Chapter 2: Power of Position

My second chapter in this blog is on the power of position and various ways to manipulate people with the advantages it provides.

I decided to mention this particular subject first as I see it as probably the most important aspect of the game. Often it is even more important than the cards you actually get dealt. Proof of this statement comes in the form of a short anecdote about a fairly famous(youngest person ever to win a bracelet) professional player called Annette Obrestad who was trying to make the point I am raising here, by playing online poker tournaments whilst having a piece of paper covering her cards so she couldn't even see them. On one of her first attempts at playing solely on the power of position she took a 90 person tournament down.

Just to clarify what is meant by position, Position is where you are sat at the table in relation to the dealer button. The best position is the dealer button itself, with every other position anticlockwise gradually weaker until you reach the worst being the small blind.

The first and most obvious change to  how you play poker is to consider your position before you act in every hand. You should play fewer hands when you are in the worser of the positions and more when you are in the later and better positions. You should play the most hands from the dealer position as this is the best and guarantees you are always going to be the last to act after the flop.

Secondly as part of your considerations before acting you should look at everybody and what they are doing, especially as they look at their cards. I know it is tempting to look at your cards as soon as you get them or sometimes one at a time as soon as each one arrives. I assure this is not a good thing to be doing, and it is honestly surprising just how many degenerates in casinos cannot wait just a few seconds. Use this time to look at people especially the people who are going to be acting after you if they have been stupid enough to already look at their cards. I will mention in more detail later what is good to look for.

I will now discuss a few strategies which use the power of position starting with the squeeze play. This aggressive action requires a few pre requesists before a high chance of success can be assumed from attempting this move successfully. Firstly your image at the table should be that of a very tight player (somebody who doesn't get involved in many hands) and also that of an aggressive player. (somebody who is not going to give up and check it down, they will continue to hound you and potentially give you a decision for your whole stack ) Now it's fairly obvious to get an image like this you have to play like that. My style of play is most definitely stay tight early on and build up that image, it is more important than you may realise to help you bluff the bigger pots later. Back to the squeeze play, the squeeze play starts when you are in late position preferably the dealer and somebody in early position raises the blinds, then somebody else just calls the initial raise. The action is then folded to you. Your standard options are to fold, call or raise. Now as a tight aggressive player in this situation we should never just be calling here either raise or fold. The squeeze play is where we would stick in a slightly larger raise than normal. The action then returns to the original raiser who has a difficult decision to make because they are being told by you that your hand is better than his and the other caller. The fact that this extra person is still around as well will factor their likely decision to fold. Once the first player has folded it means that the second player will be making a mistake in continuing with the hand. Calling one raise then calling another from a different player is very weak it shows no strength in the hand and will result in facing a hefty bet on the flop almost every time. The squeeze play will get through more often than not making it a very profitable play later in tournaments. If you receive resistance from the original raiser and the second caller folds proceed with caution as there is a definite possibility of facing a monster hand. What you can take from this failed squeeze is information that the first player is very strong and that can help in the reminder of the hand.

Another common situation in tournaments where having position is crucial, is when somebody has raised to you and your in dealer position and you want to see a flop so you either raise or just call(calling being the more infrequently chosen option remember tight aggressive TAG) and you go to a flop and you miss everything but the original raiser checks to you. Often a sly bet here would win the pot, but if you don't feel that it would get through then there is no harm in checking to see another free card. When another bad card comes and you still have nothing and he checks again I always raise regardless of what cards I have. To me somebody checking twice is like them practically shouting at you to take their money. They have shown no strength at any point and it will be an easy profitable steal 90% of the time. The 10 % you get it wrong will be more than made up by the times you get it right.

The 2 moves discussed in this chapter are only a few of the advantages having position amounts to. In an attempt to keep this blog bite size I will end on just a few points to each chapter. Thank you for reading my blog again. Any questions or disagreements with my content I will be happy to reply too
contact me at matt_const@Hotmail.Co.uk