Is super aggression draining the skill from poker?

DeVore

I spent the weekend in Waterford and had a great time (thanks BSP, of course going deep made it for me ).

In terms of poker it was like trench warfare. If you stuck your head up it was likely to get blown clean off. I had a few really unpleasant (and thankfully extremely lucky) hands to survive before I got this into my head.

Now, the field was generally very high quality but there were some who had little in their arsenal except a strong right arm. Many were simply unable or unwilling to play post flop so it quickly became a game of stacks even though the structure was terrific with plenty of play.

I started thinking about this during the tournie (I had about 2 hours of dead cards at 3-4 tables left!). I will admit that my triple-the-blinds attempt at a steal from UTG with 44 went off the rails when I was reraised about a zillion BB's by a guy holding AJ (which he showed me to prove he wasnt "coddin' me"). This happened about half the hands that were played at that point!

I seriously felt stifled by this approach as I simply did not want to gamble with these guys. My feelings were that if I could get a few hands of reasonable power I would call to get my chips in ahead of their range and hope to feck they weren't dealt a monster. Otherwise my plan was to save chips to maximise the time I had to catch TT+ or AT+ and raise and call the reraise. This in itself is a very gambley approach as you may well be blinded away before you get a half decent hand. Thankfully in this tournie there was time to wait.

Secondly its gambly because you can get out drawn or find them with a monster. Ahh boohoo thats poker, but in this scenario all your chips tended to be in the middle and you became a fretful bystander.

Thats when I started to think about how this "super aggression" is really another phrase for "I know I cant play post-flop so I'll drag you down to my level, force you to gamble and hope I win or you have to let me have the pot".

It seems less skillful and thats a pity because I dont enjoy gambling.

Or am I just getting old??

DeV.
ps: this is a piece without a point, its the opening of a discussion around the possible de-skilling of poker due to the arrival of super-aggro styles and whether this will be a good or bad thing long term.

pok3rplaya

Play cash games. Soulds like you're realising why the term lol_donkaments has been coined. Literally any donkey can go AI preflop.

nicnicnic

DeVore wrote:

I spent the weekend in Waterford and had a great time (thanks BSP, of course going deep made it for me ).

In terms of poker it was like trench warfare. If you stuck your head up it was likely to get blown clean off. I had a few really unpleasant (and thankfully extremely lucky) hands to survive before I got this into my head.

Now, the field was generally very high quality but there were some who had little in their arsenal except a strong right arm. Many were simply unable or unwilling to play post flop so it quickly became a game of stacks even though the structure was terrific with plenty of play.

I started thinking about this during the tournie (I had about 2 hours of dead cards at 3-4 tables left!). I will admit that my triple-the-blinds attempt at a steal from UTG with 44 went off the rails when I was reraised about a zillion BB's by a guy holding AJ (which he showed me to prove he wasnt "coddin' me"). This happened about half the hands that were played at that point!

I seriously felt stifled by this approach as I simply did not want to gamble with these guys. My feelings were that if I could get a few hands of reasonable power I would call to get my chips in ahead of their range and hope to feck they weren't dealt a monster. Otherwise my plan was to save chips to maximise the time I had to catch TT+ or AT+ and raise and call the reraise. This in itself is a very gambley approach as you may well be blinded away before you get a half decent hand. Thankfully in this tournie there was time to wait.

Secondly its gambly because you can get out drawn or find them with a monster. Ahh boohoo thats poker, but in this scenario all your chips tended to be in the middle and you became a fretful bystander.

Thats when I started to think about how this "super aggression" is really another phrase for "I know I cant play post-flop so I'll drag you down to my level, force you to gamble and hope I win or you have to let me have the pot".

It seems less skillful and thats a pity because I dont enjoy gambling.

Or am I just getting old??

DeV.
ps: this is a piece without a point, its the opening of a discussion around the possible de-skilling of poker due to the arrival of super-aggro styles and whether this will be a good or bad thing long term.

