Texas Holdem Player Types
Each poker player has his or her own playing style, no matter they realize it or not and each playing style can be effective enough. Remember that you may be more or less successful poker player, depending on your type of play. In this post, the term ‘style’ will be referring to two different things.
Actually, it refers how many hands you play, how far you play these hands and how much you bet or call on those hands. Basically, there are two general Texas Holdem player types and they are tight and loose poker gamblers. Each one of these two categories has its own subcategories.
I guarantee that you will find a lot of all of these player types when you play at real money poker sites. The idea is to spot them and figure out the likelihood that a player is bluffing or trying to draw you in to a big loss.
Aggressive players make a lot of bets in an average or better position. They raise and check raise often and use high betting to push passive opponents out of the game. Conversely, passive gamblers usually just call the pot to stay in, even if their hands are good. This particular type of poker players play almost always carefully.
While Tight Texas Holdem players wait for the best cards, loose gamblers pay to see the flop more often than they should and nevertheless they play more cards as usual and often will take a gamble against the odds.
The most rewarding strategy when you participate in a Texas Holdem game is to vary your playing style in order to keep your behavior unpredictable. Moreover, you have to change up your style throughout a game session, depending on changes in players, blinds, position etc.
Basically, you don’t want to play too little or too often. Mix in a bluff to keep people honest and make people pay when you have best hand. This is called being Tight-Aggressive.
As a matter of fact, we have to mention that most successful and profitable poker players recommend the tight-aggressive playing style. Actually, playing aggressive, you rely on your skill to read people’s weaknesses, to semi-bluff or bluff them out and eventually push them on tilt out of frustration.
Nevertheless, exactly this playing style gives you the great opportunity to take advantages, exceeding your expectations. Bringing the best hands to the flop and post-flop, you guarantee yourself more opportunities to create a great hand and at the same time earn amazing prize pools.
Playing Texas Holdem aggressive can be highly effective and the reasons are fairly apparent. So, you should be careful, using your ability to read your opponents and to analyze your hand before playing really aggressive, because throwing your money away at a bad hand could sometimes cost you a lot.
Usually, playing loose-passive could be the best and sure way to lose money. We have to admit that you should avoid this playing style as its tendency to call into and then drop out of a lot of pots will destroy your chances of winning. Hence, try to keep away from this type of play consciously, especially when you feel yourself going on tilt after some bad hands.
Tight-passive Texas Holdem players are the most conservative players and they are sometimes called ‘Rocks‘. This particular playing style is also considered to be relatively weak and using it you will have almost no opportunities to earn a lot.
Often during Texas Holdem tournaments, some of the participants use this style, waiting their opponents to drop out before switching to more aggressive play. Remember that monitoring the blind size and your opponents’ chip amounts is essential to applying this technique effectively.
At last we assure you that once you learn to distinguish Texas Holdem player types, you will know how to play against each one of them, improving your chances of winning the pot. Perhaps, the most rewarding strategy is to vary your play, to be a loose and a tight gambler in order to become the final winner.