Successful poker is all about gathering
information. The best players make the right
moves at the right time based on what they
have learned from their opponents to date
and how they expect them to act in the
future. When betting from an early position
you are betting with little or no
information available, and with possibly 9
players still to bet, your hand must be good
enough to withstand a raise and a re-raise
before or after the flop.
What this means is that there are
actually very few playable hands from this
early position. Only a huge pocket pair or
the big slick (AK) can consistently stand up
to raises behind them, and the potential of
even those huge hands is notoriously
difficult to fill. A big bet might scare off
potential players, whereas a small bet might
encourage small pairs and suited connectors
to call from value behind, raising the
possibility of you being outdrawn on the
flop.
The most common move from an early
position is check-raise. In other words
feigning weakness when you actually have a
big hand, with the intention of re-raising a
player in a later position. The main flaw to
this strategy is when nobody raises you, and
you have therefore lost a good opportunity.
Mid Position Seats 5 to 7
Although the number of viable hands
increases in seats 5 to 7 it is still a very
dangerous place to play all but the top
starting hands. An aggressive player may
like to stretch the late position to include
seats 6 to 7 but in reality pre flop their
are still 5 or 6 players still to act who
could be sitting with raising hands.
If the early players fold pre flop then
the value of a medium pair increases and a
bet could be justified from a mid position.
Post flop the same could be said if the
preceding players all check. However
information is still very much incomplete
and shrewd and disciplined folding is
required more often than not.
Late Position, Dealer, Small Blind and
Big Blind
There is no end to the benefits of late
position:
- More starting hands become playable
- Big Hands get paid more money
- It is cheaper to escape when beaten
Maximum information is now available
meaning you can exploit any weakness around
the table by betting, or very quickly fold
if it is obvious that there are some strong
hands around. Moreover the correct play
depends less and less on what cards you have
been dealt. You have the last word in the
argument so can often win whether or not you
are holding the strongest hand.
Bluffing is therefore easier and in the
late positions you have a lot more control
over the size of the pot. The only play to
be wary of is walking into a check raise
trap from one of the earlier players, but
this disadvantage is a small price to pay
for all the advantages of late position.
