To make this even more complicated, there are certain types of higher stakes players who prefer to play in very tight and passive games. They will start out robbing the blinds and use their aggressive (and hopefully unpredictable) table image to dominate and terrorize the game. A lot of times it only takes one of these " hurricane" players to set an entire table on tilt and change the style of game played. This phenomenon can be quite interesting to be part of.
To make things simple for the beginner, we recommend that you look for the loosest games possible where you can play a straight forward, moderately tight, and aggressive game with good results. Of course, you will see a slightly higher volatility (ups and downs) in the loosest games as there will be lots of drawing hands beating you on the last round. But that is poker!
Here are two tables with approximate view flop percentages (average number of players seeing the flop) and pot sizes you can expect to see at full ring games in fixed limit Texas Hold'em. They show various limits, as well as what percentages could be considered tight/loose per limit:
Game |
Limit |
Typical flop % |
Typical pot size |
Limit Texas Hold'em |
$0.5-$1 |
45% |
$8 |
|
$1-$2 |
40% |
$16 |
Full 10-player game |
$3-$6 |
35% |
$42 |
|
$5-$10 |
30% |
$65 |
|
$15-$30 |
25% |
$180 |
|
$30-$60 |
23% |
$330 |
Game |
Limit |
Tight |
Loose |
Very loose |
Limit Texas Hold'em |
$0.5-$1 |
32% |
60% |
75% |
|
$1-$2 |
30% |
55% |
70% |
Full 10-player game |
$3-$6 |
28% |
50% |
60% |
|
$5-$10 |
26% |
45% |
50% |
|
$15-$30 |
24% |
40% |
45% |
|
$30-$60 |
22% |
35% |
40% |
For more on table selection read the following strategy article, table-selection.
|
