In general, in poker there are two different playing styles, loose play and tight play. Depending on your knowledge and experience you can win in many ways with, in some cases at least, styles of play mimicking real life personalities.
When it comes to new and inexperienced players this is almost always the case. Because they are new to poker, these players will often approach the game in a way that is more familiar and comfortable to them.
Ultimately the best thing is to be neither loose or tight and to vary gameplay depending on the table, hand, range and situation. If you are know as tight or loose it means you are predictable and being predictable in poker is a very bad thing indeed.
Learning Curve
What this means is that those who are naturally more risk averse in life are far more likely to start out their poker playing days playing in a risk averse manner, i.e., tight, playing only a few hands and not raising or re-raising very much. On the flipside, those of a more adventurous nature are more likely to take risks and play with a loose style, playing lots of hands and often raising and re-raising.
The more poker experience a player gathers they will figure out for themselves which strategies yield better results and which style they are more suited to. This can even be refined for particular opponents.
At the end of the day, so long as you know what you’re doing there is no right and wrong answer to the question of whether it is better to play tight or loose, but a mix of the two and knowing when to use either style is best.
Just as loose players might start opting to fold more often than before, tight players might start loosening up more regularly. Poker players never stop learning from the first hand to the last, gaining experience and gathering information on not only the best way to play poker but also about themselves as well.
Playing Too Tight
It is often the case that many new players begin their poker careers playing on the tighter end of the spectrum, playing too few hands by tightly folding. On top of this, they can often be far too passive as well. This means that when they do stay in the hand they will check and call rather than raising and betting.
It isn’t necessarily a bad thing to be cautious with your hand selection when you are starting out. In fact, many players maintain this approach believing tight to be right even after they have become more experienced and more successful.
The problem with committing to this approach though is that by continuing to play passively leaves far more reliant on your dealt cards, forcing you to possibly be continuously folding hand after hand.
In which case some aggression will be required from time to time. This can involve making bluffs when necessary and not staying in only when you are certain that you are holding the best hand.
It can be hard to tell, especially for new comers to the game, whether or not their style it too tight or not but signs that this may be the case include only playing when you have royals or pocket pairs and giving medium sized connecters a swerve.
Basically, you are only betting with strong hands and rarely if ever bet with weak hands, which as we say, isn’t always a bad thing.
One final thought in playing too tight is that new comers often focus too much on their own hands and not enough on what their opponents might be holding. It is important to try and get a read on them and whether they are looking strong or they are looking weak and responding appropriately.
Miss read this, and you could miss out on the opportunity to bet your rivals out of the hand.
Playing Too Loose
On the other hand (no pun intended) there are lots of people who start out playing poker the complete other way. Playing too loose, meaning that they have a mindset knowing that they didn’t get into that game to spend their whole time folding.
Naturally, this leads to loose players ending up playing more hands than their more experienced – and likelier to be tighter – opponents. This in turn will lead to them getting into some difficult positions.
Indeed, some new players can be influenced by aggressive strategy advice designed to put opponents on the retreat leading to a looser mindset when it comes to betting and raising. But it is important to remember that playing too loose with your hand selection and postflop play can lead to problematic and possibly expensive leaks.
Signs to look out for to see if this could be you include a mentality that means you find it hard to muck a hand that contains a premium such as an ace or a king. And even when the pots suggest that the smartest move would be to fold, you simply don’t want to.
Loose play could also apply to you if you are inclined to stay in with possible connectors or when opponents won’t fold to your raises and reraises and instead play against you in a way that indicates they believe your range to be very wide.
Finally, one extreme sign of loose play is when a player calls, bets or raises pre flop without taking into consideration their position and often from out of position.
Inexperienced players who are too loose with their play are considered to be fish and sharks that have caught on to this will set traps for them, lying in wait with strong hands to capitalise on the vulnerability in their looseness.
Just as with someone who plays too tight, loose players can often be thinking far too much about their own hand rather than what their opponent is holding and continuing with an unswerving style unwilling to be flexible despite giving consideration to what the wider situation might be.
At the end of the day, there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with either approach it’s just that things can become problematic when players rely too much on either way. There is a balance to be struck and benefits and success to be found in striking a healthy mix of both.