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Poker Tournaments are a popular and entertaining sport and because of all the hassle made around poker and all the poker-mania, now it’s hard to find quality poker advice on how to play to stand a chance for winning. This article is about learning how to undertake a Texas Hold’em tournament and approaches the most asked question, which is “How do I deal efficiently with aggressive players?”

Aggressive players are those wild and aggressive guys who play most every hand, and somehow give the impression to pull cards out of thin air, and often manage to dominate the table. A simple way of reaching this subject is by actually tell you about a Hold’em tournament I played in and where I found this type of aggressive players.

My first 30 min of play were actually spent on hanging out and observing with who I’m dealing out. There were a number of solid poker players, but also some aggressive ones.

The firs ones that I spotted were two ‘maniacs’ who participated in the largest part of hands, and tormented with themselves every time they had to toss a hand away. This was very ‘telling’ for me and I knew these guys were ruined from the start; however they were very treacherous if they caught something with one of their garbage hands. If you know how to approach this type of player, they can be great targets to get all of their chips in your stack. All you have to do is to be patient and to get to their chips before someone else does.

A bit later I spotted another two players that played a very aggressive game and who hardly ever called or checked. The two guys’ type of playing was to bet or raise the pot considerably, so if they played a hand, you knew they were going to bet it big and you’d better be ready to throw a bunch of your chips on the table.

Soon, these four players got to control the game action and determine the table tempo. They were enjoying pushing everybody around with their aggressive betting and raising technique and for the rest of us was pretty obvious they were playing garbage hands. They gambled with wanton abandon, trading chips with each other as the rest of us just observed and hoped for a real hand to show up.

Soon, after a number of showdowns their garbage hands become openly exposed; e.g., 69 off-suit, Q3 suited, etc. Now I was thinking that if I could get a significant hand, ill get these wild guys pegged.

Every time you spot an aggressive player dominating, and then mucking all those supposed “great hands”, you know you’ve got a target. We continued the game and the two maniacs that I observed first were busted out by the other two aggressive players. We already played for a while and not even one good hand for me, but what can you do, this is the classic poker!

The wished moment finally happened when I got a pair of wired 9’s (99). Now I was hoping the flop would give in a set (trips). And it came (9, K, 5). Now I could finally try to make my move on the two aggressive players with big stacks and I started my plan by pretending to be confused and then casually “checked” verbally and using my hand in a chopping motion, with a vaguely disgusted look.

My plan started to become field-proven, as one of the wild players, moved in with a large bet of 3,000 chips. As you can imagine, all the other players folded. Now it was between me and him. Do not forget that this was the plan from the start. I choused them as targets because I knew that when the time was right, their ill-gotten stacks would become mine! I continued the game pretending that is hard for me to make a decision and finally I said that “I’m all-in”, being sure that this kind of actions will get an aggressive reaction. The result was that he called me. Always remember that a check-raise almost always triggers a full-tilt response from an aggressive player.

I revealed my trip 9’s and my wild opponent flipped his five/trash hand over - he had a pair of fives (with a King over-card showing on the board!) That’s the catch; no one actually gets that many great hands in poker. If someone plays 30% to 40% or more of the time, they’re just “gambling” and bluffing. This guy thinks he has a “good” hand, because he actually had a real pair – something he doesn’t often have when pushing everybody around with mostly aggressive betting as his only real weapon.

When the turn came, it wasn’t a five so my guy was “drawing dead”. Now, there’s only one wild payer left and I continued preparing my trap. The proper time to bluff and steal blinds actually arrived as everyone from the table understood that whenever I checked or limped, it could be extremely dangerous if assumed to be a sign of weakness.

It had taken careful observation, planning and a lot of patience to wait for the right hand, and then play it correctly to take this highly-skilled, aggressive player out and rake in all of his chips.

When I finally picked up a serious starting hand: Cowboys (KK), I knew it was the right moment to go after the last wild player. I fired out a bet of 3 times the big blind: 3,000 chips and he bit – big time. I was sure about that from the start. He rose by going all-in with around 8,000 chips to my roughly 14,000. I quickly called his all-in bet. Again, everyone else quickly folded so now it was just the two of us.

I flipped my cowboys over and…surprise, as this time he actually had a real hand for a change – he flipped over QQ. That’s one of the problems with these kinds of “semi-solid, aggressive” players, you never really know exactly what to expect from them.

Of course, my opponent could’ve held pocket rockets (AA), but I’ll play those KK cowboys strong each and every time I get them, since there’s only one hand that can beat them heads-up. Besides, I knew that it was likely for him likely to be overplaying his hand. This way my odds were bigger. The flop, turn and river came and went without another Queen and it was done - my cowboys stood up.

This is how I approach Texas Hold’em strategy for tournaments now - at least when the tables are full with 8 or more players, some of them aggressive and maniacs. Once you spot those aggressive players go after them with strong hands from the right position. The solution to playing against aggressive and maniac players is having a doable Texas Hold’em strategy you can profit from when you get some good hands. If you have a good plan, you can convert it into a formidable stockpile of chips.

This is what the game of poker is in fact all about – having a precise strategy, the persistence to wait for the right hand, and then executing correctly. This is what makes poker a game of strategy instead of a game of chance, or at least for some of us.