Poker Players Aren’t Created Equal

In a game I was playing in the other day, there was a multi-way pot that was raised preflop by the button after several limpers. They took the flop five- or six-handed. By the river, it was down to three guys with a board of Q-9-6-8-9 with three hearts. The first guy had a queen-high straight, the second guy had a nine-high straight, and the third guy had the ace-high flush. The last guy was lamenting over missing a river bet in what was already a large pot, probably around $1,000 at $5-$5 blinds. Everybody in the hand had $600 or more behind and during the postmortem of the hand, someone at the table (I can’t remember if it was someone involved in the hand) said, “I’m sure he would have called an all-in, he called a raise with 7-5 offsuit before the flop.” I kept a straight face and didn’t interject because I saw no real point in doing so, but it was something I had to write about because it’s a sentiment I think many poker players hold dear to their heart: Loose is loose and tight is tight.

The truth is there are many different types of looseness and tightness. There are people who are incredibly loose preflop but wouldn’t ever think of stacking off without something approaching the nuts and there are people who are very tight preflop who will stack off with anything top pair or better. The key to exploiting these players is knowing their particular brand of tightness or looseness and reacting accordingly.

One of my favorite types of players to play with is someone who is tight with their opens, calls three-bets very often, but isn’t very tenacious when they do. Hands I play against someone like this usually go like this: He raises to $25, I make it $65, he calls. I bet $80 on the flop, and he folds. Obviously sometimes they have something and play back at me, but let’s say that’s the case one in four times. Three times I win $65 and one time I lose $145 for a total profit of $50 if that’s the whole action. Sometimes, obviously I make a hand and win, sometimes he makes a hand and wins, but I should be making a profit off of this type of player more often than he makes one off of me.

There are other players who will call a very wide range on the river when someone bets small but will fold all but the very top of their range when you bet big on the river. The best way to exploit a player like this is pretty clear. When you have a medium-strength value hand, size your bets smaller and when you have a very good or very bad hand, bomb the river. Obviously this is assuming that this type of player isn’t capable of recognizing this pattern and check-raising when you bet small.

I usually don’t advocate playing exploitively for several reasons. First, I’m not playing in your games. If I write about a hand where I had a specific read on someone that I play with regularly, it doesn’t help you, the reader, unless you’re playing with someone very similar. Second, I like to start with a balanced approach and work out from there. This will give my readers a solid base that you can always revert back to if exploitive play isn’t working. Finally, if you’re playing exploitively, that means you can be exploited. I don’t like to write about exploitive play very often because it then leads to iterations of, “I know that he knows that I know that he knows,” that are great, but when put down on paper are just self-congratulatory mental exercises. It’s important to be able to think of exploitations, counter-exploitations, and counter-counter exploitations, but they don’t make for very good teaching.

So, what is the point of this article then? It’s to show you that a simple description of a player as “loose” or “tight” isn’t very useful. Think about the ways in which your opponents are loose. Preflop: Do they limp with lots of hand but fold to raises? Do they call too much out of the blinds? Do they call raises with bad aces? Postflop: Do they call too many bad draws on the flop? The turn? Do they never fold pairs to lots of pressure?

Think about the ways in which your opponents are tight. Do they only three-bet with kings or aces? What types of hands will they get all in preflop with? What types of hands will they stack off with postflop? How often will they fold overpairs after the flop?

Now that you have all of that information in your head, attempt to devise a strategy that will exploit each of your opponents, especially the weaker ones since the stronger opponents will have a much greater chance of being able to counter-exploit you. Finally, think of ways that your opponents would be able to counter-exploit you so that you can realize when it’s happening to you. If you’re finding all of this to be too complicated, revert back to a more balanced strategy until you have a better grasp of how to better exploit your opponents.

It’s important to have knowledge of near-optimal strategy alongside exploitive strategies so you can switch back and forth between them as necessary. Some games will require that you know either one in order to beat them. ♠

Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NHGG