I have played poker all over the country for the last two years and I can safely say the Waterford poker has developed in an ultra aggressive manner. I have often thought about this and made a few posts about four months ago about how different styles are developing in different regions of the country.

what I've come up with is that the game develops around one or a few prominent/successful players styles when the game is in its embryonic state in a new club ect. For example Connie used to be very tight and there's no doubt that Kerry players in general play a TAG game. Waterford is like a little sweden and I think a lot of this is down to the way I used to play, as when the game started down here I used to win a huge amount of tournaments with an ultra aggro style.

Whether it takes the skill from the game is a different debate just thinking out loud here. I think most will agree that in general once we get past the first few levels of a tournament it's about stealing re-stealing and crashes thats just the nature of the beast; we just dont get to play many flops/turns.

I remember reading a few posts on 2+2 a few months back where they were saying at the higher stakes that with all the 3/4 betting preflop that it would eventually end up with players in preflop with ****e ultimately pure gambling.

if I have a point here its just that the game probably goes in cycles and it may not be just tournaments where a pure gambling mentality may be the prevalent style for a time. However good players will tag up to combat this and others will follow thus the cycle and changing game.

Two years ago it was all young scandis winning the major events but for the last 18 months they have been seen less and less probably because the general game style has learned to combat the super aggro Swede's. My own game has completely changed over the last year and while I spend a huge amount of time thinking about the game it hasn't been a deliberate change to a tag style it just developed that way. I have no doubt that I will probably be playing a different game this time next year

that's a bit disjointed and rambling answer I know but I hope what I'm trying to articulate comes across

pok3rplaya

though it must be said that applying the right ammount of agression in the right spots is a difficult skill to master in the long run.

DeVore

Perhaps PL tournies might be an idea? Come to think of it, I'm surprised noone has thought of doing it but then I guess they wouldnt appeal to the "gamblers" who wouldnt be able to get their gamble on.

I dont subscribe to the "lol-donkaments" thing as it seems like cash players being snobbish (there was plenty of lol-donk-a-rings going on over the weekend).

(Also, sorry I didnt want to imply anything about Waterford players, actually I was saying to Nicky that the standard of the local players was pretty good. And where they werent good, they were at least aggressive.)

DeV.

nicnicnic

DeVore wrote:

Perhaps PL tournies might be an idea? Come to think of it, I'm surprised noone has thought of doing it but then I guess they wouldnt appeal to the "gamblers" who wouldnt be able to get their gamble on.

I dont subscribe to the "lol-donkaments" thing as it seems like cash players being snobbish (there was plenty of lol-donk-a-rings going on over the weekend).

(Also, sorry I didnt want to imply anything about Waterford players, actually I was saying to Nicky that the standard of the local players was pretty good. And where they werent good, they were at least aggressive.)

DeV.

If this conversation took place later then 4 a m this morning then you'll forgive me for not recalling it:). there's good LAGS and very bad LAGS but I think you'll agree that in general the game down here played a little more aggressively then other region's you have visited

pok3rplaya

Well it is cash games players being snobbish but it's not for no good reason. The fact is that the skillset and maths required to analyse short stack situations is much simpler then deepstack.

There is a reason that tournement play has become so aggressive and that is because it is the winningest strategy that we have come up woth so far. Short stacks relative to the blinds means that the blinds become so valuable that the need to grab them is very great. In order to steal the blinds we must get everyone else to fold so we use aggression. It's a proven strategy. Your edge comes from the fact that you know how and when to apply this agression so that you steal/win more chips then the next guy in the long haul. Blah blah you know all this.

Maybe I don't understand what you're asking/saying. The way I see it if you want to win tournaments learn how to apply agression correctly preflop. If you want a game that has more nuances then going all in preflop then learn cash games. I dont get why you want to handicap the most effective strategy for winning money assuming you can apply it better then the next guy.

Hectorjelly

Games like you describe are really easy to beat Tom, just play very tight standard poker, and very rarely bluff or semi bluff preflop. Think about it, you raise with XX utg for 4bb. He pushes all in for 30bb or whatever with AJ, that is absolutly horrible, you can never call there and be behind. He is risking 30 to win 4.5 blinds.

