Beating the Regs - The Only Guide You Need [2024]

As I continue to work away on Modern Small Stakes I have developed a deeper understanding than ever about the multitude of different regs that populate the micro and small stakes levels of online poker these days.

Knowing the different poker player types is so important to your poker win rate these days.

More specifically you need to know their strengths and weaknesses. In the book, which is literally ALL about how to beat the regs at these limits, I have broken them down into six different categories:

1. Super Nits
2. Nits
3. TAGfish
4. TAGs (Tight and Aggressive)
5. SLAGs (Slightly Loose and Aggressive)
6. LAGs (Loose and Aggressive)

These are the poker player types that you need to know like the back of your hand in order to beat your poker games whether you play online or live.

Let's dig a bit deeper!

Poker Player Types - Good Regs and Bad Regs

I refer to 1, 2 and 3 as the "bad regs" and 4, 5 and 6 as the "good regs." However, with the LAG category I was certainly a bit hesitant to include them as good regs because many of them have huge leaks at these stakes as well.

TAGs and SLAGs are generally fairly solid and among the biggest winners although you can almost always still find ways to exploit them as well if you dig around deep enough. 

Keep in mind that these are just generalizations about these poker player types. There are plenty of Nits for instance at these stakes who are solid winners.

As a whole though, most of them are not big winners and are often breakeven or losing and propped up by rakeback. This is even more the case for the Super Nits and TAGfish. They are almost never big winners and without rakeback they could not survive.

On the flip side, there are certainly many breakeven or worse TAGs and SLAGs as well. There are factors such as tilt that the HUD stats cannot tell us about that can affect the winrate of an otherwise solid looking player in a huge way.

But in general these players represent the strongest poker player types at these stakes. They are the ones who you will have the most difficulty exploiting.

Here is one the advanced poker strategies I will use against the good aggressive regs:

Poker Player Types - Bad Regs ARE the New Fish!

Totally obvious fish (the 40%+ VPIP guys) have become harder to find at NL10+ unless you are playing on really soft poker sites. Therefore, the bad regs really are the new fish at a lot of the harder sites like Pokerstars.

The great thing is that they out number the good regs by a fair margin at these stakes so it is not that difficult to find them. By using a combination of my new HUD setup and making liberal use of the popup display I am able to find ways to exploit them pretty easily. 

But in the fast paced world of online poker which often involves 12+ tables at a time we don't usually have much time to check out every single little detail on our opponent. For this reason I am going to limit the discussion below to just the use of my HUD display (i.e., what is already on your screen).

If you have not read my article on my new HUD setup which includes free downloads for Pokertracker 4 users it might be a good idea to at least skim it first so you know what the numbers refer to.

I will also be limiting the discussion to just the HUD stats because I want to show you how ridiculously easy it is to find huge leaks in your opponents at these stakes literally in a matter of seconds. 

I am going to discuss all six poker player types below but I will use just a single example from either 6max or Full Ring for each so that this article does not get too long. All stats below are taken from real people in my database at NL25-NL100 cash games on Pokerstars. The player names are masked in PT4 for privacy.

Lastly, many of the stats that I discuss below, especially the turn, river and 4Bet ones, require big samples. You need to check the sample size before making use of these at the tables.

I am not a statistician but common sense tells us that if your opponent's Turn CBet is 100% but the sample is only 1 that this is literally meaningless information. If the sample size was say 10, well now we are talking.

When in doubt hover over the stat in PT/HEM or make use of the popup display. You should always be doing this when making use of turn, river or 4Bet stats unless the sample on your opponent is literally like 10k+ hands.

Let's jump into the 6 different poker player types!

1) 6max - Super Nit

There are tons of these kinds of players at NL2 and NL5. At NL10-NL100 there are less but enough of to still include a category for them. They are clueless beginners.

Somebody on a forum, in a book or in a video told them to play tight and they took that as the holy gospel. They play far too few hands and throw away tons of potential EV as a result.

We can see that this particular player above has stats that are too tight for Full Ring let alone 6max. He plays just 12% of his hands. I suggest aiming for about double this in 6max. And he only raises with 8%. I suggest having a little bit tighter of a gap between VPIP and PFR and of course raising with way more hands in general.

These players are generally way too passive as well. The 4 point gap between VPIP and PFR, the Total AF of 2 which is actually ridiculously passive considering how few hands this guy plays, the 4Bet of 0 over a decent sample size etc. 

Way too tight and way too passive sums these players up. Here is a perfect example of how to play against a Super Nit:

Here Are a Few Ways to Exploit This Specific Poker Player Type

• Steals his blinds with any two cards (Fold to Steal of 88%)
• 3Bet him wide (Fold to 3Bet of 75%)
• Triple Barrel (100% Fold to River CBet)
• Float all day (Massive drop in CBet between the Flop and Turn of 40 points)

2) Full Ring - Nit

So here we have the classic Full Ring Nit. He plays 12% of his hands and raises most of the time that he enters the pot as well (10%).

His Total AF is 2 which is fairly passive but considering how few hands these players play, it is really  passive.

These players tend to be way too weak just like the Super Nits. They fold to CBets and 3Bets too much, they don't 3Bet enough, they don't 4Bet enough and they often back down to floats and additional pressure beyond the flop if they don't have the nuts.

