Poker is a game of betting, not calls. Players that like to bet are typically called bettors. Betting is a joining a battle, a mandatory bet that solidifies the victor. Calling is opting not to bet, or opting to raise instead.
While betting may be mandatory in Holdem, in Omaha (and other poker games) betting is optional. Oftentimes, whether you bet or not will be determined pre-flop by what you’re holding.
Tight Aggressive players are those that only join in a pot when they have a very good hand, or those that are long-term winners. (These players will win over 99% of the time.)
The way a tight aggressive player is expected to play is that they will enter an initial bet round with a minimum raise, typically three or four times the big blind.
If forced to fold on the initial betting round, a tight aggressive player will fold to any raise, but they are more likely to call rather than fold, given the expected pot size.
Should they choose to play a hand, a tight aggressive player will raise with any hand that is within their range, except for very low pairs. In other words, if their range is 25 suited cards, and another player bets one dollar on the flop, and the tight aggressive player raises to three dollars, the tight aggressive player may re-raise to ten dollars, since any face card in their range.
Therefore, in the event of a showdown, tight aggressive players are likely to control the size of the pot, in contrast to their aggressive opponents.
Many experienced poker players like to apply the label “Tight Aggressive” to a range of hand play as opposed to calling, chasing, or checking. We’ve applied this to our assessment of play in the last paragraph. Any players that consider themselves “Aggressive Players”, or those that would probably classify themselves as such, are more likely to bet than call. If you do not fall into one of these descriptions, you can improve your game significantly by adding more to your vocabulary. Increase the number of words you use in your combinations, and experiment with varying the meaning of those words.
The tight aggressive player is relatively easy to spot. They are easy to tell, because they rarely raise. They don’t like making loose calls for large raises with calling hands, and will re-raise any substantial bet (up to four times the initial wager) by the players that remain to play. The shorter aggressive player is harder to pin down. Heterogeneous play is more difficult to describe. When we can observe a player to have a varied range of hands, we classify them according to our observation of their play. Some tight aggressive players are predictable, and some are surprisingly unpredictable.
Some Examples of Tight Aggressive Play
- Words meaning strong hands: QQ, 44, 76, ace
- Words meaning medium hands: 54, QQ, 57, TT, ace king
- Words meaning weak hands: JT, 6, 54, AT, ace, king
Some Examples of Loose Aggressive Play
- words meaning strong hands: AJ, AQ, AK, AKs, AQs, AJs, KQ, QJs, JJ, 76s, ATs, KJs, ATTs, KQs, TTJs, 99s, ATTs, T7s, 98s, 87s, 76s, 65s, 54s, QTs, Q9s, JTs
- words meaning medium hands: AT, KTs, QTs, J9s, AT, 76, 56s, 74s,erved Curigenses: 33% to 25%
- words meaning weak hands: 54s, Q9, 56, Q8s, J8s, J7s, KT, Q9, 76s, 65s, 54s, Q7s, 75s, 54s, Q6s, 74s, 64s, 53s, 42s, 32s, 32
The above description of tight aggressive Naga303 is a brief interpretation of the general playing style of a tight aggressive player. This playing strategy is not set in stone. It is a tool, as you can sharpen it to your liking and your playing experience. You can see that the general guideline of only playing good hands as a tight aggressive player is a sound one to base your poker play by. However, it is not necessarily all that apply to you. You are the player that must make a decision on how to modify the loose aggressive strategy if you want to make a success of your tight aggressive game.
You must add to your poker vocabulary, the vocabulary common to all poker players, to have a cutting edge. You do this by adding to your personal knowledge of playing poker.