Speculative and Gambling Hands
The speculative and gambling hands rely on getting odds to have any value.
They generally are not favorites but can still be profitable if you’re getting good enough odds.
In tight games you won’t get enough pot odds for these hands, so they only tend to be playable in situations when the implied odds are large.
Tight-Passive Games and Speculative-Gambling Hands
Against passive players the big-little suited hands, such as A 
7 or even Q 
5 , often have semi-bluff value, particularly from a late position.
A semi-bluff with a hand like A 7 and a flop like 10 7 3 
often wins the pot against a tight-passive player, and even if it doesn’t win, you’ll frequently have the best hand anyway; even when you don’t have the best hand, you have many cards that can improve your hand on the turn.
Tight-Aggressive Games and Speculative-Gambling Hands
At a more aggressive tight table, the big-little speculative and gambling hands should probably be avoided, but the small-suited connector hands of those categories do tend to play well.
One tendency of very aggressive players at a tight table is to overplay big overcards.
Against many of these kinds of players, your implied odds with a hand like 5 4 are actually fairly large, even if you have to call a raise to see the flop.
These very aggressive players’ hands as weak as A Q and a flop like 9 6 5 
.
Tight Games with Many Callers
Sometimes, even at a tight table, you’ll have a situation where four or five players see the flop.
When that happens, many of the drawing hands and speculative hands become playable from late position-not all of them, however.
When four or five tight players have entered the pot, the high card value of a hand such as
K J goes down dramatically.
The chances that one of these players has a hand like K Q or A J are pretty good.
The prospects of a k J against either of those hands aren’t very good.
The situation is different when you have four or five loose callers.
We’ll discuss that situation in the next section.
When you have tight players in the pot, even four or five of them, you should be thinking about your hand value from a domination perspective first, then from an odds perspective.
The difference between having a K J and a K J can be significant in this situation.
Pick the Right Table / Picking a Seat / Theories of Poker / Betting Theory: The Odds
A Theory of Starting Hand Value
A Theory of Flop Play: Counting Outs and Evaluating Draws
The Dynamics of Game Conditions / Table Image / Player Stereotypes
Women and Poker / Spread-Limit Games / Double Bet on the End Games / Kill Games
Short-handed Games / Tournaments / No-limit and Pot-Limit Poker
