Poker-The TAG Style

Even though every poker player has his or her own style, there are some general categories we can use to describe them. The major categories are the fish, rock, lag and tag. I'll talk about the others later, but for now let's talk about the TAG style.

The word TAG stands for tight-aggressive and it is the style you should strive to have. Being tight-aggressive means you are tight in picking which hands you play but you are aggressive with the hands you do play.

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The tag doesn't play weak starting hands and he certainly doesn't play hands after the flop with that passive, check and call style that the fish use. The tag plays with aggression. If a tag's hand isn't strong enough to bet or raise with, he'll fold it before it costs him any money.

The tag style is so powerful because it leaves no room for weak hands and it uses aggression to get money in the pot with strong hands. The tag style also makes your decisions after the flop easier than they would be with any other style.

If you check and call with a medium-strength hand all the way down like a fish, you're going to have no idea what your opponent has. He could be bluffing, betting with a monster or anything else in between.

If instead you bet your hands aggressively, you put all the pressure on your opponents. They don't have a clue of what you're betting with but they do know you just might have a huge hand. It is because of this uncertainty that they're going to have to play their hands in a more straightforward manner.

By putting that pressure on your opponents, they are going to have a hard time playing weak hands against you. It also makes it more expensive for them to bluff when you are the aggressor. If you check and call, all your opponents have to do to bluff is make a bet. But if you're betting and they want to bluff, they have to risk more money on a big raise.

Tags also know how to make the occasional bluff but they don't overdo it like the maniacs do. Tags are aware of their table image and they can judge the best times to make the occasional, well-timed bluff.

As a tag, your decisions become easier because you are playing strong hands that are likely to hit the flop hard. You are putting pressure on your opponents by betting and raising, not checking and calling. If you miss the flop, you can simply throw your hand away and wait for a better spot to put your money in.

The basic idea of the tag style is to play only strong starting hands before the flop and only continue after the flop with strong hands. If you don't hit a strong hand on the flop, you are quick to fold it.

Playing the Flop

A big part of the tag strategy we talked about in the last section is knowing when to fold your hands and when to stay in with them. It is the ultimate key to winning at poker. If you want to make a lot of money at poker, you're going to need to be very picky when choosing which hands you stay in with and which hands you fold.

It's tempting to take hands too far on the flop - especially if you've been folding a lot of your hands before the flop. When you finally do pick up a hand strong enough to play it can be frustrating to just fold it when the flop misses you.

The types of hands you're looking for on the flop are the ones that really stick out and make you go "oh great!" not the hands that make you think "well, I have a little bit of something and my opponent might be bluffing..."

Hands like top pair top kicker (TPTK from now on), two-pairs, sets, straights and flushes are what you want to see. Hands like top pair weak kicker and second pair are just asking for trouble.

The problem with weak hands like top pair weak kicker is that you are unlikely to get action from worse hands. For the most part the only hands that will call you down are hands that have you beat. People with hands worse than top pair weak kicker will usually fold them to any decent-sized bet.

You want to stay in the hand when you're the aggressor and you're sure your hand is the best one. It takes a little experience to get this feeling but it comes quickly enough. If someone else is doing all the betting and you're just calling down, hoping your hand is good, it's probably a good time to get out of the hand.

A big part of knowing when your hand is good is knowing your opponents. If you're playing a hand like AA and some fish is calling your bets all the way down, you're probably good. If you're betting with AA and the rock of Gibraltar suddenly puts in a huge checkraise on the turn, however, you will want to realize your AA is only a pair and he probably has you beat.

Playing those big pair hands is similar to playing hands like TPTK. If you raise AQ preflop and the flop comes 2Q7, you probably have the best hand but it's far from invincible. A pair is only a pair so although you should bet this hand for value, you will want to proceed with caution. You will want to play this hand like it's the best hand until someone proves you otherwise.

That brings me to another major part of the tag style: aggression. When you hit strong hands on the flop, the best way to play them is to bet them. By betting your strong hands on the flop, you are accomplishing two separate objectives: you are getting money in the middle with a strong hand and you are protecting your hand from draws.

Almost every hand is susceptible to draws so you want to bet your hands from the beginning. If you have a hand like TPTK, it's vulnerable to all sorts of draws - people can be drawing to two-pair, flushes, straights and all kinds of junk. You can't stop people from drawing against you but can make it expensive to draw against you.

