Reading your opponents for the most part comes down to identifying what poker style they play with. Knowing what poker styles you are playing against will help you become a winning poker player because you can make adjustments in your play.

LAGs (loose aggressive) play many hands, very aggressively. Extreme LAGS are maniacs. They rely on luck and tend to have very big swings – they will occasionally have big wins, but more often have big losses. Their undisciplined play will tend to confuse you, which adds to their success when they’re running hot.

LAPs (loose passive) play many hands, very weakly (few raises, many calls) I call these players lambs (calling stations). This is by far the worst player. They see almost every pot and almost every street and almost never maximize a win (unless someone else is doing the betting for them). They could have the nuts and may very well check/call (which can be a bit confusing, but at least it’s not as costly as losing to a LAG!)

TAGs (tight aggressive) play few hands, but play them very aggressively (ideal style) players who can play this style well, tend to do very well – they typically maximize their wins and control their losses.

TAPs (tight passive) play few hands, but play them very weakly (lots of calling and folding) – also known as rocks, they tend to be winners, but fail to maximize their wins, but do minimize their losses. They will get very little action because they are so rarely involved in a hand that any one with half a clue will get out of their way. Watch out for the check raise from these guys.

So what poker style should you integrate into your game? This is a hard question to answer. I think it comes down to your natural style and whatever you are comfortable playing. Whatever style you are playing, you never want to become too predictable because the good players will pickup on it and you will get owned.

I like to play against LAGs when I am sitting to their left. If you are playing solid poker and have patience, you will always get them in a spot where you have a premium hand and they have overplayed a pair, and you will get all their chips.

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One of the most important factors for winning at online poker is table section and where you sit at the table. I like to play in 6-max and 9-max ring games. This way you get more of a choice on which players you can sit next to. It’s good to have patience. Sometimes I may even watch everyone play from the rail before even sitting at a table. Although you don’t get to see their cards from the rail, you can still get an idea of how aggressive some players may be. What you want to be able to establish is which players are passive, aggressive, or just suck in general.

When you are playing you want to take notes of who is playing their draws aggressively, who limped in the pot with AK, who attempted to bluff a hand, who is raising all the time, etc. All of these tendencies will give you a better picture of what type of playing style you are up against. If someone is raising in every position all the time, then you can safely say they are a very aggressive player, known as a LAG (loose aggressive). So you will need to adjust your play accordingly.

When in a game more then anything else you want to decide whether or not the other players are better then you and will have your number. If you feel uncomfortable playing with players you probably will not play at you’re A game so you should look for another game or just quit the session all together. If you are constantly feeling uncomfortable playing at certain stakes it would be recommended that you go down a level. Don’t let your ego get in the way of what is important. And that is winning at online poker!

Whether or not you should avoid games with aggressive players is a question of debate. I personally like playing against manic type players who do lots of pre flop raises and bets on the flop, you just need to adjust your play accordingly. It’s important that you don’t let your emotions get in the way when playing very aggressive players. Their objective is to constantly put the pressure on you hoping that you will fold your marginal hand.

The first thing you want to try and do is get position on the aggressive players. What I mean by this is that you want to sit to the left of them. The reason for this is because you will always be last to act. If the opposite was true, they could always be coming over the top for a raise and put you in awkward spots. Also, if you sit to the left of the aggressive player you are always evaluating the hand after he or she checks or bets. So you can re-raise their bets to try and get them off mediocre hands.

On the flipside you want to sit to the right of a tight passive player. You can steal the blinds much easier with tight players and they are much less likely to raise their hands pre flop so you can see a lot more flops with mediocre hands. Also, tight passive players are much more likely to call a bet on the flop then re-raise, so if you have a drawing hand and you made a bet, you get to see more cards without paying anything extra for it. Due to their passive nature they don’t like to get involved in big pots unless they have the nuts or something close to it. So you can more easily make river bets and get them off marginal hands making them think you have the nuts.

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