Far too many people in poker simply play too many hands……it is that simple. Firstly let us look at the four main styles of play in poker. These are loose-aggressive, tight-aggressive, tight-passive and loose-passive. Now it is well known that loose-passive types are not winning players and these people can be found in large numbers at the smallest of stakes. But one fault in their style is that they play too many hands. The loose-aggressive player can be somewhat different because in certain games then this can be the optimal style of play.
However the LAG style is also more difficult to play and so many players who try to adopt the style do so unsuccessfully for two main reasons. Firstly the LAG style requires that you play many more hands than what theory dictates. This means that you will be being placed into many more situations where your hand is extremely marginal. Bluffing and semi-bluffing are key components of the LAG style.
However one thing that is rarely mentioned in poker is that a LAG style also brings with it far greater variance! So your swings will be far greater and as a result you may (if you are prone to it) be far nearer the point at which you tilt. You will experience bigger wins on your good days but bigger losses on your losing days. A good TAG player may make $60,000 in a year while a good LAG style may have made $85,000.
However that extra $25,000 has come at a cost and your swings will have been far greater as well as your overall state of mind would have been far worse during those more frequent bad runs. Playing a tight-aggressive style not only reduces variance hugely but it is also important if you want to play many tables at once and so doing this can often offset and out-perform a LAG style anyway.
