Reading your opponents for the most part comes down to identifying what poker style they play with. Knowing what poker styles you are playing against will help you become a winning poker player because you can make adjustments in your play.

LAGs (loose aggressive) play many hands, very aggressively. Extreme LAGS are maniacs. They rely on luck and tend to have very big swings – they will occasionally have big wins, but more often have big losses. Their undisciplined play will tend to confuse you, which adds to their success when they’re running hot.

LAPs (loose passive) play many hands, very weakly (few raises, many calls) I call these players lambs (calling stations). This is by far the worst player. They see almost every pot and almost every street and almost never maximize a win (unless someone else is doing the betting for them). They could have the nuts and may very well check/call (which can be a bit confusing, but at least it’s not as costly as losing to a LAG!)

TAGs (tight aggressive) play few hands, but play them very aggressively (ideal style) players who can play this style well, tend to do very well – they typically maximize their wins and control their losses.

TAPs (tight passive) play few hands, but play them very weakly (lots of calling and folding) – also known as rocks, they tend to be winners, but fail to maximize their wins, but do minimize their losses. They will get very little action because they are so rarely involved in a hand that any one with half a clue will get out of their way. Watch out for the check raise from these guys.

So what poker style should you integrate into your game? This is a hard question to answer. I think it comes down to your natural style and whatever you are comfortable playing. Whatever style you are playing, you never want to become too predictable because the good players will pickup on it and you will get owned.

I like to play against LAGs when I am sitting to their left. If you are playing solid poker and have patience, you will always get them in a spot where you have a premium hand and they have overplayed a pair, and you will get all their chips.

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Many players new to online poker think that bluffing shouldn't be a part of their game and that you should just wait for good cards. Any poker player with this mentality might as well give up the game now. Bluffing should be a part of your game, you just need to use it wisely so that it is believable and makes money for you in the long run. You can not always be expecting to pickup good hands so when your involved in poker sessions where you are not getting the best of the cards, you will need to bluff at the right moments if you want to be profitable.

Some players think that if you get caught bluffing the other players at the table will always call your bets from that point onward in the session. If you do get caught out bluffing once or twice will every bet you make from that point on get called or raised? This is a very important consideration you want to make because if you have lost the tight table image you were trying to portray at the table, you can use it to your advantage.

If you have attempted to bluff a few pots and haven't been successful, you can be sure that your table image at the table is very loose and aggressive. So you would be throwing money away if you were to try and bluff again without a premium hand. Use your table image to manipulate other players. If you pickup a premium hand make it look like a bluff when really you are betting for value, and you will get called down and win a big pot.

It is important to have variety in your game to create confusion with your opponents. You want to make sure you integrate bluffing and semi-bluffing in your game if you want to be a winning player.
An important factor to keep in mind when bluffing is to know when to use it. If the pot is big and it's a multi way pot with a number of players then it's more likely that the other players will not fold because there is more money to win. So you have to be sensible with the bluffs.

Big bluffs can be profitable when you are heads up or in a three-way pot. Generally speaking, you will want to be most aggressive with your bluffing strategy on the flop and less aggressive on the following two streets. Bluffing on the turn and river has less chance of being believable because the other players have already committed a significant amount of their stack to the pot, and if they called your flop bet you have more reason to believe they have something.

Your have to be able to recognize what your table image is and what other player's table image is at the table. Tight players are more likely to fold where as loose players will be much more likely to call.

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