This Texas Hold Em Poker Tips all about those pesky passive player pests, the annoying little buggers.

In some of my other Texas Hold em Poker tips I have talked about aggressive players. Today I'm going to give the spotlight to the passive player pests. Although its probably unanimously agreed that aggressive players are more dangerous - they pose more of a threat to you at the table and at tournaments - passive players are like little pests flying around the table.

Incase you don't know, a passive player is generally described as a player who, when they play at a hand, only ever checks or calls. They don't generally raise. Aggressive players are the players that always raise. So, if a passive player has a pocket pair, he will check. If someone else raises, when its back around to him, he will just call. Of course if a passive player has bad cards he will just fold. So the general rule of thumb is passive players always check or call.

They are only calling or checking because they aren't confident with their poker or with their chips. Usually newer players are quite passive. They don't know if they should raise or not, or how much, and to take all this complexity out of the game they just call. Sometimes this can be effective, as in they are concentrating on calculating pot odds or reading faces, perfecting that part of their game before they dive into the whole other world of betting;how much, when, why, etc.

Other times these players are experienced players who are sitting, waiting to strike. They are playing passive to lull you into playing them then they come out at the end with monster hand and take the pot. These types of players are less common because more experienced players have figured out that overall, there's more money in being aggressive. Taking 10 pots of $10 is better then one pot of $50.

Passive players are pest like because they are never really doing much. Its hard to figure out what they have because you can't make a judgement on their hands by what they bet. They are always calling. Always. So when they call you don't know if they have nothing and are tying to limp in or if they have great cards and are just trapping you. The essence of a passive players game is the trap. Trapping an opponent and winning with better cards. Think of this Texas Hold em Poker tips next time you are playing at the table, and try to crush the little passive player pests.