Know Your Oponent

It’s vital to know what kind of opponent you’re up against before you try to extract value from them. Some opponents you have to slow play, others you have to bet big. Knowing your opponent is the key to getting maximum value from your hand.

Here are some tricks to getting more money out of different villains.



Aggressive Villains

These guys were born to pay you off. Just play your hand like you have a weak pair or some other small hand. Aggressive villains won’t be able to resist trying to take you off the hand.

Probe bets are good. Bet around 1/3 the pot into your villain especially if they were the pre-flop raiser. You’ll get a raise a good portion of the time. From there, your play depends on the flop.

If the flop was likely to hit your villain, just get your money in. If you’re not sure, tank and call like you want to re-evaluate the turn. If the turn is a scare card, you can donk again and hope the villain will still think you’re weak and trying to buy the pot. If not, you can use the rope-a-dope line suggested by Harrington and check to induce a bet.

Loose Villains

No moves needed here. Loose villains want to call, so let them. All you have to do is bet-bet-bet to get your money in. If your villain is doing the betting, just let them. Don’t raise and scare them away. Save the raise for the river and hope they’re too committed to fold. The exception is when these players bet ridiculously small amounts into you. Treat these bets as a check and raise them to the level of a standard continuation bet.

Tight and Tight-Passive opponents

These are the toughest players to get money from. Just make a standard bet if the flop looks like it hit their range or check and hope a good card comes off. You’re not going to get any money out of these players unless they have something too. Bet small unless you think they have a decent hand.


Make sure you know where you are when you play to maximize value or you might end up taking yourself to value town. With some shrewd moves and some good reads you can increase your win rate by a couple big blinds per hour.


source: justplaypoker.net