home > Billiards > Tight aggressive style of poker. Tight poker player - features, advantages and disadvantages Tight opponent

Tight aggressive style of poker. Tight poker player - features, advantages and disadvantages Tight opponent

At the pinnacle of poker strategy is the tight aggressive style used by the vast majority successful players. All you need to do is wait for a favorable situation and play strong hands as actively as possible. Let's take a closer look at the two components of a tight-aggressive style.

Tight style

The combinations of two cards that the dealer deals at the beginning of the game are called starting hands. Tight style is based on playing a limited number of starting hands which are more likely to win. Good tight players only use about 20% of the 169 possible combinations to enter the game preflop, choosing only the strongest. Premium combinations such as AA, KK or AK will come across very rarely, but many weak starting hands, on the contrary, will make up the majority. Be patient and always strictly adhere to the rules, which will be discussed in detail in the article Preflop Basics. Remember that the starting hand charts that are given in this article have been tested by professionals for years and have proven their inviolability.

Every player experiences many temptations that push him to play too many hands. If you succumb to these temptations, your poker career will most likely be over before it even starts. By playing weak hands preflop, you will too often put yourself in a situation where, being far behind your opponent, you will not be able to win chips. Therefore, we will learn to play only decent hands and not allow ourselves weak game preflop.

Aggressive game

Dan Harrington, in his book Harrington Cash, formulated one of the fundamental principles of Texas Hold'em.

Generally, aggression (betting and raising) is better than being passive (checking or calling).

Aggressive poker play is undoubtedly one of the components of success. Don't be afraid to bet and raise and try to avoid checking and calling if you think you're ahead. Be especially wary of calling preflop, as with this move, you hand over the initiative to your opponent and put yourself in a difficult situation at the very beginning of the draw.

Aggression will allow you to control the flow of the game throughout the draw. In addition, by playing aggressively, you get two opportunities to win. First, you can win immediately if your opponent folds. Second, you can win a showdown if your hand is stronger. But passive play can only allow you to win at a showdown if your combination turns out to be a winner.

Another advantage of aggressive play is the constant pressure on the opponent. After all, by forcing your opponent to play under the onslaught of bets and raises, you can force him to make less balanced or obviously wrong decisions. And this is exactly what you need!

The Taiowo Aggressive player is the most common type of poker player and many believe that this style of play is the most profitable in the long run. How to become such a player?

Keep track of your game

You cannot manage what you cannot measure. If you don't know what percentage of hands you're playing preflop, how can you change your game, such as playing tighter and playing fewer hands. The same goes for the flop.

Some guidelines say that in a tight game you should play less than 15% of your starting hands and fold about 50% of your hands on the flop. This ratio is called tight game. To track statistics own game it is necessary to use specialized software, for example, the PokerTracker program.

Starting hand requirements

The easiest way to force yourself to play tight is to severely limit the number of starting hands. Phil Hellmuth recommends that new players only play the top 10 poker hands. Given that poker has 169 starting combinations then playing only ten of them you will enter the game only 6% of the time. This is an overly cautious game.

The required 15% is about 25 starting hands.

John Vorhaus in his book Killer Poker advises to use the Black Jack rule when playing very tight games and only play hands that, according to the rules of this game, give you at least 20 points. Those. you must discard any hand that has at least one card less than 10.

These examples are not an axiom, but based on them you can develop your own style of playing tight poker.

Raise or fold

In order to improve your level of aggression, you must set yourself the goal of never calling a bet. If you want to continue with your hand, then you must bet or raise and never check or call.

This strategy doesn't work for every hand, but it does allow you to build the right level of aggression. Think of it as training in aggressive behavior.

The biggest enemy of an aggressive player is a "cold" call (cold call), that is, a situation in which a player calls an increased bet in front of him (bet - raise - call). In this case, your hand must be strong enough to raise, otherwise it is better to fold. An aggressive player should never cold call in his game.

One of the big advantages of playing aggressively is that weak players will be afraid to challenge you and you will win a lot of pots without a fight.

How to bluff in a tight aggressive game?

