Grinding down tight players

Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 24 October 2009 / Leave a Comment

The problem with a super tight playing style is that any half observant player can very quickly identify what sort of hands you are playing.

A large percentage of the poker players you will ever meet are very tight. They have either been taught - or discovered by themselves - that sticking to only playing premium hands enables them to make money off of weak players, and as a result they sit back and patiently wait for big hands, refusing to play anything but monsters.

Although this strategy has its merits against the very weakest players (who simply keep paying these players off, no matter how few hands they have been playing), against good players this player type gets eaten alive. The problem with a super tight playing style is that any half observant player can very quickly identify what sort of hands you are playing (after all, if you are only playing 3% of your hands you are basically telling the table you only have premium hands when you enter pots).

As in any aspect of poker, predictability is an extremely dangerous thing, and people only playing the very strongest hands leave themselves open to two key routes of attack. Firstly, their blinds can be attacked unrelentingly. As they are folding most of their hands, they are steadily losing money from the blinds (through not defending them enough and not trying to steal them regularly), and a good player can mercilessly take advantage of this.

Usually these players win the odd big pot which makes up for this constant drain from the blinds, but if you identify them as a player type you can not only stop them winning the odd big pot, but in fact make them start losing the odd big pot, which is shown by the next key route of attack.

As you know these players are only entering the pot with big hands, you are actually in an extremely good implied odds situation. As you are well aware that they have a big hand, when they enter a pot you can pretty much get involved with any two cards, safe in the knowledge that if you flop two pair or better you will probably win a big pot from them (they have not waited all day for aces and kings just to go and fold them after all). As you know what sort of hands they are playing, you can get out cheap when you flop one pair type hands, and win big pots when you hit anything that beats an over pair.

Tight players can be frustrating to play, but in reality they are some of the best poker players to have around you. Although they do not throw chips around in the style of a maniac, they actually lose at a similar rate against good players, and identifying them and taking advantage of them is critical to long term success.

More poker articles

Cracking rocks - Beating weak-tight players
Consequences of position in poker
Beating weak games