Four types of table will be covered, these being loose, passive, tight and aggressive. Note that these terms are all relative and the advice will have to be interpreted according to the extent that the table has that characteristic. For example, if you play in a micro-limit game, nearly all tables will be loose, at least to an extent. Also note that a table may have two different characteristics, for example ‘Loose/Aggressive’ or ‘Tight/Passive’. In this case you will need to heed the advice from both sections, which may cause contradictions. If in doubt, you will never be going far wrong by following the default advice in Internet Texas Holdem.

Loose Table

A loose table is characterised by lots of people seeing the flop and players continuing with unprofitable holdings after the flop.

Loose tables tend to be profitable in the long run but can also be very swingy. With lots of people in each hand and many staying to the river, there is plenty of opportunity to get drawn out on but the pots should be bigger when you do win. As a result, starting hands that tend to make ‘top pair, good kicker’ type holdings have less value as top pair holds up far less often in multi-way pots. Off-suit hands such as KJ, QJ and AT probably shouldn’t be played from early position anyway, and this should be enforced even more rigorously in loose games. However, hands such as small pocket pairs and suited connectors play very well in multi-way pots. You should be happy to call with 66 or JTs UTG in a loose game because even if it is raised behind you, you are probably going to be getting good odds to hit a set or a good draw respectively. In fact, being suited is a much more important asset for a hand in loose games. For example, in a tight game AKo and AKs are very similar in value, whereas in a loose game, AKs is by far the better holding.

In loose games, raising for value becomes much more important than raising to drive out opponents for two reasons:

1. Your opponents will probably not fold to your raise anyway

2. Given your opponents will be playing a much wider range of hands than you, it is important to get extra bets in when you are likely to have the best of it.

Some people shy away from making pure value raises (like raising AQ or JJ from the BB in an un-raised pot) but it is important to do so in loose games.

Post flop you need to value raise relentlessly when you feel you have good pot equity to make players pay for their weak draws. You also have to be a lot more open-minded when considering your opponents holdings. A loose opponent who suddenly wakes up on the river with a rainbow board of 8 9 K 2 6 may indeed have the T7 or 75 he is representing. Or he may have K6, or 66 or AK or a host of other holdings. The reverse is also true. If you have a marginal holding, sometimes you have to keep value betting it, because your opponents may be calling with an even weaker holding or a draw. You cannot make the same assumptions about loose player’s cards that you can with tight opponents.

Remember also that draws to the nuts are far more valuable when you have lots of opponents (and hence a large pot). If you are the kind of person who tends to throw away gut-shot straights without thinking about it, take a minute to check if you are getting the pot-odds to draw. In loose games you will more often than you think.

On a passive table, there will be a lot more checking and calling going on than betting and raising both pre-flop and post-flop. True passive tables are uncommon at anything but the lowest limits, as it only takes a couple of aggressive players to tip the balance.

Passive tables are also good for your bankroll, generally speaking. If your opponents are not playing aggressively you can get cheap or free cards more often, when you are behind you will lose less and your hands will be easier to get away from if your opponent does have a big hand. Importantly, a passive table will also allow you to play more hands from early position. If there is very little chance of a raise (or re-raise) behind you, you can play those hands that only want to see the flop for one bet such as QJo and ATo. In fact, you can be a bit more liberal with the hands you play full stop as all hands play better when you have a better than usual chance of getting free cards post-flop. Obviously don’t take this too far though.

Post-flop at passive tables can be frustrating because it is very difficult to put your opponents on a hand. If your opponents are calling you down, you don’t know if they have a marginal holding, are on a draw, or have you beat but just aren’t raising. You have to make sure you don’t fall into the trap of repeatedly betting with a marginal hand and ending up losing more than you should have, because you figured your opponents must be weak. Remember, passive players generally act weak regardless of their holding.

On the other hand, you can often bet passive players into submission with position. The ploy of raising the flop with a draw or marginal hand to get a free card on the turn works especially well at passive tables. You can also make marginal calls with people left to act, as the chance of a raise is considerably less. Of course, if passive players wake up and start raising you can drop your hand pretty quickly, confident that you are beat.

A tight table will have very few players seeing the flop and those who do will ditch marginal holdings at the first opportunity.

