Poker gems, #464

Andrew Brokos, in Card Player magazine column, November 14, 2012 (vol. 25, #23), page 40.


I'd rather have a good hand and the best position than the best hand and poor position.

Poker gems, #429

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, June 29, 2011 (vol. 24, #13), page 36.

I know of no truer truth of poker than everything's harder out of position. It's harder to bluff, harder to control the size of the pot, harder to get the right price for draws, harder to protect big hands, harder to know where your opponents are in the hand--harder, harder, harder. And yet--all day, every day--we see people making promiscuous calls and audacious raises from early position. What are these people thinking? That their 9-8 suited is going to flop a straight or a flush? That their A-Q in the blind is worth calling a raise and a reraise because both of those other guys are liars? That their skill edge is so great that it can overcome their positional disadvantage? Well, it ain't. Hey, Mike Caro once said, "Everyone takes turns making mistakes in poker. The trick is just to skip your turn." By analogy, everyone takes turns playing out of position. Why not just skip your turn? If you're in a good game, you'll do fine just waiting to play hands in position. And if you're not in a good game, playing out of position becomes geometrically worse.

Location, location, location

I have written a few times about playing against bullies and maniacs--for example, here and here. I inevitably talk about the importance of position. (Dang it. There was another long-ago post, I'm sure, about how I was faring badly seated to the right of a maniac at the Flamingo, until a seat opened on his left, I moved, and the tide turned. But now I can't find it, no matter what search strategy I use.)

In February of 2009, Shamus mentioned in one of his posts an interesting article by Rolf Slotboom, in which he challenges the conventional wisdom of trying to sit to the immediate left of a maniac. Among other points, he notes that everybody likes to adjust to the maniac by doing more check-raising, and if you're to the maniac's immediate left, you're likely to be caught in the trap with him. If, however, you're on the maniac's immediate right, then you're the last one to act after his bet, and you thus force the check-raiser to spring his trap before the action is back to you. This was the first time I had ever read a argument against the usual tactic, so it definitely caught my attention and got me thinking. About month later I was up against another maniac, on his immediate right, and that article was one of the reasons I decided not to move, as I explained here.

A recent issue of Card Player magazine had two columns dealing, in large part, with the question of position with respect to a maniac.

First, Todd Brunson explains his reasons for preferring to be a few seats to the maniac's left. Unfortunately, Card Player has recently revised its online format, using Flash, so there's no easy way for me to copy and paste a paragraph of the argument. But he makes many of the same points that Slotboom did. Most prominent is that other players will try to take the first seat or two to the left of the maniac and use raises to isolate him. If you are to their left, you can use the observation of what they are doing to trap them between the maniac and you, rather than you being the one that gets trapped in the middle, as can happen with the conventional advice.

Roy Cooke doesn't advocate any particular spot, but discusses how your strategy changes depending on where you are relative to the maniac.

Over the last five years, I have come to feel much less anxious about being stuck with a maniac on my left, probably because I have become more deft at the techniques of using his aggression against him judo-style. I find that I can manage myself from anywhere, for the most part.

As a rule of thumb, though, the more smart, adaptive players there are at the table, the more I want to be on the maniac's right, forcing those smart players to reveal their intentions before I have to act. Conversely, the more timid and unimaginative the opposition is, and the more I see that they are hunkering down and tightening up against his aggression, the more I'd prefer to be the one pulling the isolation moves from the maniac's left. The latter remains my most frequent choice, because the games I mostly play in are not exactly teeming with smart, flexible, observant players. (When they are, I try to find a softer table.)

But all three articles--Slotboom, Brunson, and Cooke--are worth reading and mulling over. The more tools and flexibility you have at your disposal, the better prepared you'll be for whatever situation you might find yourself in.

Things people ask me, #4: Where I sit

A recurring question in comments and emails is why I favor seats 1 and 10 (or 9, at nine-handed tables; for this post, I'm just going to always call them 1 and 10), next to the dealer. I've mentioned this preference many times in my stories, and for most players those are the least favorite positions, so it's a natural question.

Let me start by asking you to ponder this question: Is there any position at the table that has an intrinsic strategic or tactical advantage over the others?

I first came across this concept in a column in Card Player magazine when I was still living in Minnesota--probably early 2006, though I've searched for it in the online C.P. archives and can't find it, so I can't give proper credit. The answer is yes: Seat 1 has the clear advantage. That's because you want to be looking at the players on your left to see if they are telegraphing information about their intentions. Because of the curve of the table, you can do that from seat 1 more easily and naturally (i.e., without craning your neck and otherwise being obvious about it) than from any other position. Depending on the exact size and shape of the table and positioning of the seats, seat 7 or 8 might offer a similar advantage, but it's less consistent, and the angle usually isn't quite as good.

