subject: Tips For Playing Against Tight Opponents in Hold em Poker [print this page] Tips For Playing Against Tight Opponents in Hold em Poker
1. Exploiting tightness. Rocks generally aren't going to do much out of the ordinary. They'll play incredibly tight, only enter pots with strong hands, and only continue with hands that hit the flop. Preflop, if you're on the button or cutoff, and you have a rock in the big blind, this is a golden opportunity to make a weak stab at the pot with any two cards; your raise will likely fold the rock out 80% of the time or more. If a rock checks to you on the flop, consider a contiuation bet far more often than you normally would, especially if he was the preflop aggressor; his check more than likely signifies a missed broadway hand like AK or AQ, and many rocks will simply discard the hand upon bricking the flop.
2. Things not to do. If the rock is betting into you postflop, never try to turn a drawing hand into a semibluff. Far too often, your opponent is going to slam the door shut with a big three bet, keeping you from drawing at your big hand. Realize that rocks are not the greatest targets for drawing against; when a flush or straight hits the board, they're more likely than most to slow down and fold big hands than your loose, aggressive players. Running a float against these players can be a very poor proposition; many of them will continuation bet the flop with a big hand, like KK on a 3610 board, then check and call the rest of the way down if you call the flop bet. This means that you can be floating drawing to runner runner outs if you float with a hand like KQ on that particular flop. Stick to straight forward play against them if they're betting or raising hands.
3. Don't slowplay. If you flop a monster, and the rock bets out into you, look at the board before plotting your next move. If the board is something like 239 and you flopped a set, it's probably best to raise right now, and hope the rock has a hand like 1010 through AA and will hang on from now til the river. The more money you can get in while the rock thinks he has a premium hand, the better; he may even elect to reraise with the more premium hands like KK/AA. Against aggressive players, this may be a flop to slowplay. Rocks are less likely to be leading out at flops like this without premium hands, however, so slowplaying becomes less effective.
4. Final thoughts. Don't be lulled into just playing super aggro against a rock as a means of counterbalancing the tightness of the rock. Only steal when you have position and when the rock gives you good signs that the pot is available to steal. Some rocks double as calling stations, and those are the ones that tend to confound professionals; spots that 99 simply can't be any good against your bet still merit a call from the rock. Why? It's not that they always think their hand is good; many times, they waited for a hand like this for an hour, and they're just going to stack off and see if it holds up to your aggression. Be wary of the bluff if the rock you're playing has shown hands like that down to multiple streets in the past.
