probably spend time in the lower limit forums.

[JasonP530]

Take this as an example of why agression is necessary:

You are in middle position with KQo and raise and only the big blind defends. He is a decent thinking player, who plays fairly tight. The flop comes 258 and no suits, you bet and he checkraises you. It is likely that the flop missed him unless he has a small pocket pair(which probably hasnt hit a set, because of the agression, most people wait for the turn). He hopes you have missed and that he can make you fold. You cannot just call down, because your hand is very weak, and has little showdown potential, so your options are to fold(sometimes) or to reraise the flop, or raisethe turn. Either way, that puts a lot of pressure on the ace high hands and low pocket pairs he may hold.