Online Poker Is Too Hard

Online Poker Too Hard

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PokerNews Staff

When talking about how to play poker, you may have heard the saying “tight is right,” which is accurate to some degree. Players new to poker are often advised to play tight (that is, with a narrow, strong range of hands), while some more experienced players prefer to play a tight style that can be hard to beat if employed properly. Knowing how to beat tight poker players can be the difference between having a winning session and a losing one.

What is “tight poker”?

Before you can learn how to beat tight poker players, you first need to learn what is meant by “tight poker.” As touched upon above, playing tight means that a player is, for the most part, being very careful when selecting starting hands. Although some tight players will mix up their play by raising or three-betting with a weaker hand such as suited connectors, they typically play pairs, strong aces and kings, and the more powerful suited connectors like queen-jack and jack-ten.

The main positive about this style is it is much easier to play than a loose one because working out where you stand in a hand after the flop is often a simpler task. If you’re only playing strong hands preflop, you are more likely going to be able to determine how likely you are to have the best hand on later streets.

For example, if you’ve raised with and the flop comes , then you are almost always going to have the best hand. Conversely, a loose player may see the same flop after raising with , flop middle pair, then have a trickier time figuring out how to proceed in the hand.

The first step to learning how to play tight poker players is working out if they are aggressive or passive preflop, and also noting what style they tend to employ on later streets. Thankfully, this isn’t too difficult to do if you are observant. An aggressive player will rarely, if ever, limp preflop, and also often will be betting and raising after the flop. Meanwhile passive players only raise or bet when they believe they have a strong holding and will generally only call when they have caught a piece of the board.

Online Poker Too Hard

Once you have pegged someone as tight-aggressive or tight-passive, you can set out to beat them.

How to beat tight poker players

It is said that you should play a style of poker that is the opposite to that of your opponents. If someone is playing a loose-aggressive style, then it is often correct to tighten up and play a stronger range of hands. With this in mind, if you are playing against a tight player, it could pay off to play a wider range of hands.

The strengths of tight poker players — playing the more premium holdings preflop — can also work against them after the flop. A flop such as is less likely to have connected with a tight player’s opening range, which leaves the door wide open for you to steal the pot with a raise or check-raise.

Likewise, if you have pegged a player as being tight-aggressive, flopping a set on a board that includes a high card can be hugely profitable. Imagine a flop reading and you’re holding for middle set. Your opponent could have hands such as king-queen, queen-jack, ace-queen, kings, or aces here and is going to want to see the next community cards with this holding. Of course, the player may also have a set of queens, but this is unlikely and if they do, hey, that’s poker! Unless they have a pair of queens here, you’re likely to win a large pot.

A tight poker player employing a tight-passive strategy is very rarely a winning player because such a player often becomes very easy to read. Tight players generally only bet or raise when they have the goods, and will either check-call if they have some part of the board, or check-fold when they miss completely.

Despite this easy-to-read style, this is the tight poker player that many players struggle to beat. The key to success here is to listen to what they are telling you with their betting. If tight-passive players check-raise you on a king-high flop, they very likely have at least a king in their hand. If a tight-passive player is check-calling you on the flop and turn and all you have is queen-high, you better pray that you hit the river if you’re planning on betting again!

You can also use their passivity against them when you have a strong hand. There’s no fancy play involved, just simple aggression once your tight-passive opponent has shown a willingness to go all the way with a hand. Exercise extreme caution if they come out with a raise on the river, though, because river raises from this player type are rarely bluffs.

Do poker pros play tight?

If you happen to have read any poker book written before the poker boom, you’d be forgiven for thinking that every poker player played tight. Many pros made a good living playing a tight-aggressive style then because it was common for recreational players to play loosely and passively. Probably the most famous example of the tight poker pro is Dan Harrington who besides winning the 1995 World Series of Poker Main Event made three other WSOP Main Event final tables (in 1987, 2003, and 2004) and earned countless additional tournament scores, achieved in large part by playing tight poker.

The real answer to the question of whether or not poker pros play tight is “sometimes.” Although in the modern game playing styles are much looser, the best players know how to switch gears to keep their opponents guessing, often playing tightly for a couple of orbits of the table before instantly flipping a switch and turning loose-aggressive. Those at the top of the game know both when to play tight and when to be loose, using both styles to be successful.

Conclusion

Beating tight poker players can be difficult at times because they often have strong holdings preflop and that translates to strength on later streets. However, by carefully selecting your own hands and using such opponents’ tight nature against them, you’ll soon know how to beat tight poker players on a consistent basis.

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Low stakes cash games almost by definition are supposed to be easy. After all, these games are often populated by some of the least skilled players that exist. Then as you play higher and higher limits, the competition becomes increasingly more competent and even world class at the highest stakes.

