Playing Tight Aggressive Poker (TAG)

Tight aggressive poker play is all about minimizing your mistakes, while trying to get your opponents to make mistakes. It's about controlling the pot and the action in a hand, but at the right place, time, and situation. Knowing when to change gears and understanding that timing is everything is another key part.

Being a TAG player is all about picking your premium hands, pots, and situations with just the right aggression levels depending on the table factors where you're sitting. There's a big difference between TAG (tight aggressive) and LAG (loose aggressive), and it's important to know the difference.

But what exactly is the right formula to play TAG? Check out our article and guide for Tight Aggressive Poker, then come back here and share your thoughts!

What did you learn, and how will you apply it to your game? Do you already employ a TAG strategy at the tables, or does another method work best for you?

Just like a typical TAG player, it is always best to make the most of your style, hence, if you have been playing TAG or LAG, you need to make sure that you mix it up, and then your oppnents will not be able to get a good read on you.

Independent of the method, the classification of the players is one of the deciding factors between a recreational and a consistently winning player, who knows his opponent well enough to apply a check-raise, accelerate the game or use the slow-play.

In my experience a TAG is the easiest player type to play against, but of course there are good tag players and bad ones, I rarely refuse a fight with a tag, I usually play the flops and not my cards when up against tags, on the other hand I try to keep my distance from decent lags, they frighten me lol

I'm all about the TAG. I think this article could be renamed "The Right Way to Play Poker" or "The Best Way to Play Poker". If you want to decrease variance, you should always be playing big pots with big hands and smaller pots with weaker hands. TAG is the obvious path to this. You have to change gears many times over the course of a tournament, but that should not mean that the base of your play through the middle stages should be anything but TAG. Different situations call for different actions that may seem like they don't fit with the TAG perspective, but you have to adapt to individual circumstances.

TAG style of play is the first style of play a poker newbie uses.

It is the most safe and variance-limited type of play for inexperienced players, but also for solid regulars too. I think that TAG suits very good to MTTs, and that's why some of the most successful MTT players ever are TAGs, like Phil Hellmuth, Chris Ferguson, Dan Harrington, etc.

But one should always adapt to their table's circumstances.

In certain stages of a tournament it is necessary to play (TAG) is necessarily applicable when you know the players of your table

Getting to know the players habits sitting across from you will,soon tell who and when to tighten up , or play looser with more of a hand range
I usually play tighter early on in bigger tournament to see how the aggression of players are, this gives you a good idea of the nits and bluffer sitting across from you

In one recent tournament, I played a good TAG game with strong attention to position and was able to pick up pre-flop bets and blinds about once every 1.5 go around and made it to the final table. Won about 5 significant pots, rarely contested, and was not much challenged for my big blinds.

Task #3, Week 2 Getting to Know Others

chicopaw said:

Getting to know the players habits sitting across from you will,soon tell who and when to tighten up , or play looser with more of a hand range
I usually play tighter early on in bigger tournament to see how the aggression of players are, this gives you a good idea of the nits and bluffer sitting across from you

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I agree wholeheartedly. One key element that is an important ingredient to making the final table is getting to know each player's range and their bank. Rock-Paper-Scissors......Loads of stuff to know.
:icon_stud:viking::vollkomme

after reading this article, I saw that I need to improve my post flop, and put the opponents in better ranges, many times I end up not believing that he has the top pair, the board, and I with high cards ends up insisting on continuing the play, even losing ... I need to review this.

Yes, aggressive poker is certainly very good, many players fold their cards without daring to continue the fight. however, you should be afraid of traps that can be placed by the one who decided to answer the call.

i guess im more of a lag player, maybe thats why i lose so often. gonna try to tighten my game up a little

Thank you very much for this great article, it is sometimes difficult to fold a big hand, but you must recognize the danger, and know when to quit.
As stated in article, it is important to control the boat.

Useful article. Overly tight play is my big problem. Sometimes it's hard for me to force myself to play more aggressively.

Tight players play premium hands, which have good expected value and simplify decision making. Because you are avoiding marginal hands, your poker playing will result in fewer costly mistakes, earning you more profit.

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Perhaps this is good in cash games, but it does not work well in tournaments. Alas, such a game makes a profit too slowly. You can take the blinds, but this will not be enough. Your good hands will win, but they will not be well paid. If only you are lucky to win a player with a good hand. But you can also lose to a player with an even stronger hand.

It seems that in modern online poker (at least in tournament poker), we need a wider preflop hand game, including even marginal hands, in order to get our nut with an unexpected hand. Such hands will be well paid, because no one expects you to flop a 72o with 722?

It has good points on it.But the problem is the condition that we need to have really low observing players on the table so that our tight play can work.If you are against loose player and think that you will make money with AK almost every time you are in delusion.Also its not good explained how to mix your styles properly.

I try to play at certain stages of the tournament (TAG), but the main thing is to be able to switch to (LAG) when the situation requires.I think the main thing to be able to combine play styles !

Each style of play has strengths and weaknesses. The main thing to learn how to adapt your style of play to a specific opponent.

choose the style you need then that is when explore your rivals,you have to adapt to them,and then play some random style,personally against the regulars, I would not play aggressive hard style!

Playing LAG against TAGs works pretty well for me. at least at the micros.

Tight aggresive style is really a very good style to apply. It really gives the opportunity to go far in the game. This is more effective for the game. It is also wiser, which means more effectiveness and more fun.

There are many differences between cash games and tournaments.

Tight Aggressive Poker is good strategy for players at cash games, or short stacks players at a tournament. The other situation is chips leaders of a tournament for they don't worry to be knocked out by one hand.

But when you are unlucky, Tight aggressive Poker will make you serious setbacks.

Strategy article/discussion thread: Playing Tight Aggressive Poker (TAG)

I prefer the TAG style because the tight-aggressive style of poker is usually effective regardless of changes in the game or the structure of the stakes. Most observational opponents will avoid colliding with TAGs, since they will consider that they have the best hand and will fold under pressure.

mtl mile end said:

I'm all about the TAG. I think this article could be renamed "The Right Way to Play Poker" or "The Best Way to Play Poker". If you want to decrease variance, you should always be playing big pots with big hands and smaller pots with weaker hands. TAG is the obvious path to this. You have to change gears many times over the course of a tournament, but that should not mean that the base of your play through the middle stages should be anything but TAG. Different situations call for different actions that may seem like they don't fit with the TAG perspective, but you have to adapt to individual circumstances.

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In my view, those words completed the initial posting in practice.:captain: