Free Online Poker Education Guide To How To Fight Tight Aggressive Poker Players

You've arrived at the flop with a decent hand but what do you do next? Many of us put so much effort into preflop play that we don't build a solid postflop game. A key part of postflop play (as with preflop) is knowing the type of players you are up against and playing specifically to counter their style.

You will come up against 4 primary styles of poker player, tight or loose and passive or aggressive.

In free online poker micro stakes (.02/.05 blinds), each style of player tends to make certain key errors.

In this free online poker games article we focus on postflop play against the Tight Aggressive type opponent.

Tips on how to combat the Tight Aggressive Player (TAG) Type

The TAG is going to be the best player you face in free online poker and micro stakes games, happily they are also quite rare!

Tight aggressive is the way that you should aim to play as well and by virtue of this fact you should try to avoid getting into pots with other TAGs where possible.

A standard TAG player will be opening reasonable ranges preflop, typically for raises, and they'll generally be the postflop aggressor as well.

They'll be cbetting pretty wide but closing down on later streets a fair amount and they are most unlikely to spew off their stacks by check-raising or betting down with air.

However they won't call down with weaker pair hands such as 2nd pair and often top pair hands, or draws if the odds are poor.

They will normally get out of the way if out of position if they have nothing and play a solid style when In Position that is difficult to exploit since it is centered around playing with solid hand ranges and betting for value to get folds out of other TAGs and Tight Passive players.

They do not get out of line very much. The way to profit out of these guys (when IP) is to cbet flop wide (you'll get a lot of folds) and to generally slow down if you're raised.

When you're Out Of Position you are limited to check-raising flop and turn wide, though it's best not to do so with weak hands against TAGs especially in micro stakes as varaince will work against you and lead to a lot of nasty wipe outs.

TAG is the way you should aim and practice to play, it's solid and hard to exploit, stay solid unless you have a strong reason to do otherwise, choose your moments and you will get a lot of profit from the mistakes of others.

And keep in mind there are degrees of player styles. Some TAGs are almost LAG, some TPs are almost LPs, etc, so you have to adjust your play to your individual opponents, these player types are just a tool to help you do that.

Learning to recognize player types and the degree to which a player fits a type isn't easy.

You need to practice your game plenty though for some of you it will come faster than others. If you're new to poker do not risk much or even any cash as you learn.

Start of with the lowest stakes games or with free online poker games and work up from there.

For a full version of this article with all 4 player types covered and some advanced postflop play tips see the free poker online blog at NoPayPOKER.