Strategy for when fold, defend against aggressive players

Many recreational poker players think it’s a good idea to patiently wait for a strong hand and then blast their money into the pot, but this strategy is actually one of the costliest mistakes they can make.

By sitting around and waiting, recreational players fold away small bits of money when they fail to pick up a premium hand. Even worse, when they get a reasonable hand such as middle pair, they often fold it by the river when faced with multiple bets, losing a medium-sized pot without even getting to a showdown.

It’s important to realize how the math works when you face a bet. Say the pot is $10 and your opponent bets $5 despite holding nothing. If he wins the pot more than 33 percent of the time, his bluffs profit. To determine how often a bluff needs to succeed, you take the bluff amount and divide it by the bluff amount plus the size of the pot. In this case, it would be $5 divided by $15, which comes out to 0.33, or 33 percent. This implies that in order to not be exploitable, you have to defend at least 67 percent of the time. This number is referred to as your “minimum defense frequency.”

In order to determine what this 67 percent looks like, you have to spend time away from the table dissecting your entire range. This is the opposite of what many players do. Instead, they speculate about how to play specific hands, like pocket jacks or open-ended straight draws. You have to look at the big picture.

In general, as the board becomes less and less coordinated, you should defend with more holdings traditionally thought to be weak.

Let’s say someone raises from middle position and you call from the big blind. If the flop comes 8-3-2 and your opponent bets about 35 percent of the size of the pot, you simply cannot fold hands such as K-9 or Q-J. Yes, these holdings are weak, but they will occasionally improve to strong top pairs. If they don’t, you might still win unimproved. Or if you decide to bluff the river, your opponent may fold.

You might also want to occasionally checkraise hands such as 10-9 or 6- 4 on the flop, putting your opponent in a tough spot with any marginal or weak holdings.

It’s worth pointing out that as your opponent bets larger, you have to defend less often. For example, if the pot is $10 and your op- ponent makes a gigantic $20 bet, you need to defend only about 33 percent of the time, because his bluffs need to succeed 67 percent of the time to be profitable. Against large bets, it is wise to play snuggly because your opponent is risking way too much to win too little. (That said, you still have to stick around with most of your decent pairs and draws.)

Many players win at poker simply due to their opponents folding too often. When you face these aggressive players, instead of folding and playing to their strength, turn their aggression into their biggest weakness by sticking around.