A great read

This hand was played at a pokerstars $1/$2 NL table. The buy in was $200. I was in the cut off and limped with 22 after a bunch of other limpers. The flop was seen 8 way including both blinds.

The pot was $16 and the flop came 4c2h5h. Both blinds checked. EP limper (who is very loose) bet $6. The next limper who is even looser called. The next player raised to $18. The raiser (I’ll call him Mr Tight) is the winningest player in my PokerTracker database among players with a significant number of hands. He plays very well but also is very predictable. He enters the pot voluntarily only 12% of the time. He had a little more than a full stack as I did. There was no doubt in my mind that he had either a higher set, 99 or TT. He would have raised pre flop with a higher pair and he would not slow play a set in this spot.

This was a very tough spot for me because I was 75% sure he had a higher set. I needed to reraise to get any draws out but he would have gone all in for sure with a set, but I was not sure if he would with the overpair. He never talks in chat but he had to know me as well as I know him if he’s as good as I think he is. We’ve played a couple 1000 hands together. I almost folded my set, but decided that the pot was going to be big and I wanted to see the action at the turn so I flat called.

The button also called, but everyone else folded. The pot was $82 by then. Mr Tight had about $180 left. I had about $200 and the button had about $60 left. The turn was the ace of diamond, so the board was now 4c2h5hAd.

Mr Tight checked to me. That was strange. He was obviously afraid that one of us had a straight draw and just hit the straight. If I bet, Mr Tight will have to fold an overpair, but will call with a set trying to catch his boat. If the button was not in the hand, I might go all in right now but I was afraid that he had a straight, so I was stuck in the middle. I decided to bet $35 and see how they reacted. They both called. Ok, I was done with the hand. I was 100% sure that Mr Tight had 55 or 44. The button very well may have a 3 for a straight. He only had $25 left but probably would not go all in because he wanted Mr tight to call the $35.

The pot was $187 at his point. The Gods of Poker were obviously happy with me that day, because the river was the 2 of diamond. The board had paired and Mr Tight was now leading out for $74. Man, I actually felt sorry for him. I just hit a 1 outer! I raised all in knowing full well that he was going to call with his full house. The button folded and Mr tight called as expected and I won the almost $500 pot. The cards did not show but I knew what he had.

He was playing at another table I was at, so on the other table I said “55 or 44?”. I had never seen him say a word in chat and I had tried to get him to answer before, but this time he said “check the hand history”. I said “if you did not have 55 or 44, I have been giving you way too much credit”. He did not answer.

A few minutes later someone who was playing at both my tables (where I had $500 on each table) asked me if I was a pro. Now Mr Tight piped in and said “yeah he is a pro at hitting 1 outers for $500 pots”.

You think he was a little bitter? I promise you, I came very very close to folding my set on the flop because he is so predictable.

The Weak-tight play is the worse poker playing style. Avoid like the plague.

If you find out you have a tendency to play this way, you must make a concerted effort to change the way you play poker, as this is a losing style. This is something that many sensible players take conscious efforts against turning into. There are many players who literally feast on the weak-tight players.

Consider the term “weak tight”. If this term is compared with terms like “weak loose” or “strong tight”, it is obvious that the problem does not lie with the “tight” part at all. A tight, aggressive play is the best approach in a game of poker. We know that weak-loose play means playing too many hands and folding too often before showdown. But weak-tight is much more a difficult situation to deal with.

There are some basic aspects connected with weak-tight play. Let’s look into a couple of examples.The first aspect is the lack of realization that you might need to risk a loss in order to make a win. To win a bet, you will have to be in pots that make bets. To win a few times, you will have to lose many times. But, you should not be ever concerned about losing a pot; only that the play you are following should be mathematically correct. You will be able to win only if you accept losses also.

The next aspect is about the fact that you need to very rarely let others dictate the pace for you. Weak-tight players constantly react to others and rarely make the others react to their moves. They often fight battles that are chosen by their opponents.

These are actually the fears that exist at basically any limit, but this is considered as a bigger risk especially in the low limit. This is because in such games, people would tend to make a call to the river even if they have a weak hand. Therefore, throwing lots of money on a particular hand can be risky, as there will be more suck outs.

It is often worse to make a check or a call rather than a raise when you have a good hand. It will certainly help you to end up with winning a bigger pot. You might be able to still win hands by just calling and checking. However, you tend to lose a big sum of money very fast especially when making a raise and an open. That is likely to happen if you are aggressive and get booted out on the river.

So, this is the reason why the large number of online games becomes very easy to beat. Players do not really begin to charge when they are holding a good hand. This is not the way to grow your gambling bankroll.

They will be more concerned on useless issues. For example, they might be more concerned about useless ideas like losing the previous pots after having driven the betting. They will never accept the mathematically correct plays based on statistics. This is in spite of them knowing that this sort of mathematics exists and works.