Top 5 tips for playing tight-aggressive poker

There are several different playing styles that you can use to play poker, but more often than not, experienced and professional poker players adopt the “aggressive” playing style. This article will cover the basics needed to become a tight aggressive player and allow you to benefit from tournament poker, cash games and recreational poker.

1. Choose your starting hand. This is the ‘tight’ part of playing aggressive poker. You only want to get involved in hands when you have premium hole cards. If you are under pressure or betting in early position in the preflop betting round, only play pocket pairs or big aces. If you can limp with suited connectors or small pairs, do so.

2. Always use the continuation bet. Once you’ve committed a few chips before the flop, when the flop comes, if the action is yours and no one has bet, you should try to take the pot. It doesn’t matter if you hit or not, there’s a chance you’ll win the pot simply by continuation betting; otherwise, you can establish if someone has a hand (if someone reraises you, you can assume they are hyper-aggressive or have hit hard). If you always use this continuation bet, people will start calling you when you hit a monster hand, as they’ll think you’re just betting a junk hand.

3. Evaluate if they hit the flop. If someone has made a big raise, chances are they have a big pair or a big ace. If the flop shows 3 low or middle cards that are not suited, they would usually have missed the flop. It is very possible that they will continuation bet (if they have Ace King they will always tend to bet on the flop). If you find yourself in this situation, a reraise will often lead to winning the pot.

4. Know when to withdraw from the hand. Aggressive tight doesn’t mean you keep reraising someone. If you have a legitimate reason to believe that you are winning, you should get rid of your hand. If you use the continuation bet, you’ll usually tell early on whether someone has hit the flop or not.

5. Change hand strength with different opponents. If you are playing against someone who is very loose and playing junk hands, you can lower the standard of the hand they play with, since it will probably still be better than yours. Instead of betting on big pocket pairs or big aces, you can opt for medium pairs, medium aces or suited connectors.

These 5 tips will give you the tools to overcome beginner poker players, to play at an advanced level you must master each of these points. As with anything, practice will make you a better poker player, and by using play money poker or poker site freeroll tournaments, you can practice for free.