Bluffing does not have a strong effect on the style of play, but rather indicates the unpredictability of your behavior. For beginners, especially when playing at low limits, there is no reason to use a bluff, because it, in any case, will not bring significant income. In most cases, when you decide to bluff at low limits, you will get called in return.

Or you just heard a conversation between two poker players, then you probably met certain combinations of words there that describe the manner and style of playing this or that person at the table.

Poker School rating:

Difficulty level 1/5

Need to know 7/10

In summary, all playing styles can be divided into:

Tight Aggressive (TAG);
Loose-Aggressive (LAG);
Tight-Passive;
Loose-Passive.

But what exactly is meant by these concepts: to be Tight, Loose, Aggressive or Passive in poker? And which of these styles is the best?

Analysis of terms of game styles.

The first word is tight and loose.

The first word in a playing style name describes how many hands an opponent plays. And for this, the words “tight” and “loose” are used.

Tight player will play a small number of hands, mostly premium hands with a good chance of winning.
loose player will play a wide range of hands, entering a large number of pots with strong hands as well as weaker ones.

The more hands a player enters pots with, the looser he will be.

The second word is aggressive and passive.

The second word in the name of the playing style characterizes how often the player bets and raises all streets. And for this, the concepts of "aggressive" and "passive" are used.

Aggressive player will often bet and raise, giving a lot of action to his opponents with his big bets.
Passive player will be more likely to check and call, he will rarely bet or raise opponent's bets.

So you can see that by combining any two words from each of these sections, we get 4 different playing styles that describe how many hands a certain player plays, and whether they bet/raise or check/call.

This information about the player can be very useful when choosing a strategy for playing against him. So, for example, bluffing a loose-passive player who plays a wide range and calls often will not be as profitable as a tight-aggressive player who only plays his strongest hands.

Playstyle table.

Below is a simple summary table of how you can describe the various combinations of the words loose, tight, passive, and aggressive:

Which of these 4 playstyles is the best?

To show good poker, you need to play aggressively as described in my previous article. So, as you might have guessed by now, the best playing style will be between tight-aggressive and loose-aggressive.

Playing aggressively is always better than playing passively. This is a long closed issue.

Many winning players will say that tight-aggressive play is the best because it will only allow you to enter pots with strong hands and play them aggressively to maximize your winnings. Yes, this is true, and often this is the style that many players tend to use.

But despite this, right game in a loose-aggressive style can be not only just as profitable, but even outperform a tight-aggressive one. But this style is more difficult to perform.

The loose-aggressive style can be more profitable, but it can also be more dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

Loose-aggressive play means you'll see a lot of flops and put money into pots when you're unsure of your hand, so this style isn't recommended for beginners. However, it also rewards more, as your opponents will often pay off your monsters, distrusting you too much due to the action in your previous plays.

Passive poker is always losing.

The passive style of play will often be negative, so we recommend that anyone who wants to become a winning player consider betting and raising more often than checking and calling. The reason that playing passively will be negative is because you are depriving yourself of one of the ways to win hands.

There are two ways to win a hand: having the best hand at showdown or knocking your opponent out of the pot. By playing passively, you leave yourself only the opportunity to win at a showdown, and this is not good.

Thus, for most learning players, it is recommended that you start with a tight-aggressive style of play, as it will be both profitable and safer. Over time, after you gain experience playing solid winning poker, you can try your hand at loose-aggressive play to see for yourself how this style will suit you.

Veterans of the game love the loose-aggressive style as it allows them to play more hands and see more pots that will keep them from getting bored waiting for premium hands. However, at first, it will still be safer to stick to the proven tight-aggressive style, and not rush headlong into the pool more challenging game with which you are not yet familiar.

Conclusion.

In general, the style of play that you should choose should be the one that will bring you the most profit. If you feel that the tight-aggressive style works better than anyone else, then there is no reason to force yourself to change anything.

The same goes for recreational players, if you like to play passive more than aggressive, then fine - play how you like. But remember that if you want to win and maximize your profit, then an aggressive style of play will help you more than a passive one.

