Six handed limit hold’em poker games demand aggressive play. This is especially the case in higher stakes games. A failure to attain the proper level of aggression will result in players being dominated in too many hands that they play. Let us look at a classic limit hold’em six handed situation.

You are on the button and you are dealt the Qd-10c and it is folded around to the cut-off who open raises. The stakes are $10-$20 and the cut-off has been open raising very liberally and has been denying you opportunities. Here you are being driven into passivity by an aggressive opponent which isn’t good for your game or your bottom line.

The aggressive cut-off player is indirectly forcing you to tighten your range on the button as you don’t want to call as calling is weak play and not good poker strategy. Your hand is not a powerhouse by any stretch of the imagination but it is comparable to an aggressive player who is raising liberally from the cut-off.

You cannot let their plan succeed because if you do then you are handicapping yourself terribly and reducing your ability to earn money from this game. The button is such an important position on the table that you cannot let an aggressive player compromise that advantage.

In this situation then you need to stand your ground and re-raising is the optimal play. Many players would argue that re-raising with marginal hands will dramatically increase your level of variance. This is all perfectly true but what these players don’t realise is that you must increase the variance in limit hold’em poker out of simple necessity.

By trying to reduce the variance then you are effectively reducing your equity in many situations. By reducing variance by passively folding then you are presenting aggressive opponents with extra value in the hands that they are raising with. But instead of seeing your aggressive opponents raise as a hindrance or an obstacle, you should instead be viewing it as an assistance to your overall game plan.

If the cut-off had folded then you would have open raised. The big blind would have certainly called with a very wide range or even any two cards depending on the player as the pot odds dictate that calling with most hands would be correct. Also the small blind may also call as well so you may find yourself up against two opponents.

But the cut-off open raising now gives you the opportunity to re-raise. This move now presents the blinds with a double raise so they now need a far stronger poker hand to continue. In this $10-$20 example, if both blinds fold then there is $15 in the pot that hasn’t been placed there by either the cut-off or yourself.

This is what is known as dead money and it can turn many slightly negative equity hands into hands that have positive expectation and is a powerful online poker strategy. Of course you are going to get blown off many of these hands and you are going to lose numerous hands on the trot.

It can often be frustrating to see your opponent hit flop after flop after flop when you have escalated the pot pre-flop by three betting. This is precisely why you must accept higher variance in limit play, it is actually your friend and not your enemy.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson