Poker Playing Styles

Knowing your opponents’ playing styles lies the foundation for success at the tables. Solid reads on your opponents and an understanding their playing styles enables you to exploit them at the table and take advantage of their weaknesses.

Contrary to what you may have read, you never want to have a predetermined playing style when you sit down at any poker table. You want to be able to identify your opponent’s poker playing styles and adopt a strategy which will exploit your opponents. No matter how an opponent plays, there is a way to exploit his playing style.

There are four basic playing styles that can be used to categorize most players. No two players play exactly the same, but most players generally fit in one category or another. These four playing styles include:

• Loose-aggressive
• Tight-aggressive
• Loose-Passive
• Tight-Passive

Each of these labels is divided into two parts: loose or tight and passive or aggressive.

Loose and Tight

The first characteristic, loose/tight, refers to the numbers of starting hands played by a player. Put simply, a loose player plays many hands. On the other end of the spectrum is the tight player who only plays a select number of hands. This is a useful characteristic to note because it can be used to help narrow down the types of hands an opponent may have.

Passive and Aggressive

The second characteristic in these labels is aggressive/passive, which defines a player’s ratio of bets and raises to checks and calls. An aggressive player is always looking to put the pressure on opponents by betting and raising. They are also capable of bluffing when they sense weakness.

On the flip side, passive players prefer checks and calls over bets and raises. They like to see as many cards as possible for as little risk as possible. If you see a passive player raising on the turn or river, you can be pretty confident they have the nuts or close to it.

By being versed with the poker playing styles of your opponents, it becomes easier to adopt a strategy that exploits them. Some of you may already adjust your play to different playing styles, but it helps to express these things in concrete words.

Loose-Aggressive (LAG)

This playing style is becoming more and more common as online poker games become more and more aggressive. These types of players are not hard to identify because they make a lot of noise. These players play lots of starting hands and make a lot of preflop bets and raises. They continue that aggression after the flop with even more bets and raises.

A loose-aggressive player can be difficult to deal with because they bet with both their strong and weak hands. If you adopt this playing style for yourself, you can potentially win a lot of money. However, you will also experience increases variance and bigger swings in your bankroll.

The greatest advantage of the loose-aggressive style is that you get paid off greatly with your big hands. Your opponents know you are capable of bluffing and they are therefore more willing to call down lightly. But keep in mind that your bluffs will not always work; it is important that you have controlled aggression and pick your spots carefully when bluffing.

Tight-Aggressive (TAG)

This is another common playing style that can be found at most online tables. This is the first style most players adopt after reading a little basic poker strategy. It’s a winning strategy and offers low variance when executed correctly. It may not be the most exciting playing style, but it gets the job done very nicely.

The tight0aggressive player doesn’t play loosely preflop, instead choosing to stick with premium hands and hands with big pot potential. When these players enter a pot, they generally enter with a raise (hence the “aggressive” part of the name) and generally play straightforward poker after the flop.

Tight-aggressive players exhibit a lower bluffing frequency than lags, but those bluffs have a higher success rate. This is because tight players are usually viewed by the rest of the table as fairly honest with their bets.

Loose-Passive (LP)

This poker player is by far the most common type of player you will find in live games but they can also be found online at sites like PartyPoker. Speaking of which, new players are rewarded with a 100% up to $500 bonus when they sign up and use the current PartyPoker bonus code.

The loose passive player is always looking to see a flop so they play a wide range of hands. This playing style ends up costing them a lot of money because they get stuck in tricky situations after the flop. Even worse, they call lots of bets with those hands without really stopping to analyze the situation.

Loose players love hands like suited aces and kings because they love draws. The problem, of course, is that those draws are expensive to chase. On top of that, these types of hands lose big pots when they connect with the board just enough to give them a weak top pair type of hand. These players are also characterized by making calls in every betting round but being hesitant to make the pot bigger themselves.

Needless to say, these players are great to have at your table.

Tight-Passive (TP)

Also known as the “Rock”, this poker player is not hugely dissimilar to the loose passive player. Like the above-mentioned player, the tight-passive player plays a game that is characterized by lots of checks and calls and few bets and raises. The difference is that tight-passive players are more selective in choosing their starting hands.

Which poker playing style is best?

The tight-aggressive style is generally considered the best because it makes money in all weather. Some players do very well with the loose-aggressive style as well, but that style is extremely difficult to master. If you’re still somewhat new to poker, the best way to get started is to use the tight-aggressive style and build up a quick bankroll.

Playing as a TAG will make you a lot of money at low stakes games and the lowest limits in live cash games. Higher stakes games require a little more than simple, straightforward TAG play, but it can still be done. Some LAGs perform beautifully at high stakes games as well. But for the average poker game, TAG is where the money’s at.

Whatever poker playing style you adopt, it will require patience and discipline – but the money makes it worth the effort. This is especially true if you have a poker bonus to clear. Serious players know that there is no easy money to make in poker, so don’t make the mistake of playing loose aggressive if you’re not already a winning TAG player.

If you are new to poker and learning the game, playing fewer hands will make sure that you avoid awkward spots post flop, which makes decision making easier (and more profitable). When you have few tough decisions to make, poker feels like an easy money-making hobby.