There are 5 main types of poker player and I will list the characteristics of each in this part of my poker help files series. If you want to pick out these players quickly when playing online you should purchase some poker tracking software, the best being Holdem Manager. I will go into that more in a later part of the series. Here are the 5 types of opponents you will encounter at the poker tables.

Loose Passive, aka ‘Fish’ - Example Holdem Manager statistics 39/4/1.2 (VPIP/PFR/Aggression Factor) 
These are the players you love seeing at the poker table. They will limp into pots from all positions and will call a raise and play their hand more or less face up. They will call when they hit the board, the will fold when they miss and they will raise when they hit a monster

Strategy to beat these fish 
Value bet these players with your top pair, top kicker and better hands for 3 streets, and fold all hands bar monsters when they raise you as they will always have the nuts or near nuts.

Tight Nit, aka ‘Rock’ - Example Holdem Manager statistics 14/12/3.0 
These players play only the top 14% of hands and they play them fast. They will re – raise you with JJ+ and if you get into a 3bet preflop shoving war, they will always have the best of it. Again if they call a rasie from you and then reraise on the flop, they usually have flopped a set.

Strategy to beat Nits 
When they open a pot, your aim is to play cards which will crack their big premium pairs, so call with pocket pairs and try and set mine them. If they have an overpair to the board they will go all the way with it. Also if there are 1 or 2 nits sitting at a table try and ensure that they are sitting on your left, this way you can steal their blinds liberally as they only defend when they are dealt premium cards which is not very often. Fold when you get re-raised unless you have AA or KK pre – flop.

Loose Maniac - Example Holdem Manager statistics 80/40/5.0 
These can be quite difficult to play against as they keep on raising and betting all streets. They will raise from every position and they will try and bully you out of pots especially if you show any weakness. Be prepared to get bad beat by these kind of players as they play any two cards and play all draws aggressively!

Strategy to beat Maniacs 
Strategy is to tighten up and only play high card hands verus this player and let him do all the betting for you when you flop top pair type hands. Hold on and don’t be afraid to call the big all in bet on the river when all the draws on the board brick out.

Loose Aggressive - Example Holdem Manager statistics 30/24/4.0 
This strategy if played properly by your opponent can be very hard to play against. They will be very positional aware and will be putting pressure on you with 3bets and flop re raises when they have position. Good LAGS will constantly be putting you to difficuly decisions. Thankfully not many players can play this good.

Strategy to beat LAGs 
Best way to play against this type of players is to only play pots where you are in position. You must not let them run over you so if you find they are re -raising you a lot pre – flop from the blinds, then you must throw in the occasional 4bet bluff to show them you are not afraid to mix it up. Also re -raise bluff some of their continuation bets on dry boards to start putting them to the test.

Tight Aggressive - Example Holdem Manager statistics 21/18/3.5 
For anyone starting out playing poker they should lean towards a tight aggressive strategy. This plays very much like the loose aggressive above. They play less hands but do loosen up their starting hand range considerably from late position and will try to steal a lot of blinds and put pressure on limpers by isolating them with big raises. They will build pots with big hands and they will pot control with weakish hands that cannot withstand a raise but have show down value.

Strategy to beat TAGs 
It can be hard to wrangle chips off tight aggressive players. As stated earlier they will build pots with big made hands and with big draws and keep pots small with weak top pair, second pair type hands. You must use the same strategy as you would against the loose aggressive players but be prepared to float more and try and steal more pots when they show weakness when they check to you out of position.

When you sit down at a table whether live or online, you should start to classify them into one of the above type of players and then vary your game accordingly to best exploit their tendencies. In part 3 of this series we will discuss continuation betting.