Proper Positional Play

Playing hands from early position in poker is a good way to mix up your play, and that in turn helps construct an volatile image for yourself. Keep in mind though, that when playing lower limits especially, this can become pricey due to the myriad of players and hands that will go behind.

Let's assume you are NOT raising with a quality hand from early position in order trick your opponents. Some players do this with straight cards, small pairs and suited aces or kings. That adds considerable variety from early position and is absolutely going to increase your hand choice in the eyes of your opponents, but you must also be agreeable to play just as many precarious pots, because the more you play, the more you will be played back at.

That means your opponents will be reraising you with quality hands, or even their own bluffs and justifiably so. In addition, at a full table you have eight or nine opponents to act following you, and that's as many as 18 other cards that can blend for something better than yours. More often than not that will be the case and you will be creating many multi-player pots if they permit you to stay in. So why do poker players raise from early position then?

There is a purpose that good players do this, at least infrequently, and its not only to mix up their plays - that's virtually a given. The real reason is to hit a flop in with a hidden hand, so that other opponents will make expensive errors against you because they entirely misread your hand and over-committed chips or cash to the pot. Usually when this happens it's a monstrous pot!

What needs to be understood is that the majority of early position hands will cost you money, the design is to keep all those money-losing hands in small pots, not big ones. The professionals understand that in any given session their profits often come from just a a tiny number of of the hands played. But those few wins can be so significant they make up for numerous others losers, and then some.

So if you are going to play hands from early position use your reading and pot control skills until that one magical hand comes up and you rake in a monster.

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