Aggressive Play vs. Passive Play | Poker Tutorials

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Hey, I'm Nicky Numbers, I'm a professional poker player and I'm going to talk to you today about playing aggressively versus playing passively. The most important thing to know about passive play in No Limit Hold 'Em is that it's rarely correct. The overwhelming majority of the time when you're playing a hand and you're playing across multiple streets, you want to be the aggressor.

Whenever you play poker you're going to make mistakes, but you control the kinds of mistakes that you're going to make. You don't want to make passive mistakes, you want to make aggressive mistakes. When you're aggressive sometimes good things accidentally happen to you. When you're passive, very rarely do good things accidentally happen to you.

Passive players enter pots by limping into them, by calling raises, and by infrequently raising and re-raising themselves. Aggressive players, on the other hand, enter pots and they come in raising, they're raising or they're re-raising and they're rarely entering the pot passively except under very specific criteria. And the reason for that is because a passive strategy is a losing strategy unless it's executed just right, which is really hard to do. In general, if you're trying to choose between calling or folding, fold.

If you're trying to choose between calling or raising, raise. In other words, if you're going to continue in a hand as a general default you want to be the aggressor.

[berkarslan]

Most important part of being aggressive: "If you're thinking calling or folding: Fold; if you're thinking calling or raising: Raise"

[seawolfe]

Hi Nick, my poker in the past two years has not moved on from Micro stakes. Recently I changed my play from passive to aggressive. It is still a work in progress however more good things are already accidentally happening. I've played this tutorial several times in the last 2 years but only now am i beginning to understand its meaning and relevance. Thank you.

[sumgamezzz]

I have played with some passive players that are big winners. Really effective passive players are usually very adept at setting traps and felting the opposition. In my opinion, Phil Helmuth is a very passive player, when compared to his contemporaries, and he has more than kept his head above water.

[AnthonyVickersSoulJahTYah]

you should also factor in reads, tells pot/stack size of opponents etc + position board texture outs and FEEEEL!!! gl all ..

[TheRealBruceLouis]

that whole aggressive is good passive is bad is a very outdated way of thinkin in poker

[willievanhetkerkhof]

What an agressive guy is this, i fold.

[JoshNunya]

Very generic... and not always true! Not that he didn't have great info and true statements. But to play passively is successful by a masterful player more often than an inexperienced player does aggressive play. Beware!