Third Street
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FAQ
Playing in Tight Games
Very often during a game, your opponents will change. That is, online poker players will come and go.
Sometimes the game you are in will become very tight.
When this happens, you generally should leave ( and perhaps use the time to reread this book ).
But if the game is tight and non-aggressive, then you are in a good situation.
You can steal some antes, and you will be able to get in cheap and do some bluffing on fourth and fifth streets when you catch scare cards.
Of course, when one of your tight opponents comes in, he will have a quality starting hand.
If he catches a scare cards, you usually should go out, unless your hand has substantially improved.
This is most important when you are in the pot with a weaker hand.
In these tight games, most of the hands that you will be playing past the opening bet are the best high hands and good low hands.
These are the hands that have a lot of value in this type of game. However, be careful about going too far, because when you get challenged, you frequently will be up against a premium hand.
Remember, you will make most of your money by stealing antes or by stealing on fourth street, since a lot of players will fold after taking one card off.
However, you generally want to avoid extremely tight but aggressive games. In eight-or-better, many of your opponents will be competent players, especially if they are playing fairly tight.
So you won’t have much of an edge against them, if you have an edge at all.
This brings us to an interesting conclusion: It may be all right to play in one of these games, providing that you do not play for very long.
You might steal a few antes and perhaps make a couple of plays. But competent players – who may be caught off-guard at first – will soon catch on, and your advantage will diminish, if not disappear altogether.
The exception to playing for only a short time as if some weak players are waiting to get into the game.
In this case, you might want to stay. It should be clear that high hands go up in value in tight games, since most of the pots are heads up and the hands don’t always go to the river.
However, most players fold high hands too quickly ( usually around fifth street ) when they see a low hand developing, because they don’t want to put in a lot of money and only split the pot.
They forget that there often is already a significant amount of money in the pot, and since the action is usually heads up, they have the option of just checking and calling.
By the same token, it is easy to go too far with a high hand in a tight game, where you might be against a better high hands.
Now you will be playing high against high with the worst hand.
This is especially true if your opponent has an ace up or if he catches an ace.
Introduction / Playing in Tight Games / Playing in Loose Games
