A more effective, and long-haul successful strategy when playing against ‘the true gambler’ at the poker table is often to play tighter rather than looser, in an attempt to combat the aggression not by coming down to their same level of recklessness (and thus sometimes getting caught by other players with ‘real’ hands). These players could sit at a table with someone who only plays one or two hands an hour, showing down only AA or KK or flopped straights from the big blinds etc., and they will still want to ‘come after’ the player. In other words, they aren’t going to care how tight you play, and they will come after you with whatever, so the wiser move here is clearly to come with the goods.
Occasionally, and often in higher stakes poker games, these players will learn to avoid the very tight, but in mid to low stakes games it is pretty fair to say they couldn’t care less who they are in a hand against, what their position is, pot odds etc.
Thus, in the face of strong aggression, you often will want to play ’small ball’ texas hold em, where you play in position against the aggressive player and try to see cheap flops with hands that have potential to become massive (such as suited connectors and small pairs), while folding the more moderate hands out of position when the player is raising a lot preflop. Implied odds (or the value of hands when they get made) goes way up against these players, but you are still wanting to minimize your commitment before you know you have something you can nail the player to the wall with.
Large made hands preflop, such as the big pairs, often are good to go ahead and put the player to the test with early if they are showing their usual aggression, but often you’ll have to be read to see that J/10 bust straight through your queens even when you’ve gotten in all in as a 4 to 1 leader.
For the most part, playing against these kind of extremely aggressive players will yield great results in profit, though obviously the swings will be larger than when playing with more standard player and bad beats should be expected. Over the long haul, keep playing small investment, big hand poker, and you’ll tend to end up with all the money.
