Positional Play in Poker

Okay guys I reckon I am not a bad poker player......nor am I good. My main downfall seems to be my positional play. Have any of you out there got any sound advice I can follow. Usually I just follow my instincts when someone tries to bluff me out of BB and SB's.

Any advice would be welcome.....

MackemMan

PS - Pointing me to a good book would be much appreciated.....but not Little Women as I have read it lol.

fundamental theorem of poker by david slansky seems to be a good place to start, but you may have to read chapters a few times over to get the jist.

One thing to remember is that you are always first to act in the small blind. So when you are in the small blind you almost have to be ready to fire away or weak check-especially heads up. Dont feel bad about laying down a hand in the small blind because you are always under the gun after any street.

For the big blind. Try to steal blinds when tight players flat call to you. Just raise the pot or a portion of it if there are only 1-2 tight players calling. If someone at your table looks like they will call any raise, just check if you have a marginal hand.

Some other advice: when you flop a huge hand-say you have 7J and 77J rolls out, or you flop a st8 flush or quads-keep in mind your position and the players in the pot. If you have players that like to take shots at pots, try checking to them in early position and try and trap. Also, if you check to them, and they pop the pot with a nice bet, some people say you just flat call their-dont be scared to toss out a low/minimum raise especially if they made a nice bet-get them on the hook early for a lot of chips and they will send even more later in the hand.

Good luck!

Sound advice guys I will certainly take this on board.

Thanks

MackemMan

PS - Pointing me to a good book would be much appreciated.....

A very good book in my opnion that has to do with position plays is
Small Stakes Hold'em: Winning big with expert play by Sklansky/Manson. This book address how to play from the small/big blind and all positions. It has a list hand's that you should only play from each position at the table.
One thing, this book is geared for limit play alothough you could use it in any game.

This is a very complex question as there are so many issues to deal with.
Has the pot been raised? If it has, How many players have called. What are the odds your getting? How many limpers in the pot. if you are in the small blind. I tend toward calling most hands from the small blind in an unraised pot with 2-3 people in. If the BB is aggressive you need to reevluate your hands. If found some really good articles on blind play, I can't post them here but if you would like to pm me i could send them to you.

I initially treated the Small Blind much like any other position -ignoring that I'd put in already. Then I tried to factor in that often if you only have to put in a half bet, you get reasonable odds for most hands, and ended up playing most hands. The 2nd method worked out worse than the first, because it meant putting money in with too many mediocre hands. The balance is somewhere between - small pairs and suited connectors and the like are more worthwhile playing, because you'll either hit the flop well or not nearly enough, but weak AX hands aren't nearly as useful, because when you do pair your Ace you're in the wrong position to know where you stand, and your positional disadvantage is probably more significant than the advantage of playing cheaply.
In early position, you have to be more selective about your hands - in the Blinds you'll see a few more cheap flops with 'fit or fold' hands.
In the Big Blind, if someone looks like they're trying to buy the pot with a minimum raise, then you want to defend it most times because the odds support calling with most random hands, and if someone always tries to buy your blind, then you have to defend it sometimes at least (otherwise they'll keep doing it), but you don't want to let that logic get you putting a lot of money in with a weak hand, especially when the aggressor will have a positional advantage over you through the rest of the betting.

A book that I think hightlights positional play pretty well is "The Tournament Forumula" by Arnold Snyder. Cardoza Publishing.

One of the things he talks about with his positional model is to not look at your hole cards at all and just execute the proposed strategy. Now I would not encourage this but it actually worked. I did this for two (2) tourney's and cashed in both. Once you take the other aspects into play you get a solid playing style that is aggressive enough to win or cash in online MTT's.

phil gordon's little green book has worked wonders for me I highly recommend it.

As for the blinds, instincts are good but its all about position,position, position. But if someone consitently raises alot of pots in order to steal your blinds, keep them in line with a decent raise every now and then so they dont think you will just keel over everytime they raise at you.