I think you should aim to play a lot more online, because the situation you describe is nothing new at all, and hasnt been since I started playing maybe 5 years ago.

Also in a game with a avg stack of 20 blinds or less, you shouldnt be aiming to play post flop poker at all, it should be all preflop. Theres nothing wrong with that, the structure dictates it.

Lastly, lol donkaments

DeVore

Ok HJ, I agree. (I took second in the tournie in fact). But I wasnt really talking about "how do I beat a super LAG game". I kinda know already what to do in those cases... I was just floating the idea that our game is currently in a rush to deskill itself because as PP said above, its a proven, easy winning strategy. So, either it will sprial downwards until (as quoted from 2+2) we're all 16 betting each other all in with 10k chips on the first round with crap or another style arises which counters the super aggro style.

I tend to think the latter because it gels with genetics theory that when one trait becomes widespread it becomes profitable to be in the minority. ie: Perhaps in 2 years time being a rock will be the new winning style. Alternatively (and keeping with the survival of the fittest) it may be that this style irradicates all others in a "if you dont gamble you get crushed" manner. I find that second outcome more unlikely but just thought I'd post to see if anyone else was musing along these lines.

Will checking/limping become the new raising?

DeV.

Hectorjelly

You arent supposed to complain if you win (or come second)!

I dont think there ever has been a time, or will be one, when the most profitable style will be anything but a very smart TAG.

Imposter

Cash games with a max buy-in can be kinda brought down to the same level though. People who constantly raise to >5% of their stacks are effectively making the cash game a shortstack game. Same goes for those who buy-in for the minimum. Yes a TAG approach can work against this but playing 1 pot in 3 hours isn't very exciting and there aren't all that many difficult decisions to make. Only thing worse and possibly more boring is playing on a table full of nits.

RedJoker

Hectorjelly wrote:

I dont think there ever has been a time, or will be one, when the most profitable style will be anything but a very smart TAG.

Very smart LAG > very smart TAG, it's just harder to be a very smart LAG.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

BigCityBanker

A had a long response written, but ive deleted it.

In short, picking the correct spots preflop is a skill in itself..

Imposter

LuckyLloyd wrote:

Dev, I think the real answer is to provide a structure where the average stacksize is 50 or 60 BB + come the business end.

This won't work as enough nits will just play tighter try to fold there way up the money so that eventually the stacksize gets reduced by the increasing blinds.

ollyk1

My 2c.

Having played in both the €500 amd the €250 game I have to say one played like how I'd imagine the WSOP main event or an EPT game would play while the other played like a €50 double chance in the SE!! :eek:

People who had played the main event seemed to be letting off steam and just gambling in the 250 game Dev imo whilst in the main event 2.5 BBs raise were sometimes more then enough to take down blinds :eek: and antes and min raises on the flops were being repected!!! :eek: :eek:

I don't think I'd make any general conclusions about poker in Waterford or in general on the back of having played both of those events as

a) The contrast was so huge between both games
b) A lot of beer and tired heads were playing on day 2
c) There was a great mix of players from all over the country playing so it was hard to distinguish a "waterford" style.

A lot of good players came through to the final third in the main event I thought and the field quality improved as it wore on before it came down to big hands running into bigger hands (as tournies inevitably do) and for me that speaks volumes about both the structure and the skill in the game

I have to say I thought you did the right thing in playing the 250 game fresh. Your edge as a result of that one decision (rather than coming off the back of playing the Main event) was pretty big imho. That and your lucksackedness with AK!! lol

Solksjaer

Good post of nicnic, I followed it 100% (should I worry?) Also...