First things first, if you find yourself at a tight table at anything lower than 10/20 get out of there. Tight tables are bad choices for winning money as you will typically have to fight tooth and nail for every dollar, and there are enough looser tables out there that you don’t want to be doing that. However there may be times in a tournament or maybe just in a tight game where you feel you have an edge (generally tight/passive) that you might want to play on.

The key to winning money at tight tables is to identify the pots that nobody else wants and win them, regardless of your cards. When you only have a few people seeing the flop, there will often be hands where nobody gets dealt playable cards and flops that nobody hits, and often the first money in the pot will win it. This makes position extremely important, as it is far easier to steal a pot when you are the last to act, than when you have people to act behind you who may have legitimate hands. It is important you make the following adjustments pre-flop

1. Tighten up from early position. If you play hands like ATo from EP you are likely to find yourself up against a dominating hand out of position.
2. Look for opportunities to steal the blinds whenever possible. It is a good rule of thumb never to limp first in because a raise first in may win the blinds if nobody else has a playable hand.
3. Loosen up considerably from late position if you are first in, raising to either steal the blinds or get heads up with position.

You also need to look at the type of hands you are playing. Top Pair is far more likely to hold up with only two or three players seeing the flop, so any hand that contains two high cards goes up in value, even those that are normally unexciting such as KJo. On the other hand, holdings that thrive with multi-way action such as suited connectors become far less playable. JTs can be a very profitable hand when you have four opponents, but is far less so when you only have one opponent who is almost certain to have two big cards or a mid-high pocket pair.

Post flop, the same principles apply. Try to steal the pots that nobody else wants while getting out quickly when you feel you are behind. At a tight-aggressive table it is often difficult to tell when you are behind and this is what makes tight-aggressive players so difficult to play against. If the table is tight-passive it is normally far easier to get away from your hand.

Remember, the one advantage you have at tight tables is that it is easier to put your opponents on a hand. If the pot is raised pre-flop and the final board is 7 4 K 6 3, you can be fairly confident that nobody has the 5, whereas this would be far from the case at looser tables. It is important to remember the action from the entire hand so you can think back to how your opponents acted on each street, and put them on a hand or range of hands accordingly.

Aggressive Table

Lots of betting and raising before and after the flop define an aggressive table. This can either be as a result of good aggressive play or a couple of maniacs raising every hand.

It can be tough to play on an aggressive table because:

1. When facing a bet with people to act, it is difficult to determine how much it will cost to see the next street.

2. Because people are raising with all kinds of holdings, it can be difficult to put them on a hand.

3. Facing multiple bets often makes your draws unprofitable.

Step one when at an aggressive table is working out whether it is loose or misplaced aggression which can be exploited or whether it’s good tight aggressive play in which case you should really be looking to move table. If it is bad aggressive play, the important thing is to identify the perpetrators. While aggressive play can be contagious to an extent, the majority of the raising is normally carried out by two or three maniacs at the most. Identify these players, and obviously treat their raises with far less respect than you would the other players.

In an aggressive game position is very important. Basically in early position you only want to be playing hands where you don’t mind having to pay another one or maybe even two bets to see the flop, which effectively limits you to AA-TT , AK and AQs. If you can keep the maniacs close you your right then this will help matters but this isn’t always possible. Isolation moves are also very important in aggressive games. If a very aggressive player raises and you re-raise, that can keep many other players out, hopefully leaving you heads up against an inferior hand with position.

Post flop in an aggressive game is extremely difficult. You are caught between two bad places of putting in two many bets with a marginal holding and folding winning hands, which can make a medium tricky to find. If you have a marginal draw it is important to look at how many players are left to act before calling, as a raise behind you could make your draw unprofitable. Isolating moves still work well after the flop and can be very useful if you have a decent but very vulnerable hand such as middle pair on an uncoordinated board. Another advantage is that if you truly have a monster, you won’t have to do much betting, your opponents will probably not realise you have a monster until it is too late.

A Final Word of Caution

When following any of the advice in this article, be careful how and to whom you are applying it. Just because you are on a loose table, doesn’t mean every single player at that table is loose. Don’t get it into your head that your opponent is loose when you are in fact heads up with the local rock. Also look for the table conditions changing. Players move in and out of games very quickly online and a table can radically change in texture in just a couple of orbits. This is especially true on loose tables where good players are attracted by the high average pot size and fill up the empty seats as the looser players bust out. You can find yourself staying at a bad table way too long if you are not paying attention.

Good luck at the tables

Ian Taylor (aka Piemaster)