Player Style Descriptions

Player Styles There are various ways to describe the styles of poker players. The most common segregation is to split them into extremes such as: Loose versus Tight: How often does the player see the flop Passive versus Aggressive: Do they usually call or do they usually raise? A Loose player plays lots of hands and a Tight player plays very few hands. A Passive player tends to play by checking or by calling bets and an Aggressive player tends to play by betting and raising. Since these two characteristics are not mutually exclusive they can be combined into a matrix, giving you four basic player types: Loose/Passive: Plays lots of hands, usually by calling or checking Loose/Aggressive: Plays lots of hands, usually betting or raising Tight/Passive: Plays few hands, usually by calling or checking Tight/Aggressive: Plays few hands, usually betting or raising What does this tell you? Over time every player gets AA and 72 as often as anyone else. This means that if a player is loose and plays often he must be playing more poor quality hands than a player who is picky and is playing very few hands. A Loose/Aggressive player is betting and raising with poorer quality hands than a player who is tight but also aggressive, so he's either intentionally trying to pressure his opponents into folding, or he overvalues the strength of his hands. A player who is Loose/Passive likes to play often and calls a lot and hopes that it turns out that he has the best hand, though he's not sure enough to bet for himself. He will also chase a lot, calling in hopes that his flush or his one card straight draw will get there. A Tight/Passive player is playing quality hands but is afraid that someone may have a better hand. He may just call preflop with a pair of Jacks, then just call bets after the flop hoping that his Jacks turn out to have been the best hand.	Introduction Styles and hands - Player Style descriptions - Tight/Aggressive style - Starting Hands - Video - Playing the flop - Playing the turn and river Odds and Outs - Count your Outs - Pot Odds - Odds on the Turn and River - Using Percentages - Bet sizing, expressed versus implied odds Rules and terms - How to play a game - Poker hand rankings - Terminology and definitions For futher study - No Limit Hold’em starting hands; the Next Generation - My Aces got cracked! - Can I fold KK preflop? - How to play JJ? - Playing AK, Big Slick - Should I move up to avoid the bad players? Part I - Way ahead / Way behind - What is ABC poker?
You might hear these player types referred to by names: Loose/Aggressive = Maniac, Loose/Passive = Calling Station, Tight/Passive = Rock, or other equivalent names. Don't worry about the names, what's important is how the person plays and what that style means. By categorizing players by playing style we can draw a guess as to how strong their hand is as well as a guess as to how we expect them to act or react. We then use this information to help determine how to play against each type of player. Against a Loose/Aggressive player we may decide not to bet with our strong hands and let him do the betting for us, or, because he is betting and raising often we may choose to re-raise his bets hoping that he will realize that his hand is not so strong. We should also tend to call his bets with marginal hands because he will be often bluffing or overvaluing the strength of his hand. Often we'll win, but sometimes we'll lose. A loose/aggressive player experiences wild swings as they win and lose many sizable pots, and take the rest of the table with them. A Loose/Passive may have any two cards so we should bet our decent strength hands to get money into the pot when we are likely beating their hand. Be concerned if they suddenly become aggressive on the turn or river because this runs against their nature and likely means that they have a very strong hand. But if a Tight/Passive player is calling he may have a strong hand that he's just afraid to bet. Against this type of player we need to be more judicious about how large and how frequently we bet because he may have us beat and just be afraid to bet it himself. As with the loose/passive we should be careful when the tight/passive player suddenly starts betting. Note that I haven't made any comments about the Tight/Aggressive playing style yet. This is because Tight/Aggressive is the ideal style for beginners to adopt. Tight/Aggressive means choosing to play only good quality hands and not just hoping to get a miracle flop. Tight/Aggressive also means recognizing that we want to bet and raise with good hands in order to get more money into the pot when we are likely to be winning, and to make it expensive for the passive players to chase their longshot draws. When you play against a Tight/Aggressive opponent you know that they have a good hand and that they will make it expensive for you to see more cards. You will be forced to decide whether your hand is better, or whether the cost that he's going to charge you to see more cards is going to be worth it or not.

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Player Styles