How to stop being hyper aggressive at lower stakes

Unknown

Ok i have been playing at pokerstars as Duffy_clown for 6 months but decided to switch to sky poker recently for several reasons and play as yoshimuru. Im hyper aggresive by nature and am an adreniline seeking 21 year old and love the adreniline i get when making a bluff and how your heart races as you wait for them to call and to be fair someones they work however overall im an average player in terms of ranking and have lost a few hunderds dollars on pokerstars. When i player tight i do make money but then do a stupid bluff and lose it all. I know to be a winning low stakes player i have to be tighter but am finding it hard to fight my natural instincts. I want to make bluffs but know this is not profitable in low stakes. I understand alot about poker and the probaility but cant seem to make money due to my style. I find this very confusing as live i usually do well in tornaments and home games but online am getting smashed. So yeah my question is about hyper aggresion and how do i calm myself down to become a more profitable player. Is Hyper aggresion good?, or is being tight better?, i know theres lots of variables determining this but yeah i appreciate any responses guys!,

Batkin88

Low levels is all about Tight opening range and then smashing the aggression post flop when hit. Read Dohhhhhhhh's blog in the blogs section!

simonnatur

anyone else got a headache this morning?

rancid

just stop !

Curt360x27

First of all its good that you are an 'aggro' player. The way the game is played now and the way the game is heading you have to be aggro to be a winning player.

Now to answer your post.
As you stated you play low stakes this post is based on stakes between nl10 - nl50. See Batkin88's post for lower stakes.

Although you state your 'hyper aggressive' I'm not convinced you really know what aggressive means. Being aggressive doesnt mean bluffing every hand, nor does it mean raising and re-raising with junk from any old position at the table. By the sounds of your post I think ATM your just bluffing on the spot without really thinking about it. First of all we need to know what level our opponents are on (see levelling in poker if you don't already understand) and therefore the maximum level we should be on against them. If our opponent is thinking on level 1 then it is pointless trying to represent anything as there mindset is simply 'What cards do I have'. They couldn't give a flying fook what you have. Against these players just send them to value town when you hit and give up when you don't. 

Now imagine we are against a decent player who we have some history with. Against these players we can represent hands. However, what we must realise is a bluff has to be well constructed. Imagine your telling a story, the story has to make sense for you to be able to convince your opponent you have the hand your representing. Play the bluff just as you would if you actually had the hand.

My advice for you would be, load up a few low stake cash tables (as many as your comfortable with) and try do the following. In the first 10-20 mins or so play purely ABC poker and  try to get a feel of how everyone is playing. Once youv'e done that start making notes on each player, keep them simple just categorize the players (tight/aggressive, loose/passive) and there tendancies, (limp calls a lot, raises bvb everytime, raises to 4x instead of 3x with premium) anyway you get the idea. Once you've done this just play solid, aggro poker. Play position, isolate the weaker players/limpers, 3 bet the regs in position and just try to get into a rythm of playing solid, aggressive poker. You will soon get a feel for which boards you should fire 1 barrel then give/ fire on multiple streets against each individual.

Another thing is when we are bluffing, if we get called or have to call off once we have re-raised we want to have outs. This is called semi-bluffing and is something you should use often. When you have straight draws and flush draws it is +EV to play them aggressively (bet if you were the aggressor pre flop/re-raise if your opponent bets) as it gives you 2 ways to win the hand as oppossed to having to hit your draw if you play it passively.    

