henHere’s the best strategy focus to play with in every session of poker:

“How can I steal this pot?” 

Watch this podcast episode #507 on YouTube:

Or, listen to the episode as you follow along below:

What is a Strategy Focus?

When you’re not playing a volume session (playing as many tables and hands as possible to make money), you should be playing with purpose to build your skills.

You’re studying with me right now and you’re about to learn a strategy. In order to ingrain it in your skillset, you need to practice it in at least one play session.

You want to find opportunities and use the strategy as many times as is profitable in the session to ingrain it in your skillset.

Other strategy focuses I’ve shared with you in the past:

• Playing the Player
• 3bet bluffing
• Cbetting and barreling
• Testing different bet/raise sizes
• Check-raise bluffing flops and turns
• Overbet bluffing the flop

The Best Strategy Focus: “How can I steal this pot?”

This is the best strategy to use for 5 reasons.

1. Those who steal more pots win more money.

Aggression wins in poker. You can’t always hold the best hand. But, you can push people off better hands with well-planned bluffs.

2. This is a useful strategy on every street.

You can ask and answer this question on every street to help you steal more pots.

Preflop, it’ll help you find:

• Blind steals
• 3bet steals
• Squeeze steals
• Iso-raise steals
• 4bet+ shove steals

Post-flop, it’ll help you find:

• Cbet steals
• Donk steals
• XR steals
• Barreling steals
• Floating and probing steals

If you can answer the question, “How can I steal this pot?” with a valid stealing strategy, pull the trigger on it.

3. It keeps you focused on the situation that occurs most of the time.

It’s not that often we hit a made hand like solid pairs, sets, flushes, etc. In fact, it happens less than 35% of the time on the flop:

This 40% range flops mid-pair+ only 33.8% of the time.

If you hit the flop only 33.8% of the time, you miss the other 66.2% of the time. Yep, to win more pots you have to steal more often. It’s tough to get value with “pp below mp” or less.

And, even if you get lucky enough to flop a draw, you complete that draw often less than 20% of the time. So, to win the pot, you’ll likely have to commit to stealing!

4. Aggressive players get paid off by non-believers.

You’ve been on the other side of this coin. You call the LAG with KT, the board comes Kxxxx. You check-call 3 streets knowing the LAG could easily bluff all 3 streets. But, he turns over AK and scoops a nice pot when he actually had the goods this time.

You didn’t believe the LAG would have such a good hand. That’s the power of having a LAG image.

You’re stealing pots like mad, but when you’ve got the goods, you get more value than ever!

5. It’s way more fun playing aggressively than passively.

It’s not fun waiting for AA and TP hands.

What is fun is stealing pots with check-raises, 3bet bluffing, double and triple-barrel bluffing and betting when they check to win the pot.

One of the best feelings is when I bluff flop and turn, then I hit a crazy strong hand on the river:

Take Action

Play with a stealing focus.

Sticky note: “How can I steal this pot?”

Ask and answer this question:

• When you hold a non-value hand preflop.
• When you whiff the flop/turn/river.

Answer the question with all available information, and if you think you can win by betting or raising, do it!

Play with a “Bring It On!” Attitude

Having trouble using or facing aggression? Let’s train ourselves to use and face added levels of aggression by playing with a “Bring it on!” attitude.

Watch this podcast episode #508 on YouTube:

Or, listen to the episode as you follow along below:

A few weeks ago I gave one of my students the task of playing with a focus of “How can I steal this pot?” (episode #507 above)

Well, he ran into a little trouble and sent me this email:

“I tried playing with that steal focus, but it was tough. When I was stealing, they were re-raising me and not folding. I stole some good pots, but I kept facing more aggression. It seemed like more than usual. It made these steal sessions no fun.
Eventually, I just tightened up b/c they kept betting and raising me.
What did I do wrong?”

He didn’t do anything wrong.

This is one of the ways that real life bleeds into poker.

[Real Life] When two people have a disagreement, things can get heated. Voices rise, name calling starts and it can turn into a full-blown fight.

[Poker] You’re making aggressive plays against them, and they get fed up with it. So, they fight back with aggression of their own. And now you’re suddenly faced with extra aggression that you’re not used to, and maybe you’re playing a style you’re not used to. So, you revert to your normal tight play style. That’s a natural reaction.

How to Play with a “Bring It On!” Aggressive Attitude

Welcome their aggression. Instead of thinking, “Holy cow, this is more than the usual bets and raises”, think of, “Yeah, bring it on!”

Expect their aggression and plan for it. If you know there’s a 3bettor still to act, plan for him to 3bet you. How will you respond? Fold, call or re-raise?

Don’t blindly use aggression to steal pots. Know they can find a fold. Think about their range and the board, their position, their tendencies, the plays they make and don’t make, their stack size and the pot size, and use all of that info to gauge whether or not they can find a fold. If so, steal! If not, don’t steal.

Pay attention to your image and stats. If you’re running a 40/38 game, they won’t respect your open-raises. When you’ve 3bet 4 times in the past 6 rounds, they won’t respect your 3bets. If you’ve cbet every flop and turn, they won’t respect your cbets.

Pay attention to their anger level. If you’ve been pounding them with aggression and you also stacked ‘em, they’re going to be angry and have it in for you. Be ready for their big bets and raises. They’ll also call you a lot in order to catch you bluffing or to hit a great hand and win their chips back.

Take Action!

Play at least 5 of these “Bring it on!” sessions to increase your use of aggression and build your tolerance versus increased aggression.

And, to help you get aggressive, below is my 12-hand review from a recent “Bring it on!” session I played. I ran a 40/32 game with 13% 3bet and cbetting f/t/r at 82%, 71% and 50%. I was up 3.5 buy-ins from this session with a win rate of +232bb/100 hands.

12 Aggressive Hands – Hand History Review