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Play the Players
Poker is a people game – Winning poker is about playing the players not just your cards.
Most poker players can be usefully placed in 4 playing styles. Once you have sussed out what type of players your up against suddenly poker becomes a game of personalities and not just about the cards you hold in your hand.
Below are descriptions of the styles to try and spot and you should adjust your game accordingly – some things will work a treat against one player and be utterly useless or down right dangerous against another. At this point you need to take a good look at yourself – what kind of player are you ?
Tight Aggressive – Make this your default, solid hand selection, stong position play, aggressive no prisoners raising. They pick strong hands and will go all the way and put the difficult decisions onto the other players every step of the way. Players like this do not fall in love with AA they play it hard, hope for one caller preflop and they’re happy to take a good profit from one – not risk trying to get a little from alot.
If your at a table with alot of tight aggressive players (ie. check % to see flop) – simple look at another game.
Tight Weak – They make the same solid hand selection as the tight aggressive player but have no balls. They call when they should raise, they put in a small raise when they should be going for big raises. They fail to cut out drawing hands, chancers and suffer too many bad beats. They adhere far to closely to what they think are the laws of poker and in fact they wouldn’t last 5 minutes against a tough table of good poker players.
If your at a table with alot of tight weak players they will easily be fazed by hefty raises that put them off what they think are their odds. Figuring their hand should be more straight forward – Scare cards are you friend. But if they suddenly get some balls and are rasing big you can be sure – they’ve got a damn good hand and they might be a tight agggressive who’s changed gears who will also have a damn good hand.
Loose Aggressive – The nutter, plays just about any hand and plays it aggressively. They are gamblers and love the buzz of the game. You may find them intimidating as they always seem to come back at you with a raise no matter what – so long as your playing solid hands against them and don’t getting carried along you will make money from them. As soon as you turn to the dark side and play like them you will loose.
If your at a table with a couple of nutters think of them as aggressive calling stations – they will be there when you have a nuts hand eager to give you all their cash – so wait and watch, dont play until you have the nuts, then take all their chips. If the table is rammed full of nutters personally I give it up – 9 lucky idiots against you – don’t take it on.
Loose Weak – Clueless, fishy mc fishy. The worst combination of a player you could be – Passive calling stations – They call and check to stay in any hand and don’t like folding, they like to see all the cards but dont take control of any of the hands. In their head any kind of a hand that works with the board is a hand worth playing, with a fondness for long shot draws.
If your at a table with a load of fish – get the net out. Easy money – they will be putty in your hands you can guide them into calling when your drawing, letting you see cheap cards they shouldn’t. But you must make them pay to play – always. Don’t let bad beats happen you only have yourself to blame if you let 5 chancers stay in til the river and get beat by 72off. Better to get alot from one or two players in a hand than risk getting greedy keeping in several players.
Generally as a fall back position or as a new player you should aim to be just tight agressive sometimes called selectively aggressive.
Once you become more advanced you can start to mix your play between different styles known as changing gears. This is what the truly successful bricks and mortar (B&M) poker pro does. But online you really shouldn’t get too carried away with clever moves – stick with selectively aggressive and only when you really have a read on a players decision making should you deviate.
As always with poker turning things on its head can and will throw players – remember you want to lead them by the nose and take control. If you set your stall out at the start of an SnG as a nutter ie. loose aggressive then that is how they will treat you – they will fear youearly on and then they will look you up figuring you have stolen one too many pots with a big raise out of position – hopefully you’ve seen this coming you’ve already changed gears back to tight aggressive and you’ve landed a very solid hand to go all the way with. On the other hand if you’ve played the first couple of hands reasonably aggressive with whatever you got dealt and the deck has gone cold – back off. The idea is to look like a nutter not be a nutter.
Many players will advise against this approach – but think about it – if your sat at a table and the guy next to you hasn’t played the first 10 hands and then comes in with a raise – what are you going to think ? yep he’s tight but only moderately aggressive – and you fold – his AA doesn’t make him much of a pot and everyone at the table knows he will only play premium hands.
Conversly being marked as a tight aggressive player early doors give you the advantage of respect – later in the game you can bluff or semi bluff more on marginal hands – they will give you respect because you’ve earnt it and fold a better hand.
Know your players, understand how important position is and the cards you get dealt will be less important – it’s what you make everyone else think you have that counts. And remember rarely will you sit at a table that is full of only one type of player, you will have to weight up even with a good hand if your up against too many other factors and vice versa if a weaker hand has become playable because of who your up against.
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