Spews postflop: aggression without a target
Last updated
Postflop spew is over-aggression with no fold equity behind it — triple-barreling into calling stations, bluff-raising rivers against obvious value, turning made hands into bluffs mid-hand. The stat signature is an aggression factor above 5.
Bluffs only make money when better hands fold. Spew is bluffing where nothing folds — which is why Holdem Pro rates it a Heavy-cost leak.
The numbers on this leak
- Cost rating
- Heavy
- Tracked stat
- Aggression Factor
- Flagged at
- 5.5
- Fix target
- ≤ 3.0
This leak is tracked with Aggression Factor — (bets + raises) ÷ calls, postflop. Where the passive player sits under 1, the spewer runs above 5; the coaching target here brings 5.5 down to 3.0, the top of the healthy band. Measured over 20+ live hands.
Drills alone can never reach the top stage — your live Aggression Factor has to move and hold, and stages regress if it slides back.
How do I know if I'm bluffing too much?
Your river bluffs keep getting looked up by second pair. You barrel three streets on the logic that "he can't always have it" — but at low stakes, he doesn't need to have it; he just needs to be someone who won't fold. Your AF runs above 5 (Holdem Pro flags this leak at 5.5), and your biggest losing pots are ones where you held nothing by the end.
The subtler tell: you bet thin made hands into raises and can't let go, because aggression has become the default answer to every situation rather than a tool with a purpose.
Why doesn't my aggression work at low stakes?
Because low-stakes populations under-fold. The standard exploit at these tables is value betting bigger — not bluffing more. The exact opponents you keep firing at (stations, curious rec players) are the ones against whom bluffs are worth the least, while the strong players simply let you barrel into their made hands and stack you quietly.
The math is unforgiving too: a pot-sized river bluff has to work more than half the time just to break even (you risk one pot to win one). Into a player who calls with any pair, it works nowhere near that often.
How do I stop spewing without going passive?
- 1Ask the only question that matters
Before triple-barreling, ask: "Which better hands fold here?" If the honest answer is "few" — give up. That single filter deletes most spew on its own.
- 2Bluff players, not boards
A perfect bluff card against a player who never folds is still a losing bet. The opponent's folding range, not the board texture, is what makes a bluff work.
- 3Track your river bluff success rate
Review your river bluffs and measure how often they get through. Holdem Pro's coaching bar is above 35% — below that, at typical sizings, you're paying for the privilege of aggression.
Coach's drill for this leak: Track your river bluff success rate in /review. Aim above 35%.
The perfect bluff card against the wrong player
You miss a flush draw and the river pairs the board — the scariest card in the deck, a textbook bluffing spot. You jam. Your opponent is a station who called every street with middle pair, and she calls this one too, because she calls everything. The board said bluff; the player said don't.
Run the same hand against a tight reg who can fold top pair, and the jam becomes a fine play. That's the whole lesson: spew isn't an aggression problem, it's a target-selection problem.
How long does this take to fix?
Longer than a tips video, shorter than you fear. Holdem Pro's mastery ladder is deliberately honest: about 45 drilled hands of focused practice reaches Improving (roughly three short sessions), 175 reaches Stable, and Holding takes 500 drilled hands plus at least 120 live hands played after the improvement shows up — because drills alone don't prove a leak is closed.
The real bar is transfer: to advance you have to move your Aggression Factor from around 5.5 down below 3.0 in actual play, and the stage drops back if the stat regresses. Closing a leak for real takes weeks, not days — which is exactly why most opponents never do it.
Which player types have this leak?
Do you have the spews postflop leak?
This page describes the leak in general. The quiz deals you 7 real hands and measures your version of it — how bad, where it shows up, and what to drill first.
Free · 2 minutes · 7 real hands · no signup
Common questions
What aggression factor is too high?
AF above 5 is the spew zone — Holdem Pro flags this leak at 5.5 and coaches it down toward 3.0. Healthy postflop aggression lives roughly between 1.5 and 3.
How often does a river bluff need to work?
Risk divided by risk-plus-reward: a pot-sized bluff needs folds more than 50% of the time, a half-pot bluff about 33%. Against players who call with any pair, those numbers are fantasy.
Isn't aggressive poker winning poker?
Aggression wins when it has targets — hands that fold, players who fold them. Loose-aggressive works; indiscriminate aggression doesn't. The difference is knowing which opponents your pressure actually moves.
How long does it take to fix?
About 45 drilled hands to reach Improving, 175 to Stable, and 500 plus 120 live hands to Holding on Holdem Pro's ladder — with your live AF genuinely coming down from ~5.5 toward 3.0.
Keep going
- Related leaks: 3-bets too often · No plan for later streets
- Free tools: preflop range charts · equity calculator · daily spot
- Reference: Aggression Factor in the glossary · all 12 leaks