Royal Flush Poker

Playing tight poker is something which will very often be profitable and is in itself, an acceptable way to approach the game for long periods of time, that said, there a few drawbacks too which must be looked at. I prefer to use tight play as a safe place to stand and take stock of the situation during tournament play, I may have just lost a big pot and do not wish to get involved for a couple of hands, so I play tight and fold most things preflop, this gives me time to recover my composure and judge where my chipstack stands and how I wish to proceed. I might do the same after winning a big pot for a few hands to allow myself to get back to calm collected thinking, instead of excitement causing me to go straight into the next pot guns blazing, to try and press my recently acquired advantage.

In Holdem terms I would refer to tight play as folding anything preflop that isn’t, a pair over 7′s or (A,K) or (A,Q), these hands I will mostly play, but I can still play the ones like (9,9) or (A,Q) conservatively, the advantage of this tighter play is that I won’t lose many chips and I can concentrate on observing my opponents for a little while, also if I do have to get involved with a premium hand I’m likely to win some chips with it. The disadvantage Is that you won’t be playing hardly any hands and so you are most likely to gradually decrease your chipstack through blinds. Also other players can notice you folding lots of hands and can start to pressure you, trying to pick up your blinds uncontested, so I would only advise playing tight in spells.

I prefer to be far more aggressive and generally more flexible with the hands I will play, although this is dependant on individual circumstance, but there is certainly a good case to be made for the advantages of taking a breather from getting involved in pots, to assess where you are, and what your current type of play is achieving during that stage of the tournament.