Know Your Opponent – The 4 Types of Poker Playing Styles

Knowing your opponents poker playing styles, and exploiting your opponents weaknesses in poker will enable you to get better reads on players and optimal seat position. This is critical if you want to be a winning player, because your decision making will be easier. Typically there are four characteristics used to describe poker playing styles. The basic framework for understanding the the most common types of poker players is divided into 2 categories:

Loose/Tight – Describes the number of hands one plays. A loose player plays many hands, while a tight player plays fewer hands.

Passive/Aggressive – Describes how someone bets. Passive players do a lot of calling, while aggressive players do more raising.

By combining these characteristics you get 4 main types of poker players, which is relevant to both online and live play, although online players tend to use a more aggressive poker strategy. This breakdown will help you identify what category an opponent most closely matches and how to play against them.

Loose/Aggressive aka the “Maniac” – This type of player (LAG player) plays many hands and raises with them often. You can make a lot of money off them, but be careful, their aggressive betting can trap you in a big hand as well. You should tighten up a little and wait for a big hand because they will put a lot of money in the pot with mediocre hands. When the cards are hot for this type of player you can easily mistake them for being strong players, but when the cards are cold they will be giving their chips away like crazy. A standard LAG player has stats along the lines of 25/20 or higher for 6-max. The hyper aggressive players will have stats as high as 40/30, you really feel their presence at the table because they are playing so many hands and trying to dominate.

Tight/Aggressive – Most poker players strive to play TAG poker. This type of player is viewed as playing only premium hands and betting them aggressively, forcing opponents to make decisions and mistakes. Once they steal have your chips they will be difficult to get back. They have the ability to fold good hands when they believe they are beat, and the ability to raise with lesser hands when they believe they have the advantage or sense weakness from an opponent. A standard TAG player has stats in the range of 17/15 to 21/17 for 6-max.

Loose/Passive aka the “Calling Station” – This type of player is viewed by experienced players as a weak player, and good aggressive players are looking to exploit their weakness. A LP player plays a lot of hands and does a lot of calling. They won’t make you pay when you’re beat or on a draw, but you will be able to extract the maximum number of bets from them when they are drawing against you. Be careful not to over bet your hands against this player because your bluffs won’t work, they will call you and try to hit their drawing hands. A loose passive player has stats along the lines of 33/5. There is a large gap between VPIP and PFR because they choose to play most of their hands passively preflop.

Tight/Passive aka the “Rock” – This player only plays premium hands. You should like to play against them because you know what they have. If they are involved in a pot you can be sure they have a good hand, and if they raise, look out. They likely have something big like AA, KK, or QQ. You can make this player fold with your aggressive bets when they fail to connect with the flop. Being heads up against this type of player is ideal, and come out raising. If they hang around you’re probably beat and you can fold without losing too many bets. A tight passive player will have stats along the lines of 12/10.

Tight-passive players are the easiest to play against because you know when they have a big hand and they will not put you to tricky decisions because they rarely bluff. This is not to suggest that its not profitable playing against aggressive players, its just a matter of properly adjusting.

Using Your Opponents Stats

Once you are able to identify the poker playing style of your opponents (by looking at VPIP/PFR and observing their play), it will allow you to make an adjustment and play the opposite style. A winning player knows that there is not one winning poker playing style, you are required to adjust to players and the table conditions so you can exploit your opponents tendencies. For example, if a player at the table is playing an aggressive style of poker you should tighten up and be selectively agressive. If you are playing against tight players then always be looking to steal the hell out of him until they start adjusting. Weak players won’t notice what you’re doing (they are just playing their cards) and if they do they will improperly adjust. Also, you should notice the more aggressive poker playing styles have a smaller gap between VPIP and PFR. TAG players play their hands more aggressively before the flop and will either raise or fold preflop instead of limping in.

Believe it or not, when considering online poker table selection, it is possible to get a bad seat at a good table. When you start playing online poker more regularly, you will begin to develop a history of playing with the same players (which happens when you play at a certain limit for a while), and because you already know how they play, it will allow you to sit to the left of aggressive players so you always have position on them, and sit to the right of passive players, allowing you to steal the blinds because they never defend them. Now that you know about the different types op playing styles, its time to learn about poker rakeback. We offer the highest rakeback deals for online poker players, and also offer promotions worth $300.000+ every month. Sign up Here to get started.