Choosing an Appropriate Game in Poker

Game Selection

Learning how to choose an appropriate game that matches your bankroll and your personal skill level can be the difference between starting your poker career off as a winner, or as a loser. In this article we will touch the basics of bankroll management, the evaluation of poker games, and how to classify possible opponents. Make sure that each of these basics become part of your personal poker strategy while developing it and the reward in the long term will be stupendous.

What Is Poker Bankroll Management?

Poker bankroll management is one of those terms that advanced poker players mention very often as the most important part of their poker strategy. But what is the definition of bankroll management? A bankroll contains all the funds a single poker player has for playing poker, usually at one online poker room, but sometimes players sum it all up, with the exception of live poker bankrolls. Poker bankroll management is a basic poker strategy that is used to avoid going broke, especially when players have bad runs for a long stretch.

It is absolutely essential that you take the following advice for granted and choose the limits you play carefully. Always do this based on the size of your poker bankroll. If you have a $100 bankroll it is not clever to be playing the $1/$2 games, as you don't even have a full buy-in for this limit.

To survive variance (up and down swings), which is irrevocable attached to the game of poker, it is advised to buy-in at a ring game for a maximum of 5% of your bankroll at any time. For example, proper bankroll management for a $1.000 bankroll would simply mean that you are allowed to buy-in for the full amount at NL50 ($0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em) tables, or lower limits.

In depth articles about bankroll management:

Evaluating A Game Before Joining The Action

There is a huge difference in the standard of poker players at online poker rooms compared to live poker players. Better players tend to play at the higher limits, but don't be put off, even up to the dizzy heights of $5/$10 you will regularly find bad, or at least lesser skilled players playing.

It is important to find a game that has weaker players as opposed to a game that has stronger players, why would you want to play against good players? Finding easy poker games is much easier online than it is live, so dedicating only 10 to 20 minutes to pinpointing where the bad players are playing must become a habit at the start of your poker playing sessions.

Take some time to evaluate a game before seating yourself at a table. If it looks like a game full of tough players, then you should consider looking for another game, and with the amount of players on online poker rooms such as for example PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker, it certainly won't be hard to find a table with an open seat at the same limits.

Classifying Opponents In A Game Of Poker

There are two major ways to describe the style in which an opponent plays poker - tight or loose, and passive or aggressive.

Tight - or Loose Players

Tight/loose describes how many hands a player will play. If they play very few hands, then they are considered to be a "tight" player. If they play a lot of hands, then they are considered to be a "loose" player. Almost all beginners with little poker experience are considered to be loose players, as they tend to play a large variety of hands hoping to get lucky. If you are a tight player you will love to play against these type of players, hence why it is best to play against inexperienced beginners.

Passive - or Aggressive Players

Passive/aggressive describes how often players tend to bet their hands. Passive players often prefer to call or check, as opposed to raise or bet, as they like to see all of the cards down to the river. Aggressive players on the other hand tend to heavily bet their hands and rarely call or check, but as a rule of thumb, aggressive players also tend to bluff more than passive players.

What Poker Style Is Best?

The easiest poker games, or better yet the most profitable poker games for beginners to play, are games which consist of as many loose/passive players as possible. These are games where players tend to play a lot of weak hands, by adopting a tight/aggressive playing style at these games it is easy to win money and be a profitable poker player.

The toughest poker games (hardest to beat) are those in which players tend to play fewer hands and bet heavily when they enter pots, which is rarely the case for tight players. This style of playing is referred to as tight/aggressive, and bankroll wise this style has less variance than a loose/aggressive style.

Though, which of the two styles is best - tight/agressive or loose/agressive - depends on the player. Any of the styles can be profitable, the key however, is to mix up your style and occasionally throw in odd bets or checks, as this helps other players finding it harder to classify your style of play, which makes you unpredictable and more dangerous to play against.