Too Tight?

I am currently in a $10K G. and I have been recently getting great results from playing REALLY TIGHT. ie I just folded A10spades from the button due to a raiser in UTG+3 pos.

I recently made a FT which I attribute to folds like AKo when another player who has been Hyper folding and goes All in PF when I TRULY believe he has AA or KK.

I just want opinions. I am playing to Tight? and if the results continue to be profitable when should I loosen up?

Thanks for the feedback!

I think the reason for your folding there are absolutely valid and finding those kinds of fold can be difficult but that kind of fold is what will make you go deeper in tournaments. You are not playing too tight in my opinion, you are playing according to the situation.

Anybody can make good plays once in a while but not everyone can find find a brilliant fold. And that is just as important.

Hi !

After reading the above ... I can not really say that you are playing too tight as do not have enough sample size...but folding A10s pre Flop after raise seem to me too tight

Folding A10s>
I would recommend to at least call with A10s in Button as you would have position on Villain and when you flop your Flush it makes it worst loosing little of chips when not connecting with board after the Flop.

Folding AKo>
Regarding the Folding of AKo to super tight player , that was probably right decision as he was holing QQ+

anyway if you are able to provide us with more hands then more accurate opinion can be provided .

Good Luck @TAbles !

First,I want to make a little disclaimer I don't play in the same level of tourneys you do ,though I have played pretty steady the last three years.With that being said,I see your focus is on your opponents at the table ,guess what?,there focus is on you they see your a tight player so when your in late position you want to try to loosen up and try to still blinds texas holdem no limit has a compounding effect ,for every blind you can steal it doubles on all in against a bigger or equal stack.

The AK fold seems fine, according to the information you just gave us. The A10 suited fold may or may not be fine. Depends on what the raise size from the middle position (I don't think there's such a thing as UTG +3, it's UTG, UTG +1, UTG +2, middle position, hijack, cutoff, and button) player was, and if he was simply raising, or reraising an earlier position player. If he made a min raise for example, this would be an easy call with A-10 suited on the button. You have position, a decent hand, and a very good price. If he was reraising some one on even earlier position, to 10 BBs preflop, then you should fold. It also depends on how loose/tight this player was, if he was a very loose player, you could even reraise him with the A-10. If he was very tight, it's better to fold to a steep price (5BBs or more), and cold call with a good price (2-3 at max 4 BBs).

It depends on your chip stack and if the tournament is a turbo or with normal blind levels if your running deep and in the top 5 with chips then you can wait for premium hands QQ KK AA

vic75 said:

It depends on your chip stack and if the tournament is a turbo or with normal blind levels if your running deep and in the top 5 with chips then you can wait for premium hands QQ KK AA

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Good feedback from everyone all around, thanks for your time folks.
I def. see that the turbo trnys I have had to play a bit differently to get the chip counts up, but then once you have them you can get into the money fairly quickly as KO's in the higher Blind Levels occur at a much accelerated rate. Great point!

The question is invalid , there is a correct answer for everything , calling big shoves with ak is bad , mostly you will be behind even if its just a pair , rarely anyone (who isnt crazy) shoves anything worse than ak with a reasonable stack, you can take the gamble thought if you think you can make good use of those chips or if your population read/single player read tells you he might shove worse than ak.


Calling ATs on the button? pretty standar i say but it depends on your stack size, calling on position is only good if you have big stack to allow you to outplay villains , implied odds play their role aswell but they are less important with AT since you can flop top pair.


Your good results might just be variance , you need an extremely high volume with good analysis to see where you bleed money or not , if your table is very active you will have a problem with tight folds because you wont be able to steal and you cant survive without stealing , you basically get exploited by very active players (who arent donks).

Just analyze your play , analyze the population and if you know how to use this information , the math will make it clear to you how you should play.

Tgen said:

The question is invalid , there is a correct answer for everything....

Just analyze your play , analyze the population and if you know how to use this information , the math will make it clear to you how you should play.

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I like the attitude, thanks for the feedback!

These questions have a lot to do with stack size.

ATs - I don't mind a call or a raise if you have the chips. If you DON'T have a suitable stack, it's fold or shove. BUT, it also depends on the MP raiser's range.

AKo - No problem with a fold in general, however, it comes to stacks again. If the shoving player is 10BB or less, their shoving range is probably wider than you think, and I think a call is fine - particularly if you're at 50BB or more.

Generally speaking I do well in tournaments and I play fairly tight. It's an effective strategy overall.

My philosophy, especially when I am in the late stages of a tourney (i.e. final table) and have a decent chip stack, is I would rather fold a winner than play a loser. At that stage, one hand is all it takes to get knocked out, and if you have no compelling reason to play a hand and you think you might be behind, I see no problem in folding. To paraphrase an old football saying, "Live to see another flop."

A10 is not that good of a hand as some might think. If you are putting your opponent on a top pair, good fold. If your not sure and you call even with position and a 10 hits the flop, it could cause worse problems than you had to start with.
As to folding with AK after a tight player goes all, I call it a good fold, many players would find it difficult to lay down that hand, plus it cost you nothing but maybe the blinds and antes but you were still in the game.

IM deusXmachina said:

I recently made a FT which I attribute to folds like AKo when another player who has been Hyper folding and goes All in PF when I TRULY believe he has AA or KK.

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We don't have much info here, but if you really think someone was AA or KK and you therefor fold AK, then that is obviously a brilliant move. Imo this has nothing to do with playing loose or tight, it's "just" a very good read.

If you are making regular FT's they way you play, then just continue like that. You must be doing something right

if you have a good read, then go with your instinct. you'll be kicking yourself for calling only to find out you were right. you must be doing something right based on the results you shared in the mtt.

Against a tight player ,i would say its an easy fold.But it also depend on his and yours stack size.If it against a low stack i would recommend a call.

Sometimes it is better to see a flop. I can understand being weary to call a shove, but what's to say that someone UTG+3 isn't doing this with JJ? Or QQ? If the flop comes ace or king high you've got him crushed, and most of the time he is just going to shut down anyways.

Kimpel17 said:

Sometimes it is better to see a flop. I can understand being weary to call a shove, but what's to say that someone UTG+3 isn't doing this with JJ? Or QQ? If the flop comes ace or king high you've got him crushed, and most of the time he is just going to shut down anyways.

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I would always prefer to see a flop, that is one of the staples I feel of a strong game, QQ is never looking so good after a A-K-X flop...

romych007 said:

I think that it is better to avoid
Memory Games with such an
opponent with it you can play
premium hands

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Today you fold AKo ATs , what next? A couple of weeks you start fold AA and KK
And the time will come when you will register for the tournament, fold all hands and blinds crushing your stack... It I call tight strategy..

And if to be serious, it all depends on the style of the player, the stack size, position at the table , aggressive preflop or postflop game, and the dynamics of the table..

to tight

I understand your situation 100% but if you have A10 on the button and are not in a position to raise than limp in and see what other players do around you especially in late stages I play some heavy tournament and will do this as well. when your in late stages position is everything because your playing against a better field of players. If I have form any psoition AA KK QQ AK AQ I will make a 4 times blind raise, If i have like jj 1010 or 99 I will make a small raise or limp because I have seen to many times that ace hit the river. and at that level no one is folding an ace

The tilt in the cash games never brought a great result!! Think it is more preferred to be tight-aggressive tactics! Though it is likely to lose, but certainly the chance to win good money above!

Good Game))If you really played so tightly you can win sunday millions for example)but dont forget to play connectors in late position,but also dont forget that you should not risk chips a lot with connectors)great!

not a big fan of the ATo hands in early position, the negative implied odds is hard to overcome...what do you want to hit? an ace, a ten?

dropping it like a hot horseshoe in early position

If your instincts tell that it's going to be a problematic call from a raiser, probably just fold it! ☺☺