When talking about how to play poker, you may have heard the saying “tight is right,” which is accurate to some degree. Players new to poker are often advised to play tight (that is, with a narrow, strong range of hands), while some more experienced players prefer to play a tight style that can be hard to beat if employed properly. Knowing how to beat tight poker players can be the difference between having a winning session and a losing one.

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• Aggressive players is a walk in the park, beating good aggressive players is the polar opposite. The best advice against these opponents is to practice, experiment, and be prepared to fail. You’ll find that you are more prone to variance against these winning aggressive players, but it doesn’t mean that they can’t be beaten over the long run.
• The biggest strengths of loose aggressive player is that they are aware of how important the initiative is and they find lots of spots to bet and take down the pot with a weak holding.

What is “tight poker”?

Before you can learn how to beat tight poker players, you first need to learn what is meant by “tight poker.” As touched upon above, playing tight means that a player is, for the most part, being very careful when selecting starting hands. Although some tight players will mix up their play by raising or three-betting with a weaker hand such as suited connectors, they typically play pairs, strong aces and kings, and the more powerful suited connectors like queen-jack and jack-ten.

The main positive about this style is it is much easier to play than a loose one because working out where you stand in a hand after the flop is often a simpler task. If you’re only playing strong hands preflop, you are more likely going to be able to determine how likely you are to have the best hand on later streets.

For example, if you’ve raised with and the flop comes , then you are almost always going to have the best hand. Conversely, a loose player may see the same flop after raising with , flop middle pair, then have a trickier time figuring out how to proceed in the hand.

The first step to learning how to play tight poker players is working out if they are aggressive or passive preflop, and also noting what style they tend to employ on later streets. Thankfully, this isn’t too difficult to do if you are observant. An aggressive player will rarely, if ever, limp preflop, and also often will be betting and raising after the flop. Meanwhile passive players only raise or bet when they believe they have a strong holding and will generally only call when they have caught a piece of the board.

Once you have pegged someone as tight-aggressive or tight-passive, you can set out to beat them.

How to beat tight poker players

It is said that you should play a style of poker that is the opposite to that of your opponents. If someone is playing a loose-aggressive style, then it is often correct to tighten up and play a stronger range of hands. With this in mind, if you are playing against a tight player, it could pay off to play a wider range of hands.

The strengths of tight poker players — playing the more premium holdings preflop — can also work against them after the flop. A flop such as is less likely to have connected with a tight player’s opening range, which leaves the door wide open for you to steal the pot with a raise or check-raise.

Likewise, if you have pegged a player as being tight-aggressive, flopping a set on a board that includes a high card can be hugely profitable. Imagine a flop reading and you’re holding for middle set. Your opponent could have hands such as king-queen, queen-jack, ace-queen, kings, or aces here and is going to want to see the next community cards with this holding. Of course, the player may also have a set of queens, but this is unlikely and if they do, hey, that’s poker! Unless they have a pair of queens here, you’re likely to win a large pot.

A tight poker player employing a tight-passive strategy is very rarely a winning player because such a player often becomes very easy to read. Tight players generally only bet or raise when they have the goods, and will either check-call if they have some part of the board, or check-fold when they miss completely.

Despite this easy-to-read style, this is the tight poker player that many players struggle to beat. The key to success here is to listen to what they are telling you with their betting. If tight-passive players check-raise you on a king-high flop, they very likely have at least a king in their hand. If a tight-passive player is check-calling you on the flop and turn and all you have is queen-high, you better pray that you hit the river if you’re planning on betting again!

How To Beat Loose Aggressive Poker Players

You can also use their passivity against them when you have a strong hand. There’s no fancy play involved, just simple aggression once your tight-passive opponent has shown a willingness to go all the way with a hand. Exercise extreme caution if they come out with a raise on the river, though, because river raises from this player type are rarely bluffs.

Do poker pros play tight?

If you happen to have read any poker book written before the poker boom, you’d be forgiven for thinking that every poker player played tight. Many pros made a good living playing a tight-aggressive style then because it was common for recreational players to play loosely and passively. Probably the most famous example of the tight poker pro is Dan Harrington who besides winning the 1995 World Series of Poker Main Event made three other WSOP Main Event final tables (in 1987, 2003, and 2004) and earned countless additional tournament scores, achieved in large part by playing tight poker.

The real answer to the question of whether or not poker pros play tight is “sometimes.” Although in the modern game playing styles are much looser, the best players know how to switch gears to keep their opponents guessing, often playing tightly for a couple of orbits of the table before instantly flipping a switch and turning loose-aggressive. Those at the top of the game know both when to play tight and when to be loose, using both styles to be successful.

