[jorpot]

how come your position matters..doesnt it only matter what cards you have? i was really confused when i read articles that said you should be pickier in early position and things like that..does anyone want to clarify that for me?Thanks!

[chris]

The general principle as I understand it is this. If you play a hand UTG or UTG+1 there are 8-9 people to act behind you. If they raise then what are you going to do? If you keep limping in with hands in EP and then folding when someone else in later position raises then your leaking a lot of chips without seeing the flop. Whereas when your in late position and everyone has limped in before you, you can play more hands because there are only 2 possible people behind you to act.

A second point is this - if your in LP and see everybody limp in then you can play 67s and so on because it is a very good multi way hand (meaning you need good pot odds to justify calling the big blind with a hand that is a longshot to draw) if it hits the straight (or possibly the flush). Whereas when your in EP this hand is virtually worthless because you dont know that everyone behind you is going to limp into the pot. They might fold, and now your left playing a hand thats almost worthless when its 3 handed (you and the blinds) or back to point one, somebody in later position will raise and you have to dump it and lose chips.

Thirdly, lets say you have KT in LP and the flop is K high. You have top pair with a rubbish kicker, however you have the luxury of seeing what everybody else does before its your turn to act. Lets say on a K high flop there is a pot size bet from EP and a raise in MP - you can now fold your KT knowing its worthless. But if its checked around to you in LP, then you could be ahead with top pair and you might as well come out firing.

The only 'exception' (when being in EP is more favourable to being in LP) to position is that if you hold a monster in EP you can call or check and wait for a raise behind you and then re raise (or trap even further if you want too by just calling and inducing a bet on the next street).

I think ive covered everything, somebody else might want to correct me on the finer points but thats all I can think of.

[DeepBlue]

The way games tend to go, as Chris mentioned well above, is that initially play is slow, a lot of folding, people generally only make plays with good hands.

As the game progresses, you start playing with more marginal hands, playing a little looser, raising harder as the Blinds go up. This continues until you get to a stage people start going all-in and so forth, and not always on good hands - sometimes, only very marginal hands.

[BigAl]

I always found it quite a strange way to play, I can understand things being slow early on in the game and intensifying as the game progresses, but I really don't get why people go all-in so readily at the end.

I know you've got to take your chance and go for the kill, but with such varied hands being played you can see some strange outcomes.