What is Tight Agressive?

[SteveF]

I've seen the term "tight-agressive", "tight-passive", "loose-agressive" (not sure if I've seen a "loose-passive though) in many posts here and in other forums and was wondering if someone could give me a good definition with examples.

I can know tight and I know agressive but to me, the terms are almost mutually exclusive.

[ballbp]

Tight and loose describe the types of hands that certain people play. A tight player waits on good hands while a loose player will play many more hands. Aggressive and passive describe the way people bet the hands they have. An aggressive player raises a lot gets as much money in the pot when they have good hands while a passive player tends to just check a lot and only call bets when bet to. Mixing up the types of hands a person plays and how they bet them you can label someone as a tight-aggressive or loose passive and so on.

[SteveF]

From the above post - An aggressive player raises a lot gets as much money in the pot when they have good hands while a passive player tends to just check a lot and only call bets when bet to. "

In my limited experience so far (maybe even "very limited experience"), it seems that betting and raising aggressively tends to drive people out of the pot.

Yes, there is almost always someone left around at showdown, but if you want to build a bigger pot, wouldn't "sneaky" play be better? i.e. trying to hide your hand with just calls and trying to keep people in the pot?

[ballbp]

Yes, there is almost always someone left around at showdown, but if you want to build a bigger pot, wouldn't "sneaky" play be better? i.e. trying to hide your hand with just calls and trying to keep people in the pot?

At times yes but you're also going to get out-drawn more times than you would expect too. You have to switch up your play, like slow playing hands, but once you've established yourself as a tight player you can get away with more than you think.

[jwrussell]

Ball's answer is pretty much spot-on. There definately are loose-passive players. They play just about everything but they almost never raise. You can also label tables with these terms:
Tight-passive: very few people to see the flop and very little raising
Loose-aggressive: All kinds of people in the hand and betting rounds capped all the time.

As to how to play the hands, like Ball said, you really need to mix up your play. That being said, it all depends on the type of table you are playing on. Are you playing low limits? No Fold'em Hold'em (loose-passive or loose-aggressive)? If so, don't worry so much about mixing it up. Play straight forward, raise if you've got it, fold if you don't poker. Especially if you can find a Loose-Agressive game. In these types of games, you never slow play a hand. There is (almost) no reason to. No body is going to lay down a hand and others are going to raise you back.

The (almost) above concerns when you are in early position with the absolute nuts. If this is the case, you might check-call as you know others on the table will handle your betting for you.

[SteveF]

Thanks! Really good info and I apprecitate it.