When the blinds are still relatively low, it’s only a small mistake speculating pre-flop. Sometimes you can afford to splash around with a marginal hand, hoping to hit an unlikely flop or to steal the pot away from a tight opponent. As long as you don’t do this consistently, you add variety to your game, make yourself more difficult for your opponents to read, and can win a huge pot from an unsuspecting opponent if you flop lucky.
But the further into the betting you go, the more expensive the betting gets. Texas hold em has four betting rounds, and the betting gets more and more expensive the further you go with the hand. In fact, for the mathematicians out there, the betting in no limit hold em can expand geometrically. This means that it’s only a small mistake to splash into a pot, but it can become a huge mistake to stick around with a marginal hand.
This is how loose players can profit from their play: by speculating with weak hands, hoping the implied odds if they make a big hand will allow them to get paid off by the river. As a tight player, you need to try to deny them those implied odds. Or if you’re playing loose, you need to extract maximum value with aggressive betting on the turn and river. You’ll make the most money by pushing your hands hard on the final two betting rounds. Just remember: you’ll also lose the most money sticking around for the final two, most expensive betting rounds. The turn and the river are the most important parts of a hand, and usually define whether the hand is profitable or a loss.