After that one objective advantage, all of the rest of my reasons are purely subjective personal preferences. In no particular order, they include:

--There are many dealers that I like, and it's much easier to chat quietly and semi-privately with them from one foot away than from across the table.

--I fairly often find a need to point out something to the dealer (pot not right, button not right, foreign language being spoken, improper talk about the hand in progress, etc.), and it's easier to do so from close at hand. Again, I like being quiet and discreet when possible, rather than having to make myself heard above the din of the casino and voices of the other players.

--With the exception of the player on the other side of the dealer, I usually have an excellent view of everybody else.

--For reasons not entirely clear to me, players in the 1 and 10 seats sort of disappear from the sight--at least the conscious sight--of the other players. From a couple of seats (2 and 9, especially) this is partly a function of blocked sightlines. But there's something weird psychologically, too, that I can't really put my finger on. I can tell you this for certain, after many, many hours of observation: The players who most often get skipped in the action are those in the 1 and 10 seats. I.e., seat 1 will tend to act before seat 10 has, seat 2 will tend to act before seat 1 has, etc. It seems that the occupants of those positions just fade into the background. Since being unnoticed is the effect I want most of the time, those two seats are a natural match.

--Because most other people ditch seats 1 and 10 as soon as something else opens up, they are the two most likely to be the open ones when you join a table. It's convenient to like the thing that you will most often be forced to take.

--As a corollary of that, you can often get seat 1 or seat 10 even if there are no vacancies. (This happens if, e.g., one of the players in them wanted to change, but didn't notice or was away from the table when another seat became available, so he missed his opportunity.) You just ask their current occupants if they'd prefer to sit where you are, and if the answer is yes (as it often is), make the swap.

--I have the shortest possible distance for mucking cards, for putting chips within reach of the dealer, passing tips, etc. No overshooting, no undershooting, no accidentally flipped cards while mucking.

--Nearly every poker room has the tables oriented so that the dealer is facing the front desk, to facilitate communication with the floor, brush, etc. I like kind of keeping an eye on what's going on in the whole room (well, not the big rooms, but the smaller ones), so picking the 1 and 10 seats automatically puts me where I can see what's happening.

--Conversely, if there are any disadvantaged seats for watching television, it will tend to be those two. The casino doesn't need its dealers watching football. I don't care what's on, and it's better for me not to be distracted anyway.

--Seats 1 and 10 nearly always have the most elbow room at the table, the least chance of that awkward, silent struggle for control of the no-man's-land between seats. Similarly, unless you get somebody with unusually long legs in the adjacent seat, the foot area tends to be less contested than other table positions.

--You only have to sit next to one other player. Since poker players frequently smell of B.O., stale cigarette smoke, booze, bad breath, etc., cutting in half the number of them you have to share personal space with is a boon. You also halve your chance of sitting next to a chatterbox who will want to prattle in your ear about every thought that passes through his feeble and/or drunken brain. In those two respects, it's a lot like the advantage of a window or aisle seat in a commercial jet, compared to the center seat. We misanthropes leap at the chance to cut in half the number of our unwanted contacts with the great unwashed.

--When the dealer isn't looking, it's easy to reach into the tray and steal a few chips.

(Just kidding! Relax!)

To be fair, there are also some disadvantages that you have to put up with:

--I have banged my knee on the damn rake collection boxes more times than I can count.

--If you're playing when security comes around to change those boxes, you'll probably have to move out of their way.

--Other players will muck their cards in your direction and accidentally kill your hand if you don't keep it well protected.

--Similarly, unprotected cards sitting that close to the dealer are in greater danger of being prematurely scooped up into the muck if you don't cap them.

--You have one other player that is really difficult to see when you need or want to. The guy in the 1 seat often has to rely on the dealer to indicate when it's his turn, because sometimes you just can't see anything of what the 10 seat is doing.


Overall, I find that the advantages greatly outweigh the disadvantages, and I'm rather glad that mine is the minority view. It is rare that I have to compete with anybody else to claim one of my two preferred spots.

I'm going to stop short of encouraging readers to try the unfamiliar positions with an open mind, because I'm afraid everybody will discover that they really are superior, and it will foul up my little secret. So just forget everything I've told you, OK?