Opens and raises are considered aggressive actions, while calls and checks are considered passive actions. As soon as most of us start playing No Limit Hold’em, we are told to err on the side of aggression. From that, I gather we should open and raise more than we call and check. Being the aggressor is so important, as just the aggressive action alone will win many pots. Obviously, there are times to take passive lines. But, to take a passive line, we need a good reason; the default line should be aggression.

I think position matters a lot when talking about passive and aggressive lines. Let’s talk about playing out of position, or OOP. The most common spot where people play OOP are the blinds. One thing to take note of is that if we have fewer than 25 to 30 big blinds, there are hardly any hands we should be flatting with from the blinds. From the blinds, most hands at this stack size should be a 3bet or a fold.

When stacks are larger, there is more room to do things, but flatting from the blinds is not one we should do often. Usually, when a player flats OOP, it is with small pairs, suited hands with a Broadway card, or some suited connecter-type hands. The only problem with that is that they are usually only continuing past the flop if they hit, and we all know that doesn’t happen too often.

Trying to hit a flop is not the best way to play poker. Try adding aggression and winning more pots without a showdown. If I am OOP, it is generally a raise or a fold, but it is important to know that all spots are different.

There are some players who flat opens in position and take flops too often. Most of these players consider themselves to be highly skilled post-flop. I think this has a time and a place, but in general, it will get us into too many tough spots. After flatting pre-, we will generally be facing a bet on the flop.

When facing that bet, we will be able to call, raise, or fold. If we are choosing to flat pre- instead of 3bet, we should know almost every villain will c-bet most flops. So, if we decide to flat, we will be floating most flops whether we hit or not. Floating flops with a plan to catch up or bluff the turn can get expensive.

There are a couple of instances where we will not need to float. If we hit the flop, we could be raising for value. If we get a bad board, we may be just giving up and folding. It is a lot harder to narrow the villain’s range when they are the aggressor. But when we are the aggressor, it is much easier to take some hands out and narrow the villain’s range.

One very important thing we need to understand is having a plan. How many times have you posted a hand only to be asked, “What are you trying to accomplish?” To put it simply, every time we make an action, we need to know what we are trying to accomplish.

If we make a bet and then realize we have no idea if we want the villain to call or fold, then we made a mistake. Our actions should have a clear purpose. There will be times when we have a plan, but the villain does something to throw us for a loop and the plan changes. But for the most part in MTTs where so much of the play is with short stacks, most of our decisions should be pretty straightforward, especially pre-flop.

Here is an example. We have A-Q offsuit on the button with 30 big blinds and it is folded around to us. The small blind has 14 big blinds and the big blind has 16 big blinds. When we open and one of the blinds shoves on us, it should not be a tough decision at all.

Before we open, we should have a plan for every stack left in the hand. In this spot, we know when we open, we are calling all raises because A-Q offsuit should play very well versus a blind’s 14 to 16-big blind re-steal shove. In this same spot, if we had a hand we could not optimally shove and we did not want to call a shove after opening, like Q-8 offsuit, the best thing to do would be not open.

The last thing we ever want to do is open, get shoved on, feel priced in, and not know what to do. Having a plan for all stacks in the hand before opening will solve this problem.

This article was written by John cracker9ballReynolds, who hails from Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you are interested in taking poker lessons or would like any information, contact him at variance101@gmail.com or visit [nofollow=http://www.variance101.com]Variance101.com[/nofollow].