Tight vs Loose

Aggressive vs Passive

Most players define a tight person who plays a small number of hands while a loose player is involved in lots of flops. Even though this is true to a certain point, tight players normally consider several factors before entering into a hand. These considerations are:

1. Their cards. (The better their starting cards the more likely they will play the hand)

2. Their position. (They will usually not play marginal or speculative hands in early position)

3. The other players remaining in the hand. (If strong players are still left to play the hand this will factor into the players decision to play the hand)

Tight players usually need one or more of the above requirements to be advantageous before they get involved in a hand. By comparison, loose players don’t usually follow these requirements before playing a hand. This isn’t to say that they are bad players; they just aren’t discouraged from playing a hand by those factors.

The next classification to give an opponent is whether they are aggressive or passive. Aggressive players tend to spend the majority of their hands betting and raising while passive players can be found checking and calling the majority of the time. It’s also important to remember that these factors can change depending on the table that you play at. The tightest player at one table may be the loosest at another table. It is important to determine a person’s style based on the time and table they are playing right now while using past play to try to assist you in coming up with a game plan to be victorious against them.

If you can watch a table prior to joining it (if you on a waiting list for example) this can give you the advantage of knowing some of the players playing styles prior to even sitting down and getting dealt a hand.

By Jon Marier