playing tight in loose games and loose in tight games

[ihaveapigyo]

that's how i thought you were supposed to be playing... until i read the theory of poker.

david sklansky states that in loose games, you should loosen up on your starting hand requirements since your opponents will have weaker holdings... but in tight games, you should tighten up on your starting hand requirements since your opponents will have strong hands themselves.

i'm playing in a tourney right now, and i'm confused as heck! my table is pretty loose, and i don't know if i should loosen up on my starting hand requirements or play my normal, tight-aggressive game!!

what do i do!!

[R_Ellender]

In loose games, you're supposed to loosen up on your legitimate hands and tighten up on bluffs and semi-bluffs. Bet for value more, and bluff less. The real changes are in your purposes for betting.

In a tight game, you might raise a tight player's bet when you hold 76 on a flop of Q85 because you have the added chances of making him fold right there along with the chances of outdrawing him. You would never raise a loose player's bet in the same situation, because the loose player probably won't fold. Instead, you could be more confident raising a loose player with a hand like AT on a flop of A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]8 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]6 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] because you're opponent is more likely to call you with a draw, a smaller pair, or a weaker ace. You know he'll call as an underdog, so bet when you have the advantage.

[Moneyline]

As far as ring games go...

Sklansky says that you should tighten up in tight games, but Mike Caro says that you should loosen up in tight games. And the weird thing is that they both mean the same thing!

In tight games you don't want to limp so much with your marginal hands, especially out of position. There are a few reasons for this, one of the main ones is that your opponents won't be playing as many hands, so you won't have the correct odds to hit your draws. However, there are other hands you can play. For instance, I'd open raise JT from MP and sometimes complete trash from the button in a tight game, but I wouldn't do this in a loose game because I'd have little shot at stealing the blinds.

So basically you want to loosen up and tighten up in a tight game. Limp with fewer hands up front, but open raise a lot more hands in back.

Just my opinion...

[npc]

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that's how i thought you were supposed to be playing... until i read the theory of poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

When opponents play "wrong", whether it's too tight or too loose, one can profitably play more hands against them to exploit these errors. Of course, the way one exploits such non-optimal behavior varies. Against overly tight opponents, bluff more but fold more often to bets and raises. Of course, if they're overly tight, you'll be making more bluffs than laydowns, and thus playing more hands overall. Against overly loose players, call more often. Of course, this also means playing more hands.

Thus, one tends to play more hands against players who play poorly than against those who play well. Nonetheless, it's very easy to push this way too far.

It tournaments against weak opponents, it's a little different story. In cash games, it's all about maximizing EV with little concern for variance (maybe none, depending on your bankroll). In tournaments it's a bit different. There going broke is usually bad. Therefore, in tournaments I'd tend to play fewer hands against loose opponents unless I had a very big stack, but maybe that's just me.