One last thing which you may or may not already use is the float. To float is to call an opponents C-bet in position (you can do this out of position but its much harder to utilise) with the intention of taking the pot away on the turn or river.
Here is an example:
You are in the BB. Everyone folds. The SB (tight aggro, rarely gets out of line) raises 3x.
You call with 78dd.
The flop, 2j6 rainbow, 1 diamond.
The SB bets half pot.
A raise here would make no sense. Like I stated earlier play the bluff as if we had the hand. I we had a set we wouldn't rasie, if we had a J we wouldn't raise we also wouldn't raise ,33,44,55,77,88,99,1010 and we would have raised pre flop with an overpair. 
However what we can do is call. Our opponent is likely to bet this flop even when he has missed. 
When we call, we can then bet the turn if checked to us taking the pot down without having to re-raise. Also when we call there are turn cards that can improve our equity.
This is a very simple example but is very effective at taking lots of small pots down simply by using your position.

Hope all this helps and GL at the tables   

WHOAMI196

nice post curt

UareLIMPER

In Response to Re: How to stop being hyper aggressive at lower stakes:

First of all its good that you are an 'aggro' player. The way the game is played now and the way the game is heading you have to be aggro to be a winning player. Now to answer your post. As you stated you play low stakes this post is based on stakes between nl10 - nl50. See Batkin88's post for lower stakes. Although you state your 'hyper aggressive' I'm not convinced you really know what aggressive means. Being aggressive doesnt mean bluffing every hand, nor does it mean raising and re-raising with junk from any old position at the table. By the sounds of your post I think ATM your just bluffing on the spot without really thinking about it. First of all we need to know what level our opponents are on (see levelling in poker if you don't already understand) and therefore the maximum level we should be on against them. If our opponent is thinking on level 1 then it is pointless trying to represent anything as there mindset is simply 'What cards do I have'. They couldn't give a flying fook what you have. Against these players just send them to value town when you hit and give up when you don't.  Now imagine we are against a decent player who we have some history with. Against these players we can represent hands. However, what we must realise is a bluff has to be well constructed. Imagine your telling a story, the story has to make sense for you to be able to convince your opponent you have the hand your representing. Play the bluff just as you would if you actually had the hand. My advice for you would be, load up a few low stake cash tables (as many as your comfortable with) and try do the following. In the first 10-20 mins or so play purely ABC poker and  try to get a feel of how everyone is playing. Once youv'e done that start making notes on each player, keep them simple just categorize the players (tight/aggressive, loose/passive) and there tendancies, (limp calls a lot, raises bvb everytime, raises to 4x instead of 3x with premium) anyway you get the idea. Once you've done this just play solid, aggro poker. Play position, isolate the weaker players/limpers, 3 bet the regs in position and just try to get into a rythm of playing solid, aggressive poker. You will soon get a feel for which boards you should fire 1 barrel then give/ fire on multiple streets against each individual. Another thing is when we are bluffing, if we get called or have to call off once we have re-raised we want to have outs. This is called semi-bluffing and is something you should use often. When you have straight draws and flush draws it is +EV to play them aggressively (bet if you were the aggressor pre flop/re-raise if your opponent bets) as it gives you 2 ways to win the hand as oppossed to having to hit your draw if you play it passively.     One last thing which you may or may not already use is the float. To float is to call an opponents C-bet in position (you can do this out of position but its much harder to utilise) with the intention of taking the pot away on the turn or river. Here is an example: You are in the BB. Everyone folds. The SB (tight aggro, rarely gets out of line) raises 3x. You call with 78dd. The flop, 2j6 rainbow, 1 diamond. The SB bets half pot. A raise here would make no sense. Like I stated earlier play the bluff as if we had the hand. I we had a set we wouldn't rasie, if we had a J we wouldn't raise we also wouldn't raise ,33,44,55,77,88,99,1010 and we would have raised pre flop with an overpair.  However what we can do is call. Our opponent is likely to bet this flop even when he has missed.  When we call, we can then bet the turn if checked to us taking the pot down without having to re-raise. Also when we call there are turn cards that can improve our equity. This is a very simple example but is very effective at taking lots of small pots down simply by using your position. Hope all this helps and GL at the tables   
Posted by Curt360x27

This probably covered it but cba reading it all. Basically u cant just think 'im going to bluff this hand whatever' you have to have a reason for it.