Generic poker strategy- playing against passive/tight players pre flop
In low limit Texas Holdem, one of the biggest and the most important generic poker strategy is to learn what hands to play and what hands not to play. Most players who would know this strategy will fold most of their hands pre flop and will only play very strong hands. Playing too many hands on PokerStars is a mistake and every generic poker strategy book would tell players so. Unfortunately, several players take it to the extreme but it can be a benefit for you if you know how to deal with such opponents.
Tight passive competitors
In most cases you will come across tight passive competitors in low limit games. In such games if you raise, in most cases you will win the pot uncontested. If you raise the hand with premium and semi premium hands like AA to JTs then you wouldn’t get much action from the players and would simply rake in the blinds. However, there is a lot more that you can do here. For example, if you are playing at a $1 table and you raise $3 every time and on an average win two hands without any competition then you would practically be playing every third hand completely free. Even if you do get re-raised and have to fold every now and then you will still be able to break even. For this reason, it would be a good idea to raise when you have high cards, connectors and suited hands or anything that is half decent.
Tight passive players don’t fight back
Once you continue with the strategy for some time, your opponents would definitely know that since you are raising the hands half of the time you obviously wouldn’t have decent hands all the time. However, these players would have the firmly rooted belief of playing only their good hands so they simply would not risk their own money to raise you back other than when they have premium holdings. Even if they have starting hands like Q-T, K-J, A-J they would simply call but not re-raise. When they do call, however, you will get the chance to hit something random with the hand. You probably would not get anything great but it is still worth it to collect money when you can.
Another benefit with this generic poker star strategy is that even when you play solid on flop, turn and the river the opponents would continue to see you as someone who always bluffs because of your loose strategy. You can let them continue to believe that. When you are up against tight passive opponents that fold pre flop a lot you can use this strategy and make them believe you are a bluffer.