There are a few types of poker players. Many players think that you have to see a player to be able to know their type. This is a mistake as we will see. A good reason to play at Juicy Stakes Poker Australia is because most of what you can learn about opponents can be “seen” online!
What Does it Mean to “See” Different Player Types?
There are four aspects of poker that tell you something about your opponents:
- Tells
- Folding habits
- Playing habits
- How players react or respond to you
There really is no other area that we can use to learn about our opponents.
Tells are More Easily Seen in Person
There is no question that most tells are physical actions that we can see only in person. So, it would seem that poker at land based casinos is to be preferred to online poker!
In fact, tells are by far the least reliable way to determine whether a player has a good hand or a poor hand. Almost all poker players have tells but they are simply too hard to detect in better players. When Daniel Negreanu chatters on and on during a game, it is a tell but very few of his colleagues in the rarified air of the top players in the world can figure this tell out even though they know that his chattering is a major tell!
Online poker is usually better for most players than land based poker because it is so much more flexible and because almost all of the hints about your opponents are readily available when you play at Juicy Stakes Poker online!
Aren’t Folding Habits and Playing Habits Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Yes, they are!
But this is a lot more complex than most poker neophytes think! That’s why we listed them as separate entries on our list.
Both folding habits and playing habits relate to how often a player stays in a hand at least to see the flop, how often they stay in a hand in early, middle, or late position, how often they raise with a mediocre hand, how much they raise, and many more individual parameters of play.
Aggressive Play and Passive Play
Some players generally play aggressively; some players generally play passively. That means that a player who has called or raised on any street may be playing aggressively or passively. Just staying in a hand is not in and of itself an expression of aggressiveness or passiveness.
Experienced players love to see a player who plays far too many hands and plays them aggressively. These players lose a lot of money! Then there are the players who don’t play more hands than they “should” and when they play, they also play aggressively.
There are, in contrast, passive players who play a lot of hands and passive players who play very few hands.
Loose Players and Tight Players
Poker players who play a lot of hands are generally called loose players while players who play relatively few hands are called tight players. Finally, we can list the four player types as they are generally seen by poker analysts:
- Loose-passive players
- Loose-aggressive players
- Tight-passive players
- Tight-aggressive players
Good and experienced poker players can identify each of these player types both at an online poker room and at a land based poker room. This kind of poker behavior has nothing to do with tells which are ephemeral at best.
Loose-passive Players Rarely Win at Poker
There are two main reasons why these players rarely win at poker. The first is that they simply play too many hands. Unless you are the big blind, playing a marginal hand costs money. Playing any hand costs money but the loose-passive player puts money in the pot that they have no statistically sound reason to do so!
By calling to see the flop and by chasing hands that will be hard to make and will often lose even if the player hits an out these loose players lose a lot of money. Loose-passive players are far worse as poker players than loose-aggressive players. In order to win at poker, you have to learn to build a pot but loose-passive players rarely are able to make a bet or raise that will build a pot.
Good players usually fold in the face of a rare bet from a loose-passive player. They can’t bluff because their overall playing style is too transparent for a bluff to work. Similarly, you won’t be able to bluff this type of player.
Loose-aggressive Players are Hard to Win Money From
These players play a lot of hands and bet ferociously. Their loose style makes it hard to bluff them and their aggressive style repels bluffs! Even if you are a loose player yourself, the best course of action against such an aggressive player is to play tighter than you like to play. Otherwise, you will get caught in later streets facing a lot of money already put in the pot and a very aggressive bet to you.
Tight-passive Players Never Win Much and Often Lose Hands they Should Win
They are both too tight and too passive to build pots and trick opponents into calling or raising against the nuts. In fact, because these players are so passive as well as tight, it is often easy to bluff them out of a winning hand!
Tight-passive players require you to be patient as they play very few hands and don’t like to make large calls. Play more passively against them when they do call and try to lure them into later streets.
Tight-aggressive Players Often Know What they are Doing Very Well
You have to be on your toes against this type of player. Very often a tight--aggressive player has gone through being other player types before gaining the experience that transform her or him into a tight-aggressive player.
As a tight player, they play relatively few hands. This indicates solid knowledge of positional betting, hand ranges, and the other players’ tendencies. As an aggressive player, they go for the jugular when they are in a hand. A lot of the most famous YouTube clips of great hands are of tight-aggressive players playing like tight-aggressive players
The Essential Importance of Paying Attention
The only way to identify which type of player an opponent is is to be as observant as you can be! That’s yet another reason why it is better to play poker online at Juicy Stakes: you can play every day, you can monitor your playing better, and if you play at the same time you will often play against the same players.
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