Players can be labeled using their style of playing and it’s very helpful to keep the amount of information in your head as small and as effective as possible.
The two macro areas you can split the players are based on the their tendencies of aggression. In one side, players very conservative, on the other side the aggressive ones.
Contents
Conservative players
Nit
you can call “nit” players who play less than 10% of the hands. They generally are not a threat to your bankroll, because they tent to play only with a strong hand so if it happens, just get out from the action if you are not holding the absolute nuts.
Tight passive
another good chunk of players you can win money from. They tend to play less than 20% of the hands, but they fall in love with any piece of the board they hit, ending up paying your value bets during the streets up to the river.
Tight aggressive
most of the regs are in this category and they are pretty solid and hard to win money from. It’s a good simple style to adopt and leads to play less than 20% of the hands, adding to the best starting hands also a small range of bluffs, preflop made for stealing the blinds and post flop, in continuation bet.
Usually they do fold to 3bets preflop and are weak on the flop if they miss the board, so do not exhitate to check raise (learn how, here!) them!
Loose passive
They just call. Call, call. call. Yes, from time to time they do flop the nuts with the weird combo they called preflop with, but in most of the cases they are your gold mine, so bet only for value and get the most out from any low to medium strength type of hand.
Aggressive players
Loose aggressive
They are dangerous! They play around 30% of the hand they are willing to fire shots prelfop, flop, turn and river, usually with a balanced range which includes strong points, draws or total bluff. They also like to 3bet and 4bet and generally speaking are the worst type of players you can meet.
If you can, just avoid tables with them. If you cannot, try to bet a more narrow range when it comes to play versus them; in most of the cases it does not worth it playing a bull fight with these players. They are the sharks, you are looking for the fish.
Ultra loose aggressive
They do play as aggressive as the previous category, but not in a wise way. They do play for the thrill of the bets and raises, so they are easily beatable playing for value and letting them take the lead of the hands where you hit at least a good piece of the board.
Generally speaking, you can consider yourself and other players as good regulars either they are tight aggressive or loose aggressive.
Both of the styles do pay off if you follow the main rule for winning at poker: you are not winning cause you are the strongest around, but you are making money because you are the smartest around, which includes selection the tabes and making sure you do play a game where you have an edge over your opponents.
