How do I become a more aggressive poker player?

What’s makes a aggressive poker player? And how do I become a more aggressive poker player?

One thing to make clear here is aggression is not all about bluffing.

Successful aggression is really based on 3 things.

1.Insurance: Making people fold when you have the best cards at that point in the hand. Say you have JJ and the flop comes A of hearts J of hearts and 9 of spades. There is a possible flush draw and a possible straight draw. What you have to do is use your aggression to stop the hand at that point or make it prohibitively expensive for someone to play a draw.

The same can be said for high pockets cards like AA KK QQ JJ you need to make a significant raise pre flop (say 6 times the blinds so that you "insure" that people make the wrong decision in calling.

2. Making your good cards count when you have the best hand. There is nothing worse than when a new player has a monster hand checking or calling when they should bet. If you have the best cards make it expensive to see your winning hand. It is a science of how much you should bet, but it should not be cheap (like 1-2 times the blinds).

3.Correctly reading the situation. If you are last to act (say the dealer) and there are two limpers (people who just call) to the flop and you think they haven't hit, place a bet, ensure that your aggression is within limits and usually double blinds to pot size.

Correctly reading the situation comes from reading the board for draws and knowing the player that are still in the hand and what they could have and how they play.

The problem with TV poker is that they don't show the hundreds of hands in which Phil Ivey folded, they only show the interesting hands. What pros do for the most part is highly calculated and if you are only just starting out in poker, only bluff when there is a very high chance that you will win.

Also only try to bluff small numbers of people don't try to bluff 4 people, it just won't won't work as "someone has something".

Aggression has many facets these are only a few.