Aggressive Andy: how to beat a loose-aggressive player

1. Who Aggressive Andy is

The app describes him in nine words: bets and raises frequently. LAG type with lots of bluffs. The surprise, when you look at how he is actually built, is that his starting-hand selection is close to ordinary. He is not the player who calls with junk. He is the player who, having decided a hand is worth playing, almost always plays it by raising — and who keeps betting after the flop whether or not the board helped him.

You have sat with him. He is the one who three-bets the quiet guy twice in an orbit, fires the flop on a board of three low cards, and then fires the turn as well. He is not on tilt and he is not a maniac. He picks his spots, attacks the pots nobody wants, and has worked out that most of the table folds too much. Against timid opposition he is the biggest winner in the room; against someone willing to call him down he is a customer. That is the whole tension of playing him.

2. Aggressive Andy at a glance

Read together, those tendencies describe something more awkward than a wild player. His hand selection is near normal and his positional sense is decent, so you cannot write his range off as garbage. What is abnormal is the share of his hands that arrive as a bet or a raise, and how little the sizing says about which is which. He wins the pots nobody contests and loses to the people who contest them.

3. How Aggressive Andy plays a hand

Preflop. He never open-limps. He opens a fairly standard range — wider on the button and in the cutoff, tighter up front — and he raises rather than calls whenever both are available, so the hands he merely calls with are a small remainder. He three-bets more than the table average, particularly against late-position opens, and facing your three-bet he calls far more often than he folds.

Flop. He continuation-bets at a high rate, sizes on the larger side, and keeps firing multiway instead of shutting down against three opponents. He rarely slow-plays, so his strong hands sit in the same betting range as his air and the sizing does not separate them. Now and then he floats your bet with nothing in position, or checks the flop back and attacks the turn instead — not often, but often enough that a check from Andy is not a surrender.

Turn. This is the street where he makes his money, because it is the street most opponents fold. His follow-through is well above neutral: the flop bet usually has a second barrel behind it, and a scare card is not what stops him. His draw math is sound, so his semi-bluffs are real draws rather than invention. What slows him down is a raise — not a call, a raise.

River. He bluffs rivers more than the table does, and he bets when checked to rather than taking the free showdown, so a good many of his river bets are hands that cannot win at showdown. He does not check-raise the river any more than a neutral player would, so that trap is not his weapon. Facing your river bet he calls light: a big number does not frighten him, and he pays off value bets a timid opponent folds.

4. How to beat Aggressive Andy

Call him down, and widen the hands you bluff-catch with. Against a player who bets this often, bluffs this often, and whose sizing tells you nothing, the expensive error is folding, not calling. Second pair is a call; ace-high is sometimes a call on the river. The discipline is to decide early which holding you intend to take to showdown and then actually take it there, because his whole strategy rests on the turn barrel that makes you let go.

Three-bet him for value, and stop three-betting him as a bluff. He opens too many pots from late position, which is an invitation to re-raise — but re-raise with hands that want to play a big pot, because he does not fold to size. A light three-bet that would move a normal opponent gets called here, and then you are out of position with a weak hand against the most aggressive player at the table. The same rule governs the river: bet your good hands bigger than you would against anyone else, because he calls.

Play him in position, and give up the marginal hands out of it. Most of the money lost to a LAG is lost from the blinds, defending hands you did not want in pots you did not choose. In position you close the action, call one barrel and see what the turn brings; out of position you are guessing on every street against somebody who bets constantly. Tighten what you defend out of position and widen what you play on the button.

5. Mistakes people make against Aggressive Andy

• Tightening up to stay out of his way. This is the reflex, and it is exactly the plan he was built to beat. Folding more against a player who bets more hands him the blinds for free and turns each of his bluffs into a sure thing.
• Trying to out-bluff him. A big raise does not scare him and his sizing gives you nothing to read, so the hero bluff-raise on the turn is a coin flip you paid to enter. Beat him by calling with the hands he is attacking, not by inventing a hand of your own.
• Treating him like Maniac Mike. Andy is loose-aggressive, not reckless: his starting hands are close to normal and he pays attention to position. Assuming every bet is air costs about as much as folding everything, and it is the mistake people make in the hour after they decide to fight back.

6. Practice against Aggressive Andy

Andy has a seat at Online Grind — a nine-handed 1/2 no-limit game with $200 stacks, alongside Basic Ben, Solid Sam, Agent Arthur, Optimal Olivia, Tight Tom, Loose Lucy and Calling Carl. You do not need an account to sit down; the guest session asks for nothing. Calling down a player who keeps betting is a nerve problem more than a knowledge problem, and nerve comes from repetitions.

Try without an account, or create a free account if you would like your hands, the coach's verdicts and your own numbers kept so you can look back at them.

7. The rest of the table

Andy is one of eleven, and the adjustment that beats him will lose you money against the next seat along. Calling Carl calls down exactly the way you are supposed to call down Andy, which is why bluffing Carl is a donation. Tight Tom folds to the pressure Andy absorbs. Loose Lucy sees as many flops as Andy but goes quiet after the flop instead of firing. Maniac Mike, who has a table of his own (Maniac on the Loose), is what Andy looks like with the brakes removed. Telling those four apart inside twenty hands is worth more than any single adjustment. The full list is on the opponents index.