Stop playing out of position!
It's been said a thousand times, if you're playing too much out of position you're going to lose money. And when it comes to winning without a showdown, this is even more true.
When you play out of position you are at an extreme disadvantage. You have to act without information and your opponent has the great bonus of seeing your action before you play. What this means for your red line is that you will face a lot of guessing situations (the famous “guessing game“), being forced to play in the dark.
Out of position you end up paying to see one more card, hoping to improve your middle pair, and then you end up folding to a bet on the turn.
In short, putting money in the pot and folding is cancer of the red line.
A very basic example, but one that happens several times in a session:
The game has blinds of $1/$2 with an effective stack of $200. You are in the big blind with :Ac :Tc . The table folds to a regular player on the button, who raises to $7. The small blind folds and you call. The flop comes :Jh :Td :3d , you check and the button bets $12 into a pot of $15. You end up calling and the turn comes :Kh . You check again and he fires $25 into a pot of $39.
Here's the problem.
You know that the :Kh is a great card for your opponent to second barrel. Furthermore, you know that he would continue betting on the turn with almost 100% of his range, for the simple reason that you fold a lot of hands in this situation, making it a profitable play for him.
So your options are to either fold the 10 big blinds you invested or call in the hope that he will fold on the river. However, if he bets again, you will definitely fold, and thus you will be giving up approximately 23.5 big blinds.
So what to do?
Neither option is good. Especially if your opponent is someone who can throw multiple barrels. Since he has position on you, he also has full control of the hand. He decides whether the hand will continue as a bet or a check, and he is always the last to act. If you take the lead, he can fold, call, or raise. If you check, he can check or bet.
Where your hands are tied, he has complete control. Taking this hand as an example, if it happens frequently it is easy to see how you are wasting a lot of money by deciding to play out of position.
While it's impossible to completely avoid playing out of position, after all, you can't fold a hand like TT just because you're out of position, you can, and should, narrow your calling range in these situations.
By playing fewer hands, you will have a stronger range pre-flop, making your game better post-flop as well.
When you play better hands preflop, you'll have simpler decisions to make, and you won't have to check-fold as often as you would with a more marginal range of hands.
The end result is that you will stop losing any money and will improve your winnings without showdown.
And most importantly, your overall earnings will increase as well. Think about it!
Author: Daniel Skolovy
Translated and adapted from the original: Stop Playing OOP
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