This hand was between Dave Welch and Chip Winton. Dave Welch has been playing poker for over ten years and spends some 60 per cent of his time playing these days; the remainder of the time he devotes to running his transport business. Chip Winton, from Texas, is a senior executive with an express delivery business in the USA. He plays poker as a hobby, but brings a lot of his business acumen to the table. This hand illustrates the importance of aggressive play. Hand1
The flop came: J-4-3.

Dave bets £75 with J -5 (top pair with a very poor kicker).

Chip raises with a J-10 (top pair with a moderately poor kicker).

Dave calls.

Fourth street pairs the board with another 4.

Dave checks.

Chip bets £75, which is a small bet for size of pot - this possibly shows weakness which Dave exploits with aggressive play.

Dave raises to £475. This is a check-raise which in this situation is a very aggressive play that wins the pot as Chip passes the best hand. In this case Dave had bad position but overcame it by adopting an aggressive check-raise strategy.

Hand 2
This hand illustrates the benefits to be derived from aggressive play. When the action got down to five-handed, a big hand developed between Surinder Sunar, Peter (the Bandit) Evans and Dave (Devilfish) Ulliot. Surinder is a Birmingham-based professional player who developed an interest in poker while at university. Subsequently, he started playing in small tournaments and now plays in the biggest games he can find. He is becoming well known for his daring play. Peter is one of poker’s gentleman players, who now runs his own business, which he started with his poker winnings.
Peter made it £2,000 to go, which is a typically aggressive play by the Bandit, hoping for a steal. Devilfish flat called, but Surinder, not to be out-matched in terms of aggression, made a big re-raise of £6,000, enough to almost put the Bandit all-in.

Here’s what the hands were:
Surinder         Bandit     Devilfish
K-J Offsuit     9D, 7D     A-Q Offsuit

Surinder must have taken the view that when Devilfish only flat called, he didn’t have a big hand. Thus his very aggressive re-raise was designed to win the pot there and then, or push the Devilfish out and get head up with the Bandit. That’s what happened, as the Bandit went all-in. Devilfish passed his ace-queen which was, ironically, the best hand of the three.

The board cards were 10S, 9C, 8H, 7S, 7H.

Surinder made a straight on fourth street, but the Bandit filled a full house on the river. This left Surinder with a severe dent in his stack and to use a poker expression ‘talking to himself’ as the Bandit became the new leader. In this example, both of the players who made aggressive plays managed to make the person holding the best hand before the flop pass. However, although Devilfish, generally considered a very aggressive player himself, passed on this occasion he eventually went on to win. Sometimes it is perhaps better to temper aggression with some cool- headed discretion.