How to Play in Loose Poker Games

Due to the recent changes in legislation, it is becoming more and more important to be able to play live, and today’s live games are extremely loose and sometimes quite aggressive, so it is important to learn the strategy to beat these loose games. Even if not playing live, there are still some loose online games and these can be very profitable so one should learn to beat them.

The most important thing in live games is to be able to beat loose passive players, and thankfully it isn’t very hard to do so. The first thing that you should think about when trying to beat these loose players is: if you were a loose passive, what kind of player would you lose the most money to, and what kind of player would you beat? You would probably lose a lot of money to someone that can value bet thinly, and probably would win substantial money versus a highly aggressive player that likes to bluff a lot. You then want to make sure that versus a loose passive player, your tendency is to value bet thinly and not bluff too much. Obviously, this is a simplification, and there are different types of loose passive players requiring different adjustments, but this is a basic counter-strategy to work with that can be very effective and is a good framework for dealing with loose-passives.

The next thing one must think about is that there is a difference in dealing with one loose-passive vs a table full of them. When there is only one loose passive, one’s goal should be to isolate them and play the most pots with them with hands that one will be likely to be able to value-bet, i.e. high card hands and pairs. With a table full of loose passives, this changes. While high card hands still have some value, one will be playing a lot of multi-way pots and so it is important to play cards that play well multi-way that will likely be best against several players all chasing draws and calling with weak hands to see improvement by the river, particularly high suited hands, medium to high connected hands, and pairs. It becomes very valuable to have the potential to cooler another player.

Loose aggressive games and players can be considerably trickier to deal with, but as long as one deals with bad loose aggressive players it should be reasonably doable to figure out how to beat them. Recall that the strategy that the loose passive beats is that of the bluffer, and so vs loose aggressive, bluff happy players it becomes good to shift a bit more to a loose passive strategy in some cases. Vs. a loose aggressive player, every made hand goes up in value so that the top pair weak kicker or mid pair may go from being a river fold to a river call. Another idea that becomes very important vs. loose aggressive players is capitalizing on aggressive dead money. This often involves waiting for them to put in the most money possible that doesn’t commit them with a weak range, and then shoving all-in or simply raising in a spot where villain can’t continue with most of their range. An example of this can be if one is facing a flop check-raise after cbetting from a highly loose-aggressive player. Instead of reraising, one may elect to call and shove over the opponent’s turn bet with a wide range.

The basic ideas to be learned here are that one beats single loose passives by value betting, and multiple loose passives by value betting as well as playing hands that fair well multiway. One also beats loose aggressive players by becoming slightly more of a calling station and capitalizing on aggressive dead money.

If you want to learn more on how to beat loose aggressive poker games, check out our best-selling poker book, The Poker Blueprint.