In this article I’m going to focus on a kind of player that’s often referred to as being tight or a “nit”. So what exactly is playing tight nitty poker all about? It’s when you play ONLY premium hands, and you keep disciplined over folding your weaker holdings.
In a way, this is a good playing style to adopt for a new player who is learning the game. The reason for this is that for one thing, when you play an extremely tight range of hands, it makes your decisions much easier, especially post flop. Because you stick to playing only the very best hands, when you connect with the flop, you will usually always have a strong hand, which should play itself and gets you into fewer tough spots where you may not be sure where you’re at in the hand.
Playing this style of poker teaches you discipline and patience at the poker table, both of which are very important attributes to have in your poker arsenal. Even if you eventually plan on loosening up your playing style, you will still be able to draw upon these skills when needed. Playing solid tight and aggressive poker enables you to build a good foundation for your poker game.
Even though observant players at your table will figure out that you’re only ever playing very strong hands, when playing in soft games, which is often going to be the case at the micro stakes, you’ll still get paid off by the bad players. Even against observant players – great poker players which adopt a tight pre-flop strategy use this to their advantage, as they can occasionally use their table image to bluff by scaring the other players into thinking you have something much stronger. This takes a lot of skill, however, and requires picking the right spots to attempt a bluff. If you’re a beginner and do this too often, your opponents will see straight through you.
It’s recommended that if you’re a beginner, you adopt an extremely tight style of play, and as you improve your poker game, you can play more hands. In a way poker playing styles are extensions of your personality. A tight player is someone who is tight and conservative with their money. They’re patient enough to wait for premium hands, and they have the discipline to fold if they have a mediocre one. With that being said, these kinds of players are still human, and therefore may sometimes play a weaker hand, out of boredom, or just to be deceptive.
If you ever encounter tables featuring “tight” players, it means the table is full of these types of players. There’s lots of folding pre-flop, and not many multi-way pots. Although rare, if you’re playing at a table like this, expect that the majority of players are looking to build big pots with only big hands. Playing against a tight table can be difficult to make a big profit. If you’re a new poker player, playing in mostly freerolls and the like, watch how these tight players are playing, so you can pick up some tips!
If you watch a lot of poker on TV, you may have witnessed many of the top poker players in the game may play weak hands such as T5 suited. But you have to remember, tournament play is very different to cash games! Why? The tournament blind structure means the blinds often go up every 30 minutes or so, allowing you to easily run out of time waiting for a good hand.
Because of the fast blind structure, it will result in a short tournament, and you’re going to have to play a hand sooner rather than later, before you get blinded out of the tournament. You also have to consider poker pros are highly skilled players that play very good post flop poker. They can play weaker holdings because they know how to play against any opponent.
A successful pre-flop strategy for a new online poker player is a tight and aggressive style. By playing fewer hands preflop, when you make a hand, it’s generally going to be a very strong one, putting you in fewer tough spots, and allowing you to bet aggressively when you have a big hand. You want to strike a good balance between playing fairly tight before the flop, and loosening up your game sometimes to be a bit unpredictable and to keep your opponents guessing. Knowing what style of play you should adopt comes with experience and the table dynamics, there is always a reason why you should act in a certain way to win more money at poker.