There’s nothing worse than having a tight opponent at the table. Well, actually, there’s nothing worse than having a tight opponent at the table when you’re playing in a home game with low blinds or a tournament where the blinds don’t increase very quickly. That’s if they have some chips, of course.

You see it’s close to impossible to take chips from a tight player, it really is. They only play about 1 or 2 out of every 10 hands, and they’ll instantly fold if they don’t have anything, meaning that the chance of you taking chips from them on a missed straight or flush draw are slim to none. In cash games where the blinds don’t ever increase, well, you don’t really have a chance of taking many chips from them. The only real hope you have here would be to catch Aces when they have Kings or Kings when they have Queens. Maybe even Ace King when they have Ace Queen.

In tournament scenarios you just need to wait for the blinds to increase. Just ignore them for the time being, as the blinds will sooner or later just eat away their stack. The truth is, the more hands you play against a tight player, the more chips they’re going to accumulate. If you don’t play with them, they can’t win more chips. You already know they’re holding quality hands, so don’t give them chips. That’s all there really is to it. Avoid, avoid, and avoid some more when you know someone plays tight.

You’ll have 8 or 9 other hands you can play against others where you can accumulate some chips anyway.