Poker Comparisons: Tight Games versus Loose Games
Which would you rather spend more time at: a super loose poker game, where the players are chasing down any and all draws, eventually intending to suck you out? Or a super tight game, where you can’t see to get paid on most any hand and everyone folds unless they have pocket AA?
Both of these kinds of poker tables, while not as ideal perhaps as a mixed juicy game with players of various sorts, come equipped with varying style of accommodation that in the end can yield large profits, if you are willing to shift like a chameleon (which you should be prepared to do, as a poker player, if you are going to make the most of your situations).
In loose games, often poker players will try to chase down the wild players by taking any semblance of a hand and come aggressively at them, then hold their head between their knees and hope the hand holds up. While often you can get your money in marginally good in this manner, you are setting yourself up to take a hit when the odds do turn against you. Instead, for the most part, long run experience has shown that tightening up even further in the face of extremely wild players can be more valuable, as you are able to bend the odds so far in your favor by picking good spots, that the inevitable suck out is minimized so well that you can sew up your pots and not end up having to push in on a coin flip with you 77 against 8 J just because you are tired of folding the medium pairs for all the money. Tighten up, and let them come to you, rather than playing bounty hunter, and often you will walk the victor.
In tight games, conversely, the opposite side seems to work out, where testing the water by aggressively making bets when your opponent checks and having them let you steal a lot of pots can be a beautiful way to play for hours without hands. If you know they are going to check and play passively without the big dog hands, it is easy to bet and steal until the signs of aggression come, and then back up. So playing a wider range of hands and betting your opponents out of their marginal states will yield more here, though you have to be willing to lay down.