If I had to rank play styles in order of their potential profitability. Then I would do it like this:

1. Tight-aggressive;

2. Loose-aggressive;

3. Tight-passive;

4. Loose-passive.

The first two styles are interchangeable as the loose-aggressive style can be extremely profitable for some players. However, the TAG style will be most suitable for beginners, as the LAG style can be more dangerous if you don't fully understand what you're doing.

As additional information You can read my article on , which will show you how you can profitably switch between a tight-aggressive style and a loose-aggressive one.

Tight Player- this is a player who prefers a style of poker where only a small number of the strongest hands are played. As a rule, tight players avoid difficult ambiguous situations, play only with strong made hands.. The exact opposite of a tight style would be a loose style. There is a distinction between tight-aggressive and tight-passive styles.

Types of tight players

The tight-aggressive style is very popular online and in. The very essence of this style is as follows: play a small number of the strongest hands, but play them quite aggressively. Aggressive tight poker player puts constant pressure on the opponent. When he creates the image of a tight-aggressive player at the table, he can successfully apply because opponents will almost always believe he has a strong hand.

A passive tight player is a player who uses a style that is not characteristic of successful game poker, for this reason, is usually played in a tight-passive style by neat beginners who value money. They prefer to play only the strongest hands, however, having hit in, they are not in a hurry to increase the pot, guided by the principle " quieter you go - you will be further". Against such players, you can successfully use a bluff, as well as various moves that can knock the enemy out of the game, taking.

Passive tight players usually don't settle as fast and if we can't adapt to their style, we won't be able to win easily. They are also called "rocks" because they fold everything and just wait for a premium hand. And when it finally comes to them, they play such a hand conservatively, even timidly.. They are still difficult to calculate for the reason that we are more watching for those who are actively involved in the pot, but not for those who fold their cards. As a rule, a passive tight player is a passive person in life. They can talk very little, some of them hardly speak at all. They tend to bet very carefully, controlling all their movements. They don't throw chips into the pot, they don't say out loud "I'm raising," they just put in chips without usually saying a word. However, they have an important component of correct optimal style (tight-aggressive) that allows them to win consistently if they play suitable games. They don't win much, but they don't expect to win much either.. They are content with consistent average wins and small, infrequent losses.

Passives make you wary of them: They are hard to beat and can sometimes be depressing to play with. So, if, due to our impatience, we begin to play actively with such players, they will win against us.. Should I play with them? Probably not. This should only be done when other players are weak. It's best to sit to their right as they rarely raise. and we can steal their ante and

Material from the site, the free encyclopedia of poker.

Tight style(English) Tight style) - a style of poker in which a small number of only the strongest hands are played. Tight players try to avoid difficult ambiguous situations and play only with very strong made hands. The opposite of the tight style is the loose style.

Types of tight style

Tight players fall into two broad categories:

Tight Aggressive

This style is very popular in both online and offline poker. The essence of the style is to play a small number of strong hands, but play them very aggressively, putting constant pressure on your opponent. By creating the image of a tight player at the table, we can successfully bluff, because opponents will almost always believe that we have a strong hand.

Tight-passive

The passive style is not typical for successful poker players, so the tight-passive style is usually played by neat beginners who value their money. They prefer to play only the strongest hands, but also, having hit the nuts, they are in no hurry to increase the pot, guided by the principle "Better tit in the hands ...". Against such players, you can successfully use a bluff and various moves that can knock your opponent out of the game and take the pot.

Advantages and disadvantages of tight style

Advantages:

Relative simplicity. Almost everyone can learn the tight style - it is simple and unambiguous in execution: with strong hands we bet, with weak hands we fold.
Winning big pots. As you know, the better the combination, the better more money you can win with it. Tight players quite often make very strong hands and win huge pots with them.
Successful bluff. The stakes of a player who only plays strong hands command respect. You can use this and sometimes bluff, relying on your image at the table.
Small amount difficult situations . It's very rare for a good tight player to get into ambiguous situations, because he folds bad hands early, and good hands usually don't get in trouble.

Flaws: