How can I be more aggressive?

[BlibbityBlabbity]

My comments in bold above.

Seems to me that a lot of the aggressiveness in poker comes in trying to take pots down WITHOUT a showdown. If you are almost assured of having to show down the best hand, it becomes more of a drawing game and rather than trying to raise your level of aggression you should focus on getting money in when you have the best hand or good odds to draw to the best hand.

The Lee Jones book on low limit hold'em covers this exclusively and I think it is very useful in isolating the concepts for playing against players who will not "get the hint" when you check raise them or raise for a free card. They will still be happy to bet middle pair even after your flush hits.

As you move up in levels the aggressive moves become indispensible to being a winning player. At micro-limits, the OVERLY aggressive players tend to get either get a lot of good hands and win a lot or lose their buyin in 20 minutes.

[Aequitas58]

How do you know what limit he's playing? I must have missed that in the original post. Some of those moves can definitely work at $2/4 or $3/6.

Now, if he's playing $.50/$1, that's a different story.

[sea]

Thanks, BlibbityBlabbity - interesting to hear the different strategy recommendations for no fold'em hold'em.

I started with the Lee Jones book, and now I'm working through SSHE (Miller, Sklansky, & Malmuth).
Would you guys say that Lee Jones is good for $.50/1 and SSHE would be more appropriate for $2/4 and $3/6? So far I've noticed two big differences pre-flop: SSHE is really strict about the hands I need to call a PFR, and Lee Jones had me raising a lot more pre-flop - basically anytime I was the first one in and I was going to call anyway. Which do you think is a better strategy, pre-flop?

[BlibbityBlabbity]

AEQ, In his original post he said "I'm playing micro-limits".

This is a good question....when players here are talking about "microlimit" limit holdem, what are you referring to? I have always assumed that meant the .5/$1 and DOWN (actually I always envisioned .05/.10, .10/.20 or the .02/.04 levels).

Sea, the Lee Jones book is good for .50/$1 and down. Maybe $1/$2 - $3/6 (especially if it is the lowest limit at a site - ex. PokerWorld usually only has a $1/$2 game running which plays like a .25/.50 game). But at a PokerStars that has every level I would say by the time you get to $1/$2 you are out of (or exiting) Lee Jones' territory.

To use TP's post of the levels of a poker player.....

.... IMO, Lee Jones (the book ) is geared for level 1 and maybe level 2 aopponents. Once your opponents start to be thinking on a level three the straightforward play in the Lee Jones book will start to cost you money.

Just my interpretation...