Strategy | Types of poker players

March 18th, 2007

The first step in becoming a good poker player is to understand who you are playing against. There is mainly two types of poker players.

Tight : Tight is synonym of conservative. A tight player is a player that will be more likely to fold when the odds are against him.

Pros :

• You have more control over how much you win and more importantly, how much you lose
• You can last longer in the first stages of a tournament
• Tight player are fearful chip leaders

Cons :

• You are very predictable
• Usually your winnings are minimal (because your are predictable)

Loose : The loose player is the player that will play most of the pots, they will call your raise even when the odds of winning are against them.

Pros :

• Unpredictable
• More fun (play more often)

Cons :

• Large bankroll swings
• Increase chance of loosing (if you play more often, you play bad hands more often)

Of course there are different variations, how aggressive is a loose player or how passive is a tight player. I won’t go in the detail but what I want to highlight is you enter in a category too. And someone that will flag you as either tight or loose player will know how to play you.

• Change play style often, the more the people around the table knows you, the more often you should change play style.
• Play mostly tight in a loose game and play mostly loose on a tight game

By doing so, you will have one step ahead, and when someone catch you on, you switch play style.

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Strategies & tips