However, not all small stakes cash games are created equal. This is often the case right now for online poker players, especially those playing from places where the options are limited. Players are sometimes forced to play in relatively tough lineups online, even for very small amounts of money.

In this article I am going to discuss some of the best ways to beat tough low stakes cash games.

Succeeding Against Competent Low Stakes Poker Players

If there is one weakness that most competent players at the lower stakes have in common, it is an unwillingness to put big money in the middle without the nuts.

They will often pretend to be strong by making aggressive plays early on while the pot is relatively small, but once big portions of their stack are at risk, they will back down unless they have a really strong hand. And, of course, the great thing about poker is that it is really hard to make a strong hand.

Understanding this can lead to many profitable situations at the lower stakes where if you just have a little bit more heart than your opponent, you can take away many pots with little or nothing.

Now this doesn’t mean that you should turn into a maniac and start double-floating or raising the river every single hand. That’s a recipe for disaster. The key to taking away more pots versus competent poker players is all about knowing their tendencies.

More precisely, this means knowing who the weak players are.

Identifying the Weak Players at the Lower Stakes

One of the easiest ways to spot the weaker players is by looking at how often they go to showdown. If you are playing online and are using a HUD, then you can simply refer to their WTSD% (went to showdown %).

Players who are averse to playing bigger pots without a strong hand will often be on the low end here. Typically when I spot somebody whose WTSD% is in the low 20’s or below, I can almost be certain that this is the type of player who can be moved off of hands.

Now there is one important caveat to using this stat — you need to make sure that you have a decent sample size on the player. If a player has only gone to showdown five times, for instance, then this stat could be wildly off the mark. This is why I always like to have at least a couple hundred hands on my opponent before relying too heavily on this statistic.

If you are not using a HUD, another way to identify the weaker players at the lower limits is simply to pay attention to the frequency of pots they win and the types of hands they are showing down.

If they tend to play a “fit or fold” type of game — e.g., making just a single continuation bet and then giving up if they don’t get the fold — then this is the type of player who you want to float against a lot and take pots away from. Weaker players will also rarely show up with a bluff or call down with a weaker hand like middle or bottom pair.

Taking Pots Away From the Weaker Players

There are a few other important points to consider when you are looking to win more pots versus the weaker players in these games.

1. Frequency

First, you need to make sure you aren’t trying to bluff the same player every single time. You need to lay off and just let them have the pot from time to time.

Otherwise you run the risk of appearing like a maniac to a particular player and forcing that player to start fighting back. You want to make aggressive plays just often enough in order to make it believable.

2. Equity in the Pot

Secondly, you want to make sure that you have some equity in the pot when you are making an aggressive play. There is often no reason to run a bluff when you literally have nothing at all. Always try to have a least some sort of weak draw like a gutshot, or a semi-playable hand if making a move preflop.

On the river, of course, sometimes it will make sense to bet or raise with absolutely nothing because this is the only way to win the pot. However, on all previous streets always make sure that you have outs.

3. Board Texture and Situation

Lastly, it is very important that you make aggressive plays in the right spots and in the right situations. For instance, it is not a good idea to three-bet light preflop versus a tight player who opened under the gun. Most people will open with their tightest range from early position.

It would make much more sense to make this play versus someone opening from the button or the cutoff. The reason why is that most people will open with their widest range from late position because they are often just trying to steal the blinds.

Postflop, a similar logic applies. If you are the preflop caller it isn’t a good idea to make aggressive plays on Broadway heavy boards like . Somebody who raises preflop is more likely to have some of these cards in their range.

It is a much better idea to semi-bluff on a board that is wet and has lower cards — e.g., like . As the preflop caller, you are more likely to have cards that connect with a board like this. And more importantly your opponent is less likely to have connected in any major way with these kinds of boards.

If you are the preflop raiser, the exact opposite applies. You should absolutely use scare cards such as an or a to your advantage. A weaker player will often let go of a middle pair-type hand because they are afraid that you hit the Broadway cards that you are representing.

Final Thoughts

You are never going to “crush” a tough lineup of decent players at the lower stakes. Your opponents simply do not make enough big fundamental mistakes in order for this to happen.

In fact, the best approach to these games is actually not to play in them at all. There should always be at least one really bad player at the table when you are playing at stakes this low. But for various reasons this is not always possible in today’s online poker environment.

Hopefully if you do find yourself at a tough low stakes table, some of the strategies outlined in this article will help you gain a bit of an edge versus the more competent players in these games.

Nathan “BlackRain79” Williams is the author of the popular micro stakes strategy books, Crushing the Microstakes and Modern Small Stakes. He also blogs regularly about all things related to the micros over at www.blackrain79.com.