Poker players win pots by forcing their opponents to fold or winning when both players turn over their hole cards and reveal the strength of their hands. Part of learning to play poker better is to learn to read your opponents and calculate what their hand strength is compared to your own. In this two part article we are going to look at observations in opponents betting and how this can give you hot leads to profitable situations. We will also look at how to use what your opponents think about you and give you clues on when to profit by being deceptive.

When playing online poker we have the benefit of clever poker software to help us see these trends, but I am purist who believes the true poker player does not use such pieces of software that could become a crutch. I prefer to spot things myself as this indicates true progress in my poker game. The use of software is not nearly as satisfying.

Much of this two part feature will help the live poker player as well as the online poker player. Remember that bwin.com, my favourite poker site, offers you the opportunity to win satellite poker tournaments to gain seats to many large poker tournaments that offer huge prize money for those players good enough to excel in them. Much of what we discuss can also be used in online poker, particularly the classifying of opponents betting patterns.

Tight or Loose, Passive or Aggressive?

The first classification you should make is the overall style your opponents use. A poker player who plays tight plays few hands, usually in position and you can guess that the hands he does choose to play are probably the high pairs like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, and TT down to 66. The other hands that are likely holdings are AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ and QJ. Really tight players may not play anything lower than 88 or KQ. Loose players will visibly play a lot more hands and be constantly involved in pots. This suggests their range is significantly wider than the tight player and a very loose player could literally have any two cards. Whilst this makes them vulnerable to stronger hole cards, they can catch concealed monsters so these players are by no means weak if they know what they are doing.

Passive or aggressive play links in with their overall tight or loose style. A tight player must put their chips into the pot aggressively to make up for the blinds they lose and the multiple hands they fold due to their tightness. Aggressive players raise and bet three quarters to a full pot most of the time so it is expensive in terms of chips to contest a pot against them. This forces opponents to make a decision early on how they wish to proceed in the hand. Think of Tom “durrrr” Dwan in cash games, he builds the pot and makes his opponents uneasy about playing against him because they know a bit pot is coming.

If you spot a player that is playing tightly but then passively when they enter a pot this suggests they are “scared money” and not willing to gamble enough to accumulate chips. An aggressive style against this player should pay dividends. Watch the hands revealed at showdown because sometimes a tight player is not passive, but playing trappy and slow playing strong hands. This is also a beatable style because when they are betting strongly it is with either a marginal hand or a bluff. I used to unwittingly use this style and wonder why I did not get action on the hands I checked in rather than bet. It was because the opponents knew I was strong, because otherwise I would be betting!

We have much more to discuss in this article. Please click on Part 2 for the next section of this feature.

By Malcolm Clarke

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