Welcome to our poker strategy guide where we shall help you take your game from basic to pro offering you some of the favouirte strategies used by some of the top poker players in the world today.
Poker is known to be a game of skill, therefore a good strategy can help your game become more successful as you enjoy your games whether online or off. Both Amateur players and professionals should explore and test new strategies to up their game.
However, mastering just one strategy – then applying that strategy to every game will not work. You need first to develop your observation skills and be able to adapt your play quickly in order to become an adept player.
Therefore, your poker strategy will mostly depend on the types of game you are playing. Whether that is a tournament or cash game, you can develop your basic strategy and then adapt it to that particular game.
With that in mind, we will break down the basic terminology commonly used based on your own particular playing style.
Table of Contents
The Tight-Passive Poker Strategy
This particular poker strategy can be used by both professional players and newbies alike. With this strategy players are required to play with a limited range that includes only strong hands. Limps (to just call, rather than bet or raise) and calls (to put in the amount that another player bet – “I call”) make up most of the tactics used by passive players.
The Tight-Aggressive Strategy (TAG)
Commonly used by newbies to the poker world, this particular strategy is used in a wide variety of poker games where the player uses the strategy with a lower frequency of playing hands (This is the ‘Tight’ part). This strategy is one of the most viable tactics for beginners as it lowers the risk of losing the more marginal hands. So, with a strong starting hand a player might aggressively raise or re-raise the pot.
The Loose Aggressive Strategy (LAG)
This strategy is one that is works best for one of the most popular types of poker – Texas Hold’em and is usually adopted by the more advance poker player allowing them to stay quite unpredictable for their opponents – however there is a downside to this tactic and that is you will need to move from beginner to pro to be able to use it as it is that advanced.
In order to stay a winner using this strategy, you need to be able to stay calm (using that poker face) during the rounds, as this will help you to decide when to stop the aggressive game against your opponent (especially if your strategy has not given you the desired result)
Differing ‘Types’ of Poker Players
- Aggressive players will carry on betting and chasing the pot will all the hands they are dealt. After a flop (the first 3 community cards dealt face up on the board) the aggressive player will carry on betting, they are the risk-takers who are not scared to bet their chips.
- The Passive players are not prone to take risks – they somehow have a fear of losing their games.
- A ‘Loose’ player will tend to play more hands than the average player before the flop. If there are a number of loose players in the same game, then the game becomes a ‘loose’ game where they will deal with a wide range of hands, including those weak hands,
- The ‘Tight’ player will deal with only strong hands. Games like this are not packed with poker action as players will mainly fold or do not call the raises or raise the bid themselves.
Know Your Opponents
Playing poker, or more to the point, being a successful poker player lies a great deal on being able to read your opponent’s body language whilst at the same time being able to disguise your own. This skill will help you pick up on their own strategies, and if you can spot the tactics that they favor you will be able to find the counter attacks to beat them.
Reading and acting on others body language is a skill that takes time to master, it is therefore essential for you to stay alert during the game and watch every action taken by the other players as you play your own game of poker.
Remember that even if you believe that you have found out which particular strategy your opponents use, their gameplay might not be that straightforward, after all they are poker players too! Be flexible in your own gameplay and alter your strategy accordingly.
