Observing Opponents
May 1 2008
Do you know what kind of poker player you are? How about what kind of player your opponent is? If you can provide a quick answer to those questions you’ll be a much better poker player. By knowing what type of player your opponent is, it will be easier to read your opponent and guess what they might have or what they might do next.
Player types are generally broken down in two ways. There is tight and loose, and there is also passive and aggressive. One from each section is taken to make up a player type, such as tight/aggressive or loose/passive.
Tight/Loose refers to the number of hands a player will play. Tight means they play few hands, while loose players play many hands.
Passive/Aggressive refers to how they bet their hands. A passive player often checks or simply calls, while an aggressive player is more apt to raise.
Tight/Passive – A tight/passive player tends to play very few hands and seldom bets, and when they do bet they don’t bet very big. Players like this usually find it hard to get any action because they bet so infrequently that when they do put chips in the middle everyone folds because they know they must have a hand. This makes it very difficult to make money because they win very few chips when they have good cards.
Tight/Aggressive – A tight/aggressive player is very selective in the hands they play, but when they do play they bet very aggressively with a lot of raises. It’s harder to bluff against these players because they are so aggressive with their bets.
Loose/Passive – A loose/passive player tends to lose a lot of money because they play a large number of hands, but they don’t bet aggressively enough to get value out of their hands post-flop. These types of players are easier to bluff against because they bet so timidly post-flop and will usually get out of the way of big bets unless they have the nuts.
Loose/Aggressive – A loose/aggressive player is sometimes referred to as a maniac and can be one of the most difficult types of players to play against because they will play a large variety of cards and bet them very aggressively. Bluffing against these types of players is not recommended because they can call or even raise with almost anything at any time.
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