Whilst you should not avoid these types of players making an effort not to engage too often with them is a wise idea. The tight aggressive player is the most difficult to beat. You will have better opportunities to defeat easier opponents so your positive expectation (+EV) move is to target weaker poker players.

Classifying a player as tight aggressive needs to be done correctly. A tight aggressive player is someone who is selective about the hands they play, but when they find a hand they like they bet hard. They are trying to maximise the amount of money they can earn from a good hand by building a large pot. Be on the look out for reckless players within this style. Over valuing hands can be a problem for any aggressive opponent. The tight player who is aggressive is a lot more dangerous than a loose aggressive player and the style you play against each type of aggressive player varies considerably.

When you tangle with a tight aggressive poker player, do so with strong hands. Their style suggests they will be betting hard so trying to get a free card or cheap draws will be difficult to achieve. Top pair top kicker is a strong hand against this type of player as most of their starting hand range is the better pocket pairs. You are likely to be ahead in this situation with this hand.

Recognise that drawing hands are not usually a major part of tight aggressive player’s game. This gives you opportunities to get them to fold hands on the turn. Their game is inherently tight, so the all-in semi bluff used so often by online stars like Isildur1 and Durrrr are less common for a tight aggressive player. This can lead to folds in a pot their aggression has built. If the board suggests a strong draw could have hit, then you can represent this hand on the turn and take them off hands like top pair. Make sure you believe they are capable of folding this sort of hand however.

When you are faced with an all-in bet from a tight aggressive player this must be respected. Call only with the nuts or a very strong hand and work out every hand that can beat you and if it fits the action so far in the hand, lay your hand down. Tight aggressive poker players do not make many bluffs, so they probably have an excellent hand if they decide to commit all of their chips into the pot.

Tight aggressive players can get trapped into a hand. Because they are aggressively betting into you there is the opportunity to slow play an excellent hand as the tight player earns many pots by betting you from the hand forcing a fold. You can call down with good hands and often a tight aggressive player will desperately keep betting trying in vain for a fold. The benefit of having a good hand against such a player is that you do not need to bet, they do that for you. Against this type of player is the only time I would suggest that you (on occasion) slow play your AA or KK.

By Malcolm Clarke

This article relates to both poker tournament situations and cash game spots. By acting after the preflop raiser we are assuming that you are not in the blinds but in position in relation to the raising player. Because you still have players to act behind you the normal move against a pre-flop raiser is to three bet, or re-raise to isolate this player. You are best playing this pot with one opponent, the initial raiser so flat calling is ill advised as it offers future players in the blinds better odds to see the flop also. If another player comes along for the ride then this complicates matters.

Consider what the raise means against anything else you know about the player. Is he likely to be raising just because he is first in? Or perhaps this will not matter to the player they have to have better than, for example, pocket nines before they would consider this bet. If you regularly play this player you can probably narrow the range down quite accurately. Note that players usually play within reasonable parameters so anything you think you know about the player will probably not be far wrong. If you know nothing about the player’s style then only three bet with a very strong hand.

If you three bet and the player simply completes and the flop is dealt you can put the player on a strong starting hand or suited connector. They may have made a move and are hoping to hit the hand but if checked to you then the raiser is showing the re-raise respect and a continuation bet is correct here, providing the board is not too scary.

If the raiser shoves all in then depending on your starting hole cards you may or may not wish to call. Consider what your opponent may know about your tendencies when faced with a large all-in bet. Should I be aware that I have folded three times to all-in shoves, (this could be simply badly timed moves in previous hands that I have let go) then I may be inclined to call if I believe the player is capable of noting this and shoving light into me in this spot hoping to get me to make another lay down.

Your deception here is that a re-raising hand suggests only AA or KK in most cash games. Your opponent is instantly aware that they are out of position and facing aggression. They act after you on every street and have much more uncertainty in the hand than you do at this point. You can assume here that they will commit more chips into the pot only if they have something. Unless you have seen them make crazy plays with nothing then you need to fold unless you hold a strong hand in relation to the flop if you are still facing action after the deal.

In online poker tournaments three betting is very common. In a loose tournament you will see three bets immediately causing an all-in re-raise from opponents who have marginal hands. In live tournaments I have seen that three betting gets far more respect. Bare this in hand when you are thinking of making these plays.

To recap, when facing a raise preflop you need to consider what type of opponent you are facing. Can they fold to a re-raise or do they defend the chips they placed into the pot with vigour? A three bet steal is a great way of getting extra chips as well as the blinds but it must be done against a player who has the skill level to respect the re-raise and lay down a decent hand. Remember that initial raisers are still usually holding something in the top 20% of potential starting hands. This is why it is normal for re-raisers pre flop to be holding something very strong because they are saying to the raiser “You are strong but I am stronger”.

By Malcolm Clarke

We can all learn how to play poker and understand push fold ranges but these players understand poker on a different level than we do. They are a few percentage points ahead of the general player on key parts of the game and it is up to us to close that gap with study and hard work.

Phil Hellmuth is often berated as a loudmouth but much of what he does is to maintain his poker brat image which has very real benefits for himself in his back tournament wins and subsequent TV coverage. Aside from the fun and games, Hellmuth has won eleven No Limit Texas Holdem WSOP bracelets. That is huge. He regularly goes deep in poker tournaments and the reason he gets so upset at “crazy plays” is because he understands the game so well his play is almost flawless against standard poker. Perhaps his undoing is that players know that they are expected to have certain hands against Phil and by playing randomly and more loosely they can have an advantage over him when they catch a good hand with speculative holdings. However, this strategy works both ways as Phil picks up lots of pots when the speculative hands of his opponents do not improve and this also helps him build his stack.

Calmness in any situation is a trait most of the top players use very well. It is well-known that Phil Ivey has a lot of money. He will be playing the final table of the WSOP next month without any real regard for the money although I am sure he would love the $8.5 million first prize. This is probably the only prize he would be happy with considering his status in poker. Can you say that for the rest of the players at the final table? Money will be a real consideration for them. The top players play for the win at all times and most are rich enough that this is genuine and not just an attempt to look cool.

To emulate these great players we need to watch what they do and try to incorporate the strategies we see implemented into our own poker games. On the poker sites where we play online poker we need to work on our game and learn the professional players approach. Professional players have tons of experience but we can also learn that online, with lots of tournaments to choose from and learn from. There are also many coaching websites appearing. We have all the tools out there to become very good at poker and perhaps even challenge the supremacy of these top players at the top of pokers tree.

By Malcolm Clarke