Poker play styles: various kind of players.

Kind of poker players and their style:

There are four kind of players in Texas Hold’em Poker: tight-passive, tight-aggressive, loose-passive and loose-aggressive (divided in “Maniacs” or “False Maniacs”). First feature (tight or loose) characterize the number of hands that a person can play; instead, the second (passive or aggressive) describe the kind of players’ bets.

Tight-passive: this kind of players will not win much money in a no-limit game. It happens because this players don’t utilize the entire value of their winner hands. When you play against this players you can use various strategy: 1. flop bluff; 2. choose fold when they can have a good hand; 3. take benefit by your control.

Loose-passive:this kind of players hope that other person make bluffs against them, because they often call with the second best hand. Call with the second best hand is the recipe that lead to disaster in no-limit games. It’s not very usual to meet loose-passive players in a no-limit hold’em tournament, because is very easy to lose using this technique. If you are lucky to share the table with a loose-passive player, you will win money against him simply by medium bets (having a good hand, of course).

Maniaci loose-aggressive: this kind of players will try to win various pot. However, they will be very often trapped and will lose their stack in less than 2 hands. What make difference between them and good loose-aggressive players is the quite capacity to understand their challenger. They love so much action that go to the dogs by their self. An important advise: before labelling them as bad Maniac players, look carefully their way to play and if you watch almost two errors (not only one), so you could easy play. However, this kind of players are very unusual and you can find them only in lower tournaments.

Loose-aggressive False Maniac: are similar to maniac players, but they are really dangerous, sly and intelligent. Surely they will lose much money in various pots, but they will take part in others, also winning huge pots. They usually win making a good reading of their challenger and obtaining max profit possible to the hands. Here’s how can be these two kind of loose-aggressive players. A bad maniac player would easy bet, calling all-in in a 246 rainbow flop and having the following cards: A6 (without considering that a challenger could have a major pair or a flopped set too). Instead, if a false maniac player having the same flop go all-in, you have to be aware that he probably has a good hand, maybe a served-scale (he may play with a 35 suited hand). So you should fold also your ace pairs, for example. Don’t trust this kind of players. It’s possible to make profit from them, beating them in a big pot. Given that they will play many hands, especially in a shorthanded table, they will often play with second best hand cards. Once they are in this situation, you need simply to be sure to don’t let them go easily from the play in action. Another important advise is to have sure bankroll when you are going to play against this kind of players. You need to be calm in order to raise and call their bets until the end of the action, avoiding to be scared.

Tight-aggressive: many people are sure that it’s the best style. It’s an equilibrate, intelligent style and it can be also aggressive when it’s possible. Pre-flop range will be very selected for tight-aggressive players, but not devoid of creativity. Strong point of this style is to play not many pots, but playing it in a super aggressive manner, so you will need to fight to gain every pot in which a tight-aggressive plays. Obviously, you must fight with the right intelligence in order to avoid money waste. Very hard to be understood, surely it’s a particular style, difficult to master for a beginner player (a lot of practice action will be necessary). Main problems of a tight-aggressive player are: 1. he can be sent away after a bluff or too easily be understood.