Tight Aggressive Vs Loose Aggressive Play in Poker Tournaments

It is always assumed that you must adopt the Tight Aggressive style of approach, at the time of playing poker games. With this conception, most of the players across the world use such a strategy. Even though Tight Aggressive Game or the TAG might seem like the best strategy in no-limit games, it is not the ideal tactic to employ, especially if you are playing bigger tournaments or Sit-N-Go games.

One of the most common strategies known by the advanced players is to adopt a style which is opposite to your opponents’ style. Now since majority of the players are using the TAG approach, it would be suggestive to add some Loose Aggressive elements to the game. This would give a new dimension to the game and you would often leave your opponents guessing, since it involves playing different varieties of hands.

A lot of the experienced players would suggest that you cannot stick to just one style of play for a longer duration. If you adopt the TAG style, you would eventually become fairly predictable and therefore your opponents would figure out that you are playing only premium hands. Such a way, you would be bluffed a lot more and hence you would not get paid even with the monster hands. To overcome such a problem, you must effectively mix your play, so as to keep the opponents wondering about your strategy. These are the steps towards building a strong tournament approach. It wouldn’t be necessary to completely move to LAG style; however you can add some key elements and see a major improvement in your games.

To elaborate more on the Loose Aggressive approach, here the players would call and raise larger number of hands, with the sole intention of outplaying the opponent holding the stronger hand. Such LAG players are highly alert and would often back down as soon as there is some sort of retaliation or resistance. Such a player is also likely to send semi-bluff into the pots and would easily take over opponents who are weak or cannot call.

The LAG approach would easily exploit the aggressive players in the game. The LAG strategy is focussed towards obtaining more chips into the pot from those players who otherwise call only on premium hands. No Limit Cash Games would allow you to sit through for longer periods of time without calling; however the scenario is different when it comes to Sit-N-Go tournaments. There are antes and blinds which continuously affect the bankroll and therefore you are required to make your moves constantly. If you choose to add the LAG elements in the game during the start of the play, then there are chances that you would be able to save some chips till you come across some frenzied circumstances during the later parts of the game. LAG approach would allow you to pick up loads of smaller pots, without much resistance involved.