Aggression Factor

Hi Guys,

There's an important subtlelty to understand regarding AF vis-a-vis someone's looseness. A rock who only sees the flop 15% of the time and folds the flop 50% of the time may produce an AF of 3.0 by merely betting legitimate hands. Because they are so tight, they nearly always have a pair or high cards when they come in. Consequently, the 3.0 AF doesn't actually suggest excessive agression. The mere fact that they're on one of the few hands they didn't fold tells you they are holding strong cards; StraighforwardPlay will lead to a lot of bets and raises.

Generally speaking, an AF below 0.75 is to be considered passive; many poor online players have an AF's of 0.75 or lower. An AF over 1.5 is considered aggressive.

Someone with a very low AF who bets or raises is very likely to have the strength they represent. You must respect their bet when deciding how to play your hand.

Someone with a very high AF is likely to be bluffing or semi-bluffing much of the time. You may call or raise back more.

But you must take into consideration that someone who sees the flop 70% of the time and who has a 1.3, or 1.4 AF is incredibly aggressive. Someone seeing almost every flop can't possibly be catching their cards that often!!! So a high AF tells you they must be bluffing and semi-bluffing, over and over again.

What about your case…..

Most good players suggest that a good player's AF will tend to be above 2.0 and some advise even 3.0. The best advice I can give you is that once your aggression is over 1.5, do not try to to raise it merely for the sake of raising your AF. You either need to add aggression at the right times, or to reduce your bad calls. If your problem is calling too much, adding reckless aggression will not solve your calling problem! If you study when to avoid bad calls, and study when to add appropriate aggression, your AF will rise and so will your profitability. If you just bet all the time, your AF will raise, that’s a fact, but your variance will explode and the results may be disastrous!

John