Agression in the right spots is the 'skill' in texas hold em. So if these guys are being over aggressive they are not playing correctly in that they are doing it in the 'wrong spots' at times. The skill then is to punish them with good hands. If you are 'card dead' (learning to hate that expression, along with more chips than god) you have to make moves in position when these guys inhale. Unfortunatley though they only respect the 'push' . However adapting to these different types of players surely can only help your game . I can see how a normal TAG player can take down one of these tournaments easily with a few well played hands and a slice of luck..
The aggro heads cancel each other out and the TAG feeds off the aggro shortstacks as they go out firing whilst playing premium hands and position agianst the other loons.

mewso

Long live super-agression. It's never been better to be TAG. Every time you play a tourney go on about De Wolfe's raise with 75o in such and such an event and declare "thats the way to play poker" just to make sure these players don't lose sight of their new cool strategy and tighten up.

Marq

Super Aggression is the skill in poker.

BigCityBanker

Marq wrote:

Super Aggression is the skill in poker.

Im not sure if you are joking here or not but I agree with this statement.

Marq

Not joking. super aggression might be the only skill in donkaments.

lol.

donkaments.

mewso

How is that the skill? We can all sit down at a tourney and raise every second hand. Surely it's a weapon players use. Some use it well, alot don't.

phantom_lord

to be a nit is easy, you just fold til you get a premium hand and hope some idiot doubles you up. Using aggression correctly, with the right frequency in the right spots requires a fair bit of skill and experience.

Marq

early on in donkaments they can be quite like cash games, because you're deep and there's post flop play at a full table with little chance of going broke in one hand.

later on they become so crapshooty that the only real advantages you can have are luck and the the judgement to pick spots to be aggressive more often than your opponents.

donkaments are utterly hilarious.

BigCityBanker

phantom_lord wrote:

to be a nit is easy, you just fold til you get a premium hand and hope some idiot doubles you up. Using aggression correctly, with the right frequency in the right spots requires a fair bit of skill and experience.

my sentiments exactly... add to this the ability to change gears when required and I think you have a player that you dont want sitting to your immediate left.

Marq

and we also note that changing gears is just another facet of controlled aggression, ie we decide when to be more or less aggressive.

marius

Marq wrote:

early on in donkaments they can be quite like cash games, because you're deep and there's post flop play at a full table with little chance of going broke in one hand.

later on they become so crapshooty that the only real advantages you can have are luck and the the judgement to pick spots to be aggressive more often than your opponents.

donkaments are utterly hilarious.

So basically you are saying that playing 'donkaments' requires both the skills involved in deepstack play and the skills required for shortstack play and yet they are 'hilarious' but in cash games the skillset required is just that of deepstack play........

mewso

I will continue to love the arrogance that surrounds the Super-Agressive crowd. I'll go back to being silent on the issue then. It's worked up to now.

Solksjaer

Lol donkaments is so boring at this stage. Can't we think of something 'new'
I think cash game players who make a living out of the game should realise that a huge majority of tourny players do so
as it's highly entertaining and for some of them profitable. Most of the worst plays I've ever seen have come from successful professional poker players in cash games. These guys leak thousands of $$$$$s due to their inflated egos.
Also whilst a lot of plyers do play the cash route very well , there are many more who should steer away from it and just concentrate on so called donkaments, at least that way it's only an entrance fee they are using......

To these guys I say - LOL Leakyments.

Is this off topic or on topic. I'm not sure.....

Marq

marius wrote:

So basically you are saying that playing 'donkaments' requires both the skills involved in deepstack play and the skills required for shortstack play and yet they are 'hilarious' but in cash games the skillset required is just that of deepstack play........

That's exactly what I'm saying. But in donkaments you get the deepstack play for all of an hour before the "skillset" for shortstack play is required. and as I have argued that skillset is not as difficult to master as the former, and the format of donkaments tends to excise all room for actual skill to come into it in the long term.

To be honest I really enjoy playing donkaments, and they are usually chock-full of awful players. My biggest wins to date have been in donkaments. But if I had the choice between playing against someone who was slightly weaker than me for the rest of my life, I would choose the format of cash over donkyments every time and it's in no way close. Cash games allow you to extract the value of your advantage with much less variance and much more regularity.

