Adjusting to Conflicting Styles

Identify opponents' tendencies

Playing poker well requires taking advantage of your opponents' mistakes! Players who can't be bluffed and pay off too liberally should be value-bet more frequently with marginal hands. Against players who are unwilling to pay you off, you should steal more than your fair share of pots from them. But it's not quite that simple. While those thoughts are conceptually correct, in many cases the equation is much more complicated, with multiple players and competing factors entering into it.

It was a Saturday night and the Bellagio $30-$60 limit hold'em game was pretty fired up. I was seated next to my friend Jade, sharing poker thoughts as we played against a mix of stuck players on tilt and a couple of overly tight, inexperienced players.

One overly tight player raised the pot from middle position and was called by one tourist who was on tilt. Even the loose players at the table knew better than to call a raise from Mr. Overly Tight. Part of the problem of being too tight is that when you finally pick up a good hand, observant opponents immediately recognize it. And if you're very tight, even those who are not as observant will be unwilling to give you action, significantly reducing the value of the good hands that you do pick up.

I was in the big blind, holding 10-10. I flat-called the raise, thinking my hand was likely not the best, but the call still had positive value.

We took the flop off threehanded, and it came K-8-6 with two hearts. I checked to Mr. Overly Tight, who bet and was called by Mr. Tilt. I went into my "huddle" and thought about how best to play my hand.

A couple of times earlier in the session, I had seen Mr. Overly Tight raise preflop and then fold when raised on the flop when a high card came. I had read him for folding an underpair to the high card on board. Mr. Tilt was the type of player who would have raised if he held top pair, and he'd certainly have put in more action preflop with jacks or better. I was pretty sure I had him beat with two tens.

If I raised, Mr. Overly Tight's hand would be defined. If he didn't have A-K, K-K, or A-A, he would lay down his hand. If he had Q-Q or J-J, he would be laying down the best hand, creating huge value for me. There was some chance that I held the best hand if he possessed an A-Q or A-J suited type of holding. Any which way, by popping it, I would know where I stood on the cheap street. The information gained by raising on the flop would be cheap and have a high likelihood of being correct, both of which are factors in determining if a raise for information is correct.

I check-raised, Mr. Overly Tight stared me down, then looked at Mr. Tilt and tossed his hand into the muck. I think he thought that there was no way I was bluffing, because he knew that I knew that Mr. Tilt was going to call me down. And call me down Mr. Tilt did! Frustrated and in a defeated state of mind, he paid off both the turn and the river and mucked at the showdown. When I showed my hand, Mr. Overly Tight winced and shook his head; I assumed that he had folded a superior hand to two tens, either Q-Q or J-J.

I raised on a cheap street to acquire information about my hand, with potential additional value of forcing a superior hand to fold. Had I not paid attention to the previous hands in which Mr. Overly Tight had laid down likely quality pairs to an overcard board and the hands in which Mr. Tilt always seemed to raise with top pair or better, I never would have known that I could make this play.

Mr. Overly Tight was correct in assuming that I knew I would be called by Mr. Tilt, and that the only way he could have the best hand was if I was making a situational play, which I was. But Mr. Overly Tight fell victim to a common ailment of many tight players. He played his hand so predictably that it enabled an aware opponent to make a unique correct play against him. You must mix up your play, think about what your opponents are thinking, devise counterstrategies, and deceive your
opponents enough so that they cannot read you with any level of predictability.

It is difficult to get players to do what you want them to do. It is far easier to get them to do what they want to do. Identify their tendencies - such as calling too much, folding too much, bluffing too much, and raising too much - and then make plays that encourage them to do more of that when it is incorrect.

In this day and age, the overly tight player makes up a smaller percentage of the field than he used to. Most people call too much. However, there are also many players who have learned the value of aggression, but not how to use it. They raise too much and bluff too much when a better play is available. With all of the writing about aggressive styles of play, there are so many who are playing this style that they take value from each other. And they are so predictable that it's fairly easy to design plays that let them bleed off their chips to you. Aggression still has huge value in poker, but it is a different play now than it used to be. And it now calls for different thinking to counter.

Whether you're up against somebody who's overly tight, on tilt, or speeding, your job is to understand where your opponents' mindsets are and how their play affects each other, not just how it affects you. You can use their mistakes against them only if you've been paying enough attention to know what their mistakes are.

The biggest mistake I see young wannabe pros making is presuming that they're going to beat the game. They tend to play on autopilot, not paying enough attention to extract the information needed to maximize their earnings. And that's OK with me - as they are easier to outplay and it means that I have a better shot at the chips they might have won!


Roy Cooke has played winning professional poker since 1972, and has been a Card Player columnist since 1992. He serves as a freelance consultant to the I-poker industry and has a successful Las Vegas real estate brokerage. His website is www.roycooke.com. His writing partner, John Bond, is a retired South Florida attorney. They have written six poker books, which are available from www.conjelco.com/cooke.

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