Here Are a Few Ways to Exploit This Specific Poker Player Type

• Steal his blinds with any two cards (Fold to Steal of 84%)
• 3Bet him wide (Fold to 3Bet of 72%)
• Float the flop a lot and take it away on the turn (28 point difference between Flop and Turn CBet)
• Float the flop a lot and raise his Turn CBet (Fold to Turn CBet Raise of 100%)
• Float the turn and bet the river (Fold to River Float Bet 100%) 

3) 6max - TAGfish

The TAGfish is aptly named because it is a player who appears to play a solid TAG game but is actually very weak both preflop and postflop.

This player type is pervasive at all levels of the micros and you can make a nice profit by applying pressure on them in the right spots.

The easiest way to spot them is to look for players who play about the same amount of hands as a TAG. This will be roughly 18% to 22% in 6max and 13% to 16% in Full Ring. And they will also have a small gap of 2 or 3 points between their VPIP and PFR just like TAGs.

That is where everything changes though. The rest of their stats will often be highly out of line with winning ranges often erring towards the weak side but sometimes too aggro as well such as with the player above.


Here Are a Few Ways to Exploit This Specific Poker Player Type

• Steal his blinds with any two cards (Fold to Steal of 89%)
• Double Barrel every time (Fold to Flop CBet is 0% but Fold to Turn bet is 60%)
• Float often (35 point drop between Flop CBet and Turn CBet)
• Raise the Flop (Fold to Flop CBet Raise of 75%)

By the way, if you are curious about how I am able to quickly identify all the player types listed in this article even while multi-tabling online poker, yes I do use several software aids and tools.

For the complete list of all the poker software tools that I use as a pro, click here.

4) Full Ring - TAG

TAGs are generally among the stronger poker player types at these limits. They aren't found in quite the numbers as TAGfish and Nits especially at NL10 and NL25 but they do appear plenty.

Their ranges are usually pretty well balanced across all stats and finding huge glaring weaknesses in their game is not nearly as easy as it is with the player types that we looked at before.

They still do have a tendency to be a little bit lost on the big money streets (turn and river) at the micros though. This is usually represented by being too weak when facing aggression and barreling far too aggressively when they have the betting lead.

Tilt can definitely be a factor as well with this group as it is with all micro stakes players. I don't go out of my way to play with these guys but they are unavoidable at these stakes so you should have a close look at where the holes are because all players at these stakes have them.


Here Are a Few Ways to Exploit This Specific Poker Player Type

• Steal his blinds a fair bit (Fold to Steal is 82%)
• 5Bet shove with a bit wider range than normal (4Bet of 3% is a little bit higher than most Full Ring regs at these limits) 
• Triple Barrel (Fold to River Cbet of 100%)

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5) 6max - SLAG

SLAGs are also among the biggest winners and strongest poker player type that you will face at these limits. SLAGs however are found in fewer numbers than TAGs and don't start regularly appearing until NL100 and higher. They are certainly still worth talking about though.

Like TAGs, these players generally balance their ranges well and have strong stats across the board. At the micros though everybody has weaknesses.



Here Are a Few Ways to Exploit This Specific Poker Player Type

• Steal his blinds a fair bit (Fold to Steal is 82%)
• Get it in preflop a bit lighter than normal against this player (3Bet is a bit high at 8% and 4Bet is quite a bit higher than most for these stakes at 4%)
• Double Barrel a lot (Doesn't fold much on the flop at 38% but does give it up 50% of the time on the turn)
• Raise or float lighter than you would against most players on all postflop streets (This player is extremely barrel happy with a Turn CBet of 71% and a River CBet of 67% - he has air a lot)

6) Full Ring - LAG

There aren't that many LAGs at these stakes and as mentioned before there are even fewer really good LAGs.

They can be among the best or the worst regs at these limits so it is a bit difficult to make generalizations. The player above is an example of a reg who is among the best though.

LAGs play a lot of hands and they play them aggressively. This is why they drive a lot of people crazy.

Here is the best strategy to beat a LAG by the way:

But most LAGs at the micros still have some fairly big leaks in their game just like we saw with the TAGs and SLAGs above.

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Often at these stakes it is because they take the aggression too far in certain spots or get too shy when somebody fights back on the turn or the river.

This is indeed the area where nearly all micro regs are lacking though, even the very best ones. They have yet to develop that really solid balanced range in all scenarios that you see in many regs at higher stakes.

Here Are a Few Ways to Exploit This Specific Poker Player Type

• Defend your blinds with a wider range than you would against most regs (ATS is extremely high at 56%)
• Triple Barrel (Likes to hang around a lot on the flop and turn but has a 70% Fold to River CBet)
• Float the flop and turn and bet or raise the river (Fold to River Float Bet of 83% and a high River CBet of 68%)

Final Thoughts

I hope this article helped show you that all regs at these stakes have weaknesses in their game that we can find and exploit. This is why it is so important to clearly understand all 6 poker player types.

With the bad regs it doesn't take much effort at all and that is why I will go out of my way to target them specifically.

With the good regs you have to dig a bit deeper but there is always something in there that you can take advantage of as well. Effective HUD use is the key (or observation if you play live or on sites that don't allow a HUD).

Once again, all of the player types in this article were taken from my new poker strategy book Modern Small Stakes.

This book is literally all about how to beat the regs in today's micro stakes cash games. There are over 100 specific hand examples alone about how to exploit each type of reg that you will encounter.

People have been asking me about this book forever and I am happy to announce that it is finally finished!

Let me know in the comments below what you think of these poker player types. What do you think of my categories? Would you add more or delete some?

Lastly, if you want to learn how to start making $1000+ per month from low stakes poker games, make sure you grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.