Poker Skills – When To Raise From Early Position
- Filed under: Poker
- Date: Feb 19,2010
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.
We\’ll assume for a moment that you don\’t have a premium hand in early position, since you should probably be raising with that anyway. Rather, you might consider playing suited connectors, A-X suited or a small pair. That\’s quite a range of hands that could be playable from early position which really enlarges the range of hands you could be playing in your opponents mind. You need to be cautious though, because that also means opponents will play back at your often and you need the skills to play well post-flop.
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 reason skilled players do this, at least now and then, and its not just to mix up their play – that\’s a given. The real purpose is to hit a flop in such an innocent way, that other poker players will make pricey mistakes against you because they utterly misjudged your hand and over-dedicated chips or money to the hand. Usually it\’s a huge pot.
You see, even though the majority of early position hands will cost you money, the scheme is to keep all those losing hands in small pots, not big ones. The professionals comprehend that in any given session their winnings often come from just a a tiny number of of the hands played. But when you do hit, those few wins can be so significant they make up for all the other hands and more.
If you are going to play hands from early position use your reading and pot control skills until that one perfect hand comes up and you pick up a massive pot.
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