An objective assessment of your own game forces you to think about what might be going through your opponents’ heads and helps you to empathise with their possible thought process in order to gain valuable clues as to their hand. Of course yours and your opponent’s game will get more rounded the more experienced you/they become but in general, players fall into one of four categories:
Poker style 1: Tight-Passive
Typical Play: Straight, honest, unimaginative. These players will bet on strong hands and fold on weak ones. They don’t tend to get in on the action until they have a strong starting hand or unless something comes up on the flop. When they do act they will generally bet relative to their confidence in their hand and with minimal risk-taking. These players will often stay in a game for a long time due to their small, infrequent levels of betting but they will eventually get depleted by the blinds.
Non-verbal Tells: Neat, orderly chip stacks. Longer and more frequent peeks at hole cards suggesting assessment of risk before an action. Glances at their chip stack on favourable flops. Preparation on big hands, e.g. signs of excitement and attack including dilated pupils, sitting forward, shaky hands etc. Repetitive betting patterns. Signs of a weak hand are usually obvious (marginal lip pursing, slow blink etc) and the hand is often folded. Online, monitor time to act, number of card peeks and betting amounts as they weigh up the worth of their next action.
Beatability:Generally weak players who are easy to beat because of their predictable nature. If they bet hard, you’re best to avoid following unless you have a very strong hand yourself. That said, they can be bluffed out of a pot fairly easily as they are risk-averse. Most commonly found in Texas Hold ‘em games.
Poker style 2: Loose-Passive
Typical Play: Aka the ‘calling station’. Generally amateur players who are in it for the fun of it and want to be in on the action all the time. They will check and call pretty much anything and are unlikely to fold once they’ve seen the flop. They will often bet right up to the river with nothing, in the sheer optimism that something will come up. They may also bluff on weak hands but do it quite obviously. They don’t tend to bet large amounts.
Non-verbal Tells:Look out for role-playing – this group will often bluff on weak hands. A truly strong hand will induce excitement and the non verbal attack poise. If the player is bluffing they are expecting to fold at some point so tend to look more comfortable and not portray true heightened emotion i.e. faster breathing, muscle clenches, dilated pupils etc. They tend to sit forward on their bluffs to give the impression of strength. Look out for them holding their breath; weak players often forget to breathe when they are running a bluff.
Beatability: These types of players are most commonly referred to as fish. They are generally easily defeated but because they bet on everything you can get caught out if they have a lucky hand. It is quite risky to bluff these players as they won’t back down unless you aggressively bet/raise to scare them off. Play your strong hands wisely against a loose-passive player as they will fold if you go in too hard but will keep feeding the pot for you if you coax them in with small bets.
Poker style 3: Tight-Aggressive
Typical Play: These are dangerous players but quite easy to spot if they’re not masking their style. They choose starting hands carefully and bet/raise aggressively when they have a strong hand. You won’t see this type of player check/call to see a flop, they will most likely fold before seeing it if their hand is questionable. These players will bet/raise in big figures on the turn and the river too and have the real potential to decimate your stack. The tight-aggressive tends not to bluff so if they go in hard and you follow, you need to be as sure as possible that you’ve got a winning hand. They will often seriously increase their chip stack in just a few hands. Because these tend to be good players, they are also aware their style if obvious so may mix it up a bit and play a couple of ‘maniac’ hands to confuse their opponents.
Non-verbal Tells: Again, a generalisation, but look for the orderly chip stacks. These players, as with many pros, might attempt to hide their faces with caps and sunglasses to avoid the detection of their tells. Given the high stakes played by this group, anxiety is likely to show itself in some way. Experienced players will look for the vein in the temple to search for tells of a racing heart. In anticipation of stealing the pot, these players might also glance to their left to check whether the players who have not yet acted have checked their cards in a move to fold. The tight-aggressive player might find it difficult not to look a little longer at big hole cards and may search more aggressively for eye contact with other players, perhaps asking them questions as to their hand in order to evoke a non verbal response.
Beatability:Once you spot them, you know what to look out for and how to avoid losing large chunks of your stack. It’s not always easy to get into their chips though as they play so tightly. That said, if you have a particularly good hand you will make a significant dent in their stack if you win on a bad beat as they bet big when they are confident. Likewise if you catch them out on one of their few bluffs.
Poker style 4: Loose-Aggressive
Typical Play: Also referred to as ‘Maniacs’, these players bet a lot and bet big. Loads of pros are loose-aggressive players and can dish out some serious whoop-ass. Think Gus Hansen, Phil Hellmuth and you’ll get the idea. They have no fear of going all-in and will play so many hands aggressively that you can’t tell what is likely to be good and what might be a monster hand. They play a high percentage of starting hands and will fire huge raises into the pot. Getting caught out by one of these players will leave you flapping at the rail. Reading them is very difficult as they will mix up their aggressive and passive play to create an exciting, fluid game.
Non-verbal Tells: A lot of probing tends to go on amongst this group. They will push emotional responses out of opponents by asking questions, making statements and looking for signs they are right. Aggressive posturing as well as faked laid back posturing can be played. At such high stakes some form of emotional leakage is bound to get out. As they can be fairly vocal, look out for the pitch in their voice getting marginally higher if they’re in a high stress situation or bluffing. Even the top players in the game exhibit signs of a rush, pupils, heart rate, muscle flexing. A loose-aggressive player may also, stereotypically, have an untidy stack of chips symbolic of their ‘apparent’ disregard for money.
Beatability:Hard to beat, these guys are hyper-aggressive and fearless with it. The amounts that they’re willing to stake can end your game early if you come off worse. They instil fear into their opponents and bounce right back even if they do lose a lot of money. Bide your time with these players and find out what triggers their aggressive responses, you could goad them into a poor decision based on a needle to their aggressive nature. If you win over one of these guys, you win big.
The above is quite a general categorisation of 4 broad player types. Many players develop the ability to mix up their game or bluff convincingly that they are a weaker player than they really are and vice versa. Knowing the typical behaviour displayed in these categories can help you hoodwink your opponents by displaying misleading traits. But, you need to be careful. Poker players are all psychologists to varying degrees, they can often tell if behaviour is faked so you need to be very confident in your bluffs to pull a fast one. Experience will be key to your learning curve but paying attention to your own game and table behaviour initially will get you attuned and questioning what your competitors are up to.