I was silly once too
really

BuChan

Marq wrote:

early on in donkaments they can be quite like cash games, because you're deep and there's post flop play at a full table with little chance of going broke in one hand.

later on they become so crapshooty that the only real advantages you can have are luck and the the judgement to pick spots to be aggressive more often than your opponents.

donkaments are utterly hilarious.

i think this is a good point. in the early stages you can play a lot of flops and use a skill advantage here trying to build a decent stack so you're not reduced to all in or fold later. there are a lot of tricky skillful situations that come up in late stages of tournaments when you're well stacked and you have marginal hands against other big stacks. dealing with the hyper aggressive players is a skill. stealing and restealing is a skill. i guess tournaments are bit of a lottery really, sometimes you get a good eonjoyable game and others it's lol donkaments. (i don't think this term should be abandoned, it's perfect!)

ocallagh

The skillset for short/medium stack play in tournaments is a bit more complex than people are giving credit for here. Granted with 20BBs you don't get to play the turn or river like a cash game when you have 100BBs or more, but preflop there are many more variables to consider in a tournament. People's regard for their tournment life can be exploitable too which means you get extra FE in squeeze plays etc. You can literally run over a table in a tournament by applying controlled aggression, and when the blinds are high this can be very profitable. There are a load of things I could mention here which don't apply in cash games.
They of course are not as skillfull as deep stacked cash games because for most of the tournament we are not deep stacked. I suppose my point is playing 20BB in a tournament requires more skill than 20BB in a cash game. Playing 200BB in a tournament would be slightly more complex than playing a 200BB stack in a cash game.

Marq

ocallagh wrote:

They of course are not as skillfull as deep stacked cash games. I suppose my point is playing 20BB in a tournament requires more skill than 20BB in a cash game.

I will accept that. But you'd want to be mad to play a cash game with 20BB. I mean, it would be a like a donkament! With no chance of winning 30 buy-ins.

ocallagh

Marq wrote:

I will accept that.

Thanks! (I didn't read the rest)

marius

Marq wrote:

That's exactly what I'm saying. But in donkaments you get the deepstack play for all of an hour before the "skillset" for shortstack play is required. and as I have argued that skillset is not as difficult to master as the former, and the format of donkaments tends to excise all room for actual skill to come into it in the long term.

But it still does not change the fact that for tourney play you need both skill sets in order to be successful - for cash play you only really need the deep stack skillset to be successful.

Jesus Wept

Why do cash game players have such a big chip on their shoulder :eek:

Just stick to cash games and stop crying your bitter salty tears

---

Donkaments vs Cashaments should be a seperate thread anyhow, we are off-topic methinks.

DeVore

We are getting a little off topic but its an interesting topic all the same. With the 10k and 15k starting stack events now popping up the players have days worth of deepstack play but my point is not the inherent skill level of tournaments vs cash games, its that compared to 2 years ago we have MORE chips and seemingly LESS skill evident in them. I just wondered if this had occured to others.

DeV.
people who say "lol donkaments" make me think they look like this guy

Marq

marius wrote:

But it still does not change the fact that for tourney play you need both skill sets in order to be successful - for cash play you only really need the deep stack skillset to be successful.

you've convinced me.

DeVore wrote:

people who say "lol donkaments" make me think they look like this guy

that guy rules.

marius

Wow - Touché Sir

DeVore

I think you've missed my post Marius, its that that Marq is referring to I believe. Anyway, lets stay on topic.

DeV.

marius

DeVore wrote:

I think you've missed my post Marius, its that that Marq is referring to I believe. Anyway, lets stay on topic.

DeV.

Ah ha - true.....thought it was a bit out of order:D - ahem...apologies marq....

On your point Dev I think the current trend towards Max aggression has a lot to do with the increasing popularity of the game, more poeple are getting into it at a slightly more serious level than before.

Previously you have a lot of loose passive Fish playing, it is just that now some of these fish have spent a bit of time reading on the game and the first thing they see is - Be Aggressive!!!

