Rolled On The River

Never hate your adversary blindly. Understand his motives; recognise and respect his strengths – and you will be better prepared to meet him on the battlefield.

Over the years heads up displays like Hold’em Manager and PokerTracker have become very widely used throughout the online poker community.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that, although a lot of people now have a solid grasp on statistics such as VP$IP (Voluntarily Put Money Into Pot) and PFR (Pre-Flop Raise), many people still seem to have difficulties fully understanding Aggression Factor, and are therefore unable to use it to influence their decision making.

So what is aggression factor, and why is it so important to understand this statistic? Aggression Factor (AF) is a ratio that helps you to better understand your opponent’s betting patterns. Mathematically, AF is represented as (% bet + % raise) / % call. Knowing this, it becomes fairly clear that when an opponent is betting and raising they are increasing their aggression factor, and when they are calling they are lowering it. Put simply, the lower the aggression factor, the more passive the opponent, and the higher aggression factor, the more aggressive. It’s also very important to understand that aggression factor is a function of VP$IP, e.g. if you are playing 10% of your hands, your aggression factor will be much higher than someone playing 70%.

If you’re unsure how to begin thinking about Aggression Factor, then approach it this way: An Aggression Factor of five means that an opponent is five times more likely to raise than to call.

As you approach larger sample sizes of hands for players, you should start using street by street Aggression Factors. The advantages here are numerous; at a glance you can get a much clearer indication of how somebody plays, or what their assumed weaknesses are, based on their level of aggression at each street.

If you would like to further your knowledge about this wondrous statistic, a great article that goes into depth about the profiling of opponents, which also expands on various opponents and the aggression factors you can expect to see, can be found by clicking here.