Conclusion

Beating tight poker players can be difficult at times because they often have strong holdings preflop and that translates to strength on later streets. However, by carefully selecting your own hands and using such opponents’ tight nature against them, you’ll soon know how to beat tight poker players on a consistent basis.

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• »Tight-Aggressive Poker: How to Beat It

There are so many different styles of play to adopt at the poker tables. It is what makes this game so special. Tight-aggressive (TAG) and loose-aggressive (LAG) styles are the most popular and today we will delve into a tight-aggressive style.

What is a Tight-Aggressive Style?

Tight-aggressive is a term for a style of play in all forms of poker. Players adopting a TAG style will play fewer hands (that is the tight part) but play them aggressively. This does not mean they are always angry, more they bet and raise more than they call or fold.

TAG players can be difficult to beat simply because they play hands at the more premium end of the scale. The best tight-aggressive players occasionally mix their play up by throwing a curveball in there, but they play stronger hands for the most part.

It is rare to find a TAG player raising and three-betting with junk hands, it is not in their nature. In a nutshell, tight-aggressive players play strong hands strongly.

Does a TAG Style Work?

Yes, in a word, the tight-aggressive style does work, even in today’s game where play tends to be quite loose, particularly in the online poker world. This is the style of play you want to adopt if you are new to poker. Why? Because it makes your decision making much simpler before and after the flop. Easier decisions mean less mistake. Fewer mistakes mean you are more likely to win, or at least not lose as much.

The hands a TAG plays have good expected value because of their preflop strength. Looser players rely on implied value because they can win pots with disguised hands; more on that in another article.

Dan Harrington, winner of the 1995 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event and author of the excellent Harrington On Hold’emstrategy books, is perhaps the most famous tight-aggressive player. He promotes a TAG style in poker tournaments and it is a strategy that has served him well.

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What Are the Negatives of a TAG Style?

How To Be An Aggressive Poker Player

You have to reverse engineer the TAG style of play to find its weaknesses. Think of its major strength: you are only playing premium holdings. Now think how often you are dealt pocket pairs ten or higher, or ace-king. It is not very often. These players can often find themselves “card dead” for long periods of time while they sit and wait from a strong hand.

Likewise, TAG players can find it difficult to get paid off with their strong hands because everyone knows they are playing a narrow range. For example, a tight-aggressive player raises from under the gun and you call in the big blind. The flop comes down K-7-5, you check, villain bets, what do you do? That king has likely smacked him straight in the face. He could have a set of kings, have paired the king with his ace-king, or even have aces.

Players like this tend to win lots of small pots rather than large pots.

How to Beat a Tight-Aggressive Player

The first thing to realize when you take on a TAG player is you have plenty of implied value. They are playing strong hands and will like to hold onto them. Use this to your advantage.

Start by playing more speculative hands, such as low pairs, suited connectors and one-gap connectors. These have huge implied value against a typical TAG. Using our previous example, imagine a TAG opens under the gun and you call in the big blind. The flop comes down K-7-5 like before. If you made the call with pocket threes, pocket sevens or a hand such as 7-5 then you are in business. Our tight-aggressive friend will think he is still strong here but you have him crushed, mostly.

How To Beat Aggressive Poker Players

In this scenario, it would be best to check and let villain continue building a pot for us. Do not be tempted to raise the flop with a hand as strong as a set because a good TAG can smell danger from a couple of kilometres away.

How To Beat Aggressive Poker Players Without

This leads us to setting traps, something that is highly effective. Allow the TAG to think their hand is best when you are super strong before snagging them in your trap on later streets when they are too invested in the pot to fold.

It is also worth bluffing at boards that would not help a tight-aggressive player. Flops with all low cards are perfect for this, even check-raising works well. Weaker TAGs like to look for monsters under the bed and will fold all but nut hands when they face aggression.

Another perfectly viable strategy is to play your draws aggressively. TAGs would never dream of semi-bluffing with an open-ended straight draw or flush draw.

Not paying them off is also a great idea. Chips not lost are as good as chips won, especially in tournaments. Some tight-aggressive players employ a pump and dump strategy. That is fire a continuation-bet and give up if they face any resistance. Muck your hand faster than lightning if a TAG is firing shots on multiple streets as they probably have the goods.

Like anything in poker, it reaps dividends if you learn to adapt to different situations. Often, the opposite is best. Play looser if facing a tight player, and play tighter if playing a loose player. Above all, have fun! Good luck at the tables.