Tight vs Loose

[M50Paul]

I am just starting to play and I have seen what I think is inconsitant strateigesand or advice. Some of this is clearly due to my being new and not as familair with the jargon as I should be but......

I understand that when you opponents are tight you should play loose and vice versa. Although I saw one article that suggested that you should play tight against tight and loose against loose. Not sure which is the best or whether it makes any difference if they are aggressive and or passive. What the heck!

[Vern]

When a player is tight, it generally means they have better starting hand selection so you don't want to play weak hands when they are in the pot. However, if they are overly tight, loosening up can be profitable, but only if the whole table is that way. Imagine you are at a table where all your opponents only play AA-QQ or AKs and always raise when they enter. That is overly tight. You can easily get out of their way when they raise because you know they have the goods and you can steal the blinds like crazy when they don't so you raise any two cards of your own. But the criteria is the table be overly tight, not just one individual at the table. Similarly, when the entire table is loose, you can loosen up some too, just not as much. When you are actually seeing flops, you want to have a better than average starting position than your opponents. I would suggest you pick up Winning Low Limit Hold'em by Lee Jones. He will teach you to play what is called weak/tight and you will get a sense for what hands to play, when and why. Them move on to Small Stakes Hold'em by 2+2's own Ed Miller. It is more important to understand why you play something than to have a play list, but starting with a play list is the way most of us did it. Once you have a reasonable starting strategy, knowing the individual opponent's tightness/looseness and passiveness/aggressiveness will allow you to adjust your game when they are in a hand.

Vern

[Mucking Idiot]

Very tight and very aggressive should be any poker players standard.
Until you are more studied, tight is definately the way to go.

[donkeyradish]

Playing overly tightly isn't a bad way to start at the lowest limits, its both uncomplicated and profitable.

[lmcclean]

tight and agressive is the way to generally play but you have to adapt to the situation. Against a tight player (who you should keep to your right) you should play premium cards cause thats what he'll have. Against looser players don't necisarly play looser, but play more drawing hands (suited connectors and the like). The reason behind this is that your going to get better drawing odds with more players in the pot, and a loose player is more likely to pay you off when you make your strait/flush. This skyrockets your implied odds for those drawing hands.
The key though is even when your playing your drawing hands they still have to be quality cards.