Know The Player... Beat The Player.

To understand this article to the maximum extend you will need to have basic knowledge of the stats you find in PokerTracker and a hud such as PokerAce.

Identifying your standard weak/loose fish

The standard weak loose fish is your friend and personal ATM at NL holdem tables. These players will see too many flops and bet them straight forward without getting tricky. On your hud you will see your VPIP (voluntarily put in pot), this is how often your player will put money into the pot and your raising % preflop. It is a general rule that if the VPIP is higher than 20% then they are fairly loose. Then there is post flop aggression factor and % of times raised preflop. If your player has a VPIP of >20% and if he raises <6-7% preflop, then you have yourself a weak loose fish and he should be stalked and robbed of all his money! In short, this means he will see a lot of flops but limp most of them. Meaning he’s seeing a lot of flops with trash. To deal with these types of fish you must be sure to build flops preflop and then take it on the flop. You must punish them for limping and wait for them to make mistakes on the flop, turn and river. But be sure to stay tight and aggressive. These players have a low Post Flop Aggression Factor, usually around 1 or less. If they bet at you strong, they will be strong.

How to identify your average loose/aggressive player (LAG)

Your average loose aggressive player will raise too much and see the flop too much. This can be seen with a >20 VPIP accompanied with a >20 preflop raise and usually will also be accompanied with a high post flop aggression factor like >3.5. These players are intimidating but very easy to exploit provided they don’t send you on tilt. The trick to tackling these players is 3 betting them preflop to put the aggression back onto them. Also by check raising them post flop with semi decent holdings you are able to get them off their completely air balled hands. In my experience LAG players do not like being played back against. These players MUST be slow played when you hold a monster. If they are UTG and bet strong, be sure to just call so that they can lead out again. Remember, just because they RAISE a lot doesn’t mean they will CALL a lot – so don’t shove your nuts expecting them to call. They are likely to stack off against you’re nuts if you give them the impression that they can bully you off your hand.

Remember a miss conception is to completely tighten up against LAG players I think this is untrue. If they have a big stack, then you’re implied odds with ANY hand are huge; definitely worth calling big raises with suited connectors etc.

Your average good tight aggressive shark (TAG)

This type of player will be seeing roughly 15% of flops and raising 8-10% preflop. His aggression factor will be around 2.5. These players are best to avoid playing tricky against as they will know what they are doing. Don't worry you won’t come across a lot until you start moving up to $.50/$1.00. Just play your standard game against these players and aim to be one of them.