As we were saying in the last article, when very aggressive players, play this way post-flop, they leave themselves open to opportunistic opponents who set traps. This is because these opponents are observant and overaggressive poker players can tend to lose focus. Aggressive play is considered to be strong poker, but it needs to be both selective and appropriate. For the record, male poker players do tend to be more aggressive than female players in post-flop play, so women who can counter this stereotype will have an obvious advantage over the males in the game.

If you are seeing a lot of flops play this generally means you are seeing a lot of bad hands, there is no shame in folding. It is vital that a poker player knows when to fold em, these are not just words from a Kenny Rogers song. Getting out means cutting your losses, there is no reason for being ashamed of not seeing a hand through, it is rare that good hands come up all the time. Remember the equation "cutting your losses = chips not lost". The strange psychology concerning this small and very simple equations is that a lot of poker veterans don't get it.

Why? We don't know, some people perceive that folding is a wuss thing to do – just don't sweat it. If the hands are dumped to middling bets is because it's not necessary to play them. Even if you fold to the same opponent time after time, if they aren't worth putting money on, dump them. Don't ever get wrapped up in the game of an adversary; this is what you will be doing if you don't fold. Your opponent will be controlling the betting and this is not what you want to happen.

Not folding even when an opponent has pushed you off for a few hands, is not the way to get even, it is cutting off your nose to spite your face. It is a mistake that invariably lands you in trouble and the outcome can often be fatal. If you are looking to isolate an adversary who plays weakly post-flop, it is ok, but keep your ego out of the equation.

If you are good tactician, avoid coin flips, these are chancy events and they risk a lot of chips. If you are a better opponent, then so be it, the long term expectation of coin flips has proved to be positive, but this is a very small positive edge. If you are a better player post-flop than your opponent, why take any chances?

If your grasp of the game of poker is good, then your skill and strategy in post-flop play will be good enough to avoid taking coin flips. If you have an edge psychologically you don't have to take any chances, just work on your post-flop skills and make sure you have that edge over your opponents. This is the psychology of poker and it is all rather simple really.