Tight Is Right
One of the best tips for new online poker players to learn is how to play tight. People are drawn to the game for the fun and excitement, which means calling and betting lots of hands. But if you are going to play serious poker, then you must learn how to be tight player first.
After you have mastered the rules of tight play, you can become more creative and strategic about how to play different hands. Tight play though is the foundation on which you should build your online poker skills.
What constitutes tight play? Hand selection is the first step. You should stick the best starting hands in poker online as a newcomer. That means you only enter a pot with about 20 percent of the hands you are dealt and you discard the rest.
Tight players fold most hands from early position and look to play good hands from late position. For instance, you can expect to throw away almost all hands under the gun except the most premium starters, like pocket Aces or faces. When you are in early position, you are first to act in subsequent rounds, so your pre-flop decision is crucial in this spot. You don’t want to commit chips to the pot without a good hand.
Any time you are first to act, be it under the gun or heads-up, tight play is the prudent choice unless you’ve got a very strong hand. Once you have mastered the discipline of tight play, you will acquire the wisdom to recognize opportunities where you can loosen up your starting hands or attempt to steal blinds and pots with raises and bluffs. When you play tight, your opponents will read your bets as a threat and you can leverage that tight image.