By betting your strong hands on the flop you are cutting your opponents' pot odds which makes it unprofitable for them to chase their draws against you. Since you can't realistically guess which draws your opponents are on and calculate the odds of those hitting while sitting at the table, a good rule of thumb for betting your strong hands is to bet somewhere between 3/4ths the size of the pot to the full size of the pot.

If you are making proper bets with strong hands, you actually want your opponents to draw because you profit when your opponents chase draws against the odds. I'll get more into pot odds later but for now suffice it to say that if you bet big and your opponents still chase, they won't hit their draws often enough to make a profit off you. Sometimes it might seem like everyone is hitting their draws against you but in the long term drawing against the odds is as unprofitable as playing slot machines in a casino.

Continuation Bets

A continuation bet is a bet you place on the flop after having raised preflop. It doesn't matter if you've hit the flop or completely whiffed it, it's a continuation bet. It is called a continuation bet because it is a continuation of the aggression you showed preflop by raising.

Here's an example of a continuation bet: You raise $4 preflop with AK and get one caller. The board comes J34, totally missing you. Your opponent checks to you and you bet $8. That $8 bet is your continuation bet.

A good size for continuation bets is somewhere around 3/4ths the size of the pot to the full size of the pot. If you're playing in a $10 pot, a good continuation bet would be around $7 to $10. If your continuation bets always follow the "3/4 to full pot sized" rule, your opponents won't be able to guess the strength of your hand based on the size of your bet.

Continuation bets are useful because they can often win the pot for you on the flop without you ever having to go to a showdown. In the example above, you started out with a great hand but it didn't really pan out for you on the flop. Instead of giving up and potentially losing to something like a pair of 4's, you've thrown out a continuation bet that will most likely win the pot for you.

Another good time to use continuation bets is with made hands. This works especially well if your opponents have seen you make continuation bets somewhat frequently. Sometimes the best play to make after raising preflop and hitting something nice on the flop is a normal continuation bet. First of all, it gets money in the pot early which means the bets on the turn and river will be bigger. Second, your opponents are likely to think you're just placing another continuation bet with some kind of weak hand.

Continuation bets put your opponents in a difficult spot because they have no idea what you have. You've raised preflop and you've carried that momentum over to the flop with a continuation bet. Even though your opponent might suspect his pocket 9s are good, it's going to be difficult for him to play that hand on a TQ2 board if you're throwing a big continuation bet his direction.

Even though continuation bets are strong plays, there are times when you will want to consider not placing them. One of the worst times to place a continuation bet is when there are multiple opponents in the pot with you. The more opponents there are in a hand, the more likely it is that one of them hit something and won't fold to your bet.

You will also want to take into consideration the board texture. Some board textures are better than others for continuation bets. If you have one opponent and the board looks something like 3d7sKh, you have a better chance at winning the pot than if the board was something like ThJhQh.

A board like ThJhQh is especially bad for continuation betting because it hits so many potential hands. If you think about the types of hands people like to play, it could have easily given someone a flush, a straight, a two pair or a strong draw. Boards with aces are also dangerous for continuation bets because weak players love to play any hand with an ace in it. If you're up against tight opponents, aces become good cards because your opponents will think you raised with an ace.

Other times you'll land a decent draw on the flop and have to decide if you want to semi-bluff with it or check to get a free card. The semi-bluff works well because it gives you two chances to win the pot: your opponents might fold or you might hit your draw. The only problem with this is you risk getting raised out of the pot. If your opponent checks to you and you check behind, you get to see the turn card for free. But if your opponent checks and you place a bet, you open yourself up to the risk of a big checkraise.

Checkraises in general pose a significant threat to continuation bets because your opponents know that people usually bet after raising preflop whether or not the flop helped. If your opponents notice that you place continuation bets very frequently, they will start checkraising you more often.

When deciding whether or not to place a continuation bet, you want to base your decision on the likelihood of your opponents folding. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself when trying to decide if a continuation bet is a good idea:

Is there more than one opponent in the hand against you?

Are you up against calling stations or opponents who checkraise often?

Does the board texture look like it could have hit hands that your opponents are likely to play?

Have you taken down several pots with continuation bets recently?

If you answer yes to one or more of these questions, you may just want to play it safe and check instead of bet.