Why Playing Tight Aggressive Poker is the Way To Go

Let me clarify the title of this article by saying that if I had enough space I would have used the full title of: Why tight aggressive poker is the way to go for 99% of poker players. The reason I say this is because at its core poker is a game of decisions, and a tight/aggressive playing style -which can be a winning style– correlates to easier decisions.

Think of it this way, if you are implementing a tight/aggressive strategy your goal is to simply dominate your opponents when you have a strong hand: Basically, you’re letting your opponents commit the mistakes. On the other hand, with a loose/aggressive strategy you are pushing all of your small edges, which translates into you being involved in more borderline situations. These borderline situations present you with difficult decisions -decisions you could easily get wrong.

Additionally, these close decisions, and small edges, will inevitably lead to huge swings in your profits and losses -variance-which can lead to tilt, which leads to more bad decisions! When you’re running good playing a loose/aggressive style everything is great, but when you’re running bad and utilizing a loose/agro approach your downswings will be larger, and if you start to add even a small amount of tilt into the equation you can easily become a losing player. In fact, this switch can happen so fast you don’t even realize it, and it can become permanent. It’s very easy to start making the wrong choice in a lot of those borderline decisions; and start adding situations that aren’t borderline, but are simply -EV, into that category.

That’s how easy it is to go from a winning loose/aggressive player to a losing loose/aggressive player, and when that happens, and tilt really kicks in, you’re just a small step away from being a complete maniac.

This is why the loose/aggressive style is for experienced, winning players with a certain skill-set: Players who understand how to stay in control of their emotions when things are going poorly and players who have the knowledge and experience to make the right choices in those borderline scenarios. Most players just can’t implement this style and continue to be winning players.

On the other hand a tight/aggressive style of play gives you plenty of advantage over your opponents, and will make the game easier both strategically and mentally. I always compare the two styles this way: Tight/Aggressive poker is like driving on a busy highway, you’ll almost always make it home unscathed even if your focus drifts from time-to-time: While a Loose/Aggressive style of poker is like being a NASCAR driver: You have to be 100% focused ALL OF THE TIME, otherwise you’re destined to crash and burn. The loose/aggressive style is meant for the best of the best, the normal poker player just doesn’t have the combination of skill, experience, mental toughness, and fearlessness to do it.