A Game of Two Halves

   I played in a rather unusual game of fixed-limit Holdem last week. Unlike most of these games there was some very aggressive raising and re-raising, both before and after the flop. At first I thought I'd stumbled upon a table full of aggressive players, but after a while I realised it was largely down to one individual. Although there were a number of players raising and re-raising in almost every hand, it was in response to the tactics of this one player - let's call him Mr A. It didn't take me long to figure out that a pre-flop raise or re-raise from Mr A wasn't any indicator of the strength of his hand. Therefore, a further raise was often correct with any decent hand, after which Mr A would cap the betting. The other players had also figured this out, so the betting was often capped pre-flop, with three or more players in the pot. This made for a real action game.
   Some examples:
   I pick up AA and raise and re-raise until the betting is capped. There are four callers! Much to my surprise, my aces hold up against four other hands.
   With K8 I call a re-raise by Mr A. The flop is T 8 5, giving me middle pair. I bet and get called on the flop, turn and river. Mr A had 4 2. Middle pair wins.
   With AJ I raise and the betting is capped by Mr A. I call him all the way to the river with only ace high. He shows K2 for a pair of twos and wins.
   I get J9 and keep calling raises until the betting is capped. In a normal game I probably would have folded to the first raise, but there are five players in the pot and I figure I have the odds to call. No hit on the flop so I fold.
   I don't know whether Mr A always plays this way or whether or not it usually works for him, but on this particular occasion it didn't. I came into the game with 100 blinds and at that point Mr A had about 200 blinds. A couple of hours later Mr A lost his last few chips and left the table. I had doubled up.
   After Mr A left, the table settled down into the usual passive play you generally find in these games. Players who had previously been raising and re-raising with all sorts of hands pre-flop were now happy to just call and see the flop. This confirmed my assumption that the other players had adjusted their play to accommodate the 'action man'. I left the table after a couple of hours and found that I'd lost about 30 blinds since Mr A left. So I actually did a lot better on the aggressive table than the passive table.
   Some of the differences I noted about 'aggro FLH' are as follows.
 *You can call raises with marginal hands because of the size of the pot.
 *You're less likely to limp in with poor hands because of the likelihood of a raise.
 *You seldom raise with a good hand because someone else will probably raise for you.
 *It's harder to judge the strength of other players' hands.
 *It's harder to defend the blinds.
 *You often have the pot odds to keep calling post-flop.
   Although I did pretty well in the aggressive phase of this game, I don't think I'd like to play in this type of game too often. It seems to me that there is the potential for both big wins and big losses. This time I got the wins and Mr A got the losses. If we meet again, it could just as easily be the other way around.