A year later you just have a lot of Aggeressive Fish - this is a skill improvement IMO, and they are more likely to do well in tournies, but they are still fish.

hotspur

There isn't a shadow of a doubt that ultra aggressive is the best strategy for tournament play in which other players know what they are doing. There was a time when the masses were less enlightened as to poker theory, and a good tight solid game was sufficient to beat most of them. Now everyone even half serious has read the books like Harrington's, there is now less of an edge being clever and pretty decent at poker.

With many players within somewhat equal ability and knowledge then it is all about chip stacks. When you are as likely to get your chips in ahead as behind or in a coinflip then you need to have more chips than the opponent to survive. Superaggression is the best and most likely way to achieve that, rather than hoping to get monsters or have morons handing you their stack.

No-one following high level tournament poker could have any doubt that ultra aggression confers the greatest chance of winning, and no-one following high level cash games could be in any doubt that ultra aggression is the best way to play that either.

It will never swing back because a good TAG player at a tournament table full of good LAG players will always go behind in the chip race versus many of them. It's not as if the LAG players won't get the same number of premium hands or play them as well, in fact they will get paid with them better than a TAG. The difference between a good TAG and a good LAG is that the LAG fires at more pots and so is likely to win more chips, or will take an early opportunity for a coinflip to build their stack.

This goes back to something I once said about play money sit n go's, they are hard to win because the 1st hand 5 players go all in and then you are left with someone who has 5x your chips. Even if you are better than them it is a huge mountain to overcome. When you don't have a skill advantage, then you are screwed, this is why TAG styles are now less good - less skill advantages exist.

I find this makes NLHE kinda boring, and I play it less than more technical games like the stud games these days. But it will never change, this is the pinnacle of the evolution of the game. And it's not merely evolutionary either, high aggression was always the best style from a game theory perspective.

Imposter

hotspur wrote:

...

I find this makes NLHE kinda boring, and I play it less than more technical games like the stud games these days. But it will never change, this is the pinnacle of the evolution of the game. And it's not merely evolutionary either, high aggression was always the best style from a game theory perspective.

Do you not get bored with the over tactical nature of stud and limit games?

Please expand on the game theory bit too.

Hectorjelly

Firstly I think everyone is mistaken as to what a LAG truly is. A TAG doesnt become a LAG after raising a few hands. There arent many successfull Lags.

Goodluck2me

Hectorjelly wrote:

Firstly I think everyone is mistaken as to what a LAG truly is. A TAG doesnt become a LAG after raising a few hands. There arent many successfull Lags.

there arent many sucessful TAGs either. if that 98% stat is worth its salt.

ocallagh

goodluck2me wrote:

there arent many sucessful TAGs either. if that 98% stat is worth its salt.

40% of players in PT are winning players, figure that one out!

delanec8

And 33% of players on sharkscope are in profit

ditpoker

Hectorjelly wrote:

Firstly I think everyone is mistaken as to what a LAG truly is. A TAG doesnt become a LAG after raising a few hands. There arent many successfull Lags.

could u give us some thought on what a good lag is and what a good tag is...

Goodluck2me

ditpoker wrote:

could u give us some thought on what a good lag is and what a good tag is...

a winning one....?

OOOOOOcallllagh wrote:

could u give us some thought on what a good lag is and what a good tag is...

40% of the time i win everytime. id imagine the players who go to the bother of buying a tool to help their game would likley take it seriously enough to i) become a winnin player and ii)if they werent before they would be able to see their leaks.


Sharkscope...i have no idea. maybe thats an overall balance of ROI. 3/10 should get paid in SnGs...??

The_Chopper

DeVore wrote:

Will checking/limping become the new raising?

DeV.

I actually have tried this approach quite a bit for the above mentioned reasons and also cos I run very bad in coin flips and 60/40s preflop.

The only problem I've found with this is that you're giving your opponent an opportunity to outdraw you (once again since i run bad this happens me quite a bit).

Hectorjelly

In my time playing 50 1 - 3 6 nl over the last year or two, I have never encountered a winning player (who played a lot of hands) with a vpip of over 32 or so.