Poker is a game of many different styles. However, one of the biggest and often overlooked styles is tight poker. Tight poker simply means that you are disciplined with your hand selection. In other words, when you play a hand, you Play Tight Poker it with the cards that have the highest probability of winning.
While playing tight poker is not the only way to win a poker game, it is one of the best. So once you know how to play tight poker, you can remain relatively safe while taking small risks. However, you should still maintain an element of caution. Often, when people are figuring how to play tight poker, they lose this sense of caution. depo 30 bonus 30 If you can maintain this tightness, you will not be at the risk of losing large amounts of your stack to your opponents without having a very strong hand.
The first step to playing tight poker is to treat your hand like it is the most valuable thing you own. You are not always going to win with your hand, but if you understand that your opponents will not be able to beat yours, you can sit back and relax, and win relatively easily.
When you play tight, you should look at the comfort levels of the hands on the table. If you have a hand that is very comfortable to play, you should play it, especially in early positions. The only time you should not play a hand if you know any of the following conditions is when you are late in the betting. If you call in the middle of a betting round, you should also consider folding.
There are hands that are better than others and you should play them aggressively. The worst hands are the ones played when you have the least amount of information. You should play your hands aggressively for two reasons:
- Your opponents will not have any information about your hand
- You will have the best hand or an extremely strong hand pre-flop or on the flop.
For instance, if you have J-10 suited, and the flop is Q-10-8, you should play the hand aggressively. If your opponents know anything about you, they cannot possibly have a hand better than K-J or 10-10, so they should fold pre-flop. They will be reluctant to fold to an all-in, so be confident that you will win the hand unless you run into a lot of Aces.
If you play tight and you keep yourself in the hand, you are much more likely to win a continuation bet, or a blind steal. When you are late in position and heads up, you should also consider taking the blinds if the odds are in your favor.
If you can play your starting hands tightly, you are much more likely to be in good shape when you play cards on the flop. Play tight when you are playing marginal hands pre-flop and you will win over the long term.
For specific hands, I suggest playing them aggressively one or two times to set a loose table image. If you raise or re-raise pre-flop, this will send a strong message to your opponents. If you fold on the flop, you are sending the very strong message that you should be playing this hand to a high degree.
This is particularly important when you have less than a pair. Less than 2 pair is almost worthless, so you should not commit a large amount of chips to them unless you have a very strong hand. And once you have a strong hand, you should always bet. You are betting your hand to draw further cards for a cheap shot at the pot.
The hands you decide to play tight pre-flop are the hands you can play slowly. They are the hands that work best in a situation of no opposition. The problem with ace, king, queen, and pocket pairs are they are too fabulous to play against any hand except maybe pocket aces. Even pocket kings can be a big mistake and if you stand up against one of these hands, you can’t be sure you are ahead.
The best way to play these hands aggressively is to first pre-flop, call the big blind, and see if you hit an ace or a king. If you hit, start betting aggressive immediately. You will find that your opponents will put you on a higher hand and they will be forced to play back at you with a wide range of hands.
If you don’t hit your hand, and your opponent calls, it is often worth throwing away a medium-strength hand and raising hard to get him to fold. Very often you will find you are backed into a corner with a call or a raise, and you will have to commit your chips to the pot, which is better than no pot at all.
Another situation to consider is when you call the big blind, but your opponent checks.