Please bear with me...

I can't improve until I find out the answers! I have a couple probably STUPID questions, but I would like the answers nonetheless. Please be nice. I feel that I play well, and from what I've seen watching pros play on tv, I think I play just like 'em and make same decisions, play same cards, I LOOOOOOVVE to trap people, hardly ever bluff, etc, etc, whatever. When I first went from clueless donk to understanding the "science" (as I call it) of poker, I was kickin butt all the time. Recently, in the last month or so, I started getting nothing but frigid cold streaks. I started doubting myself, and I started thinking that I sucked. Then I read stuff online and realized that it'll pass, and it's starting to pass, but now it's in the middle, I mean, not a cold streak where I'm getting nothing but crap cards, but I get good cards but always lose to crap cards (I've seen many people complain about this, too), and the crap cards I fold pre-flop: once I see flop I WOULD'VE had trips or whatnot, and then I get mad. So, how do these pros make a living with all these setbacks all the time?! Okay, so I'm self-taught, never read a book, but lately, all the losses have made me wonder what I'm doing wrong. So, I got books now! However, everything I've read so far is stuff I've already figured out on my own a long time ago. What I HAVEN'T read or figured out about YET is what my questions are about. Okay, here I go:

1) All I hear about is position, position, position. Okay, I understand the significance of UTG, and last, but not any of the middle ones. When people say "he shouldn't have called that out of position", I don't get it. All I know, is that if I got the winning hand, or the winning hand so far, or whatever, I'm going to call from whichever seat I'm in. It's about the cards, right? Why should my calls or raises matter where I'm sitting?!?! Again, I understand why if you're first or last, but not any others. If I got the cards to call I'm gonna call, it shouldn't matter which seat I'm in?!?!

2) When I was having a nervous breakdown because of a particularly long cold streak, I started thinking, why not play every hand? If donks can do, why can't I? So I tried it, and at first it worked, but then it started to not work, so I went back to playing normal. But what I'm wondering is, is it so bad to play every hand? I mean, all cards deserve a chance, don't they? I've seen crap cards beat pocket aces and whatnot, so many times, that I wonder why everyone doesn't just pay every hand. Crap cards are cards too, don't they have just as much of a chance of hitting the flop as do aces and paints? Seems like it would work, but, I guess not, since the pros don't do it, and they know their stuff, so. It just makes me wonder all those crap cards I throw away, aren't I throwing away a lot more chances of winning? Wouldn't I want all the chances I could get? Then why not play every hand? If most people & pros only hold paints & aces & suited connectors, then it should be pretty easy to tell what they're holding because it's such a narrow field, but if you play everything, no one will know or suspect what you have, and if the flop matches your low cards, the high card holders won't suspect you flopped good shtuff because they'll think that their overcards will win. So, has this ever been tested? I'm sure it must've, but I can't tell by my experiment because I'm still kinda in that half-cold streak area I mentioned above.

Please don't be mean to me because this was so long & stupid. I'm being serious, but if you're mean to me, I WILL cry.

1st, welcome to CC. I'm actually quite the asshole but I'm going to try hard not to make you cry.

"Acting last is like taking a drink of water. We don’t have to understand why it’s good for us to know that it is. And the benefits are unaffected by our understanding of them." - Tommy Angelo in Elements of Poker

In your question you talked about only preflop positions but position is about so much more than that. It's about who is going to get to act last AFTER the flop and about who is going to have to act first. Acting last allows us to control pot size, act with better information because we know what our opponent(s) have already done, see free cards when we need them, and makes our bluffs tougher to call.

In Treat Your Poker Like a Business, Leatherass talks about hearing Phil Ivey say that he couldn't beat his own grandmother if he had to play every hand out of position. Everything I have said above just barely begins to get at how important position really is. Once you understand how good it is to be in position, your results will certainly improve.

On your second question, winning players don't play every hand because it's not profitable. Cards are, at least somewhat, important (right after position and effective stack size imo). Just because you notice that you would have occasionally won a big pot had you played your 72o doesn't mean you should play it because you're certainly not noticing all the $$s you would have lost if you played it every time.

Anyway, keep reading, realize you're not nearly as good as you think you are, and good luck.

WV isn't nearly the asshole he pretends to be, and gives great advice.

Couple of further comments:

1. If you're playing like you see the pros play on TV, your preflop hand selection probably needs some work. The better player you are, the more you can overcome the cards you're holding - so you'll see bizarre hands being played by guys who can overcome the fact that their cards aren't so hot. The more average or worse player you are, the more you should stick to profitable hands, esp. out of position.

2. Spend some time learning why certain types of hands have value, and when they're appropriate to play. Some hands play very well in all situations - big pocket pairs, big suited A's, etc. - some hands are implied odds hands that really need to have position to be effective - middle/small suited connectors, small pocket pairs, etc. etc. etc. In the process, you'll also figure out which hands don't have much value at all by themselves (agree w WV on position and effective stacks) and are pretty much autofolds unless you have a specific reason to play them.

3. There are two ways to win a hand of poker - by having the best hand at showdown, or by getting the other guy(s) to fold before you showdown. Poker is played against people who hold cards, not against the cards themselves. Don't play cards, play poker.

Stop it. You're going to ruin my image and you're making me blush.

Thanks guys. Geez, I don't know what's in or out of position or what cards to play in which position, but I GUESS I BETTER FIND OUT if it'll help me improve. Thanks so much, I take poker serious, and I need to learn the reasons & benefits behind things like 'position' so I can get better even when I hold junk & marginal hands. Which reminds me of a question I forgot to ask. Another STUPID one, but one I don't know the answer to, nonetheless: Why do people raise preflop? Isn't that a huge risk? Since junk hands can beat premium hands (a lot more often than I can stomach), why would you risk a raise when NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE FLOP WILL HOLD? (obvious example that i've seen a million times: i got aa, and someone has 72o, the aa will raise preflop, but then the flop might be like 277 or whatever, the poor aa guy will have lost money he didn't on a blind raise, wtf).

Hmm, what books did you get? Take a look through some of the threads here in regard to learning resources.

Here are some (not all) reasons to raise preflop:

1. For value. Yes, AA on a 277 flop is a serious underdog to anyone holding 72o. However, if you raise preflop and get called by someone holding 72o, the chances of him hitting a flop w 72o where he is NOT a serious underdog to our AA hand are very slim - in fact, AA will win 88.2% of the time against 72o. So, let's say we're playing $1/$2 NLHE (abbreviated as 200nl), we raise to $6 and get called by a player holding 72o. Run this 100 times. We're going to win 88 times out of 100, and lose 12 times. Looks pretty profitable, doesn't it?

You want to get money in the pot when you're a favorite, and to avoid putting money in the pot when you're a dog (unless you are stealing the pot, or have the correct odds to draw). Preflop is no different.

2. To narrow the number of players seeing the flop. AA is a monster favoriate heads up against any other hand. The more people who see the flop, though, the less of an outright favorite the hand is.

3. To steal.

4. To isolate another player who you want to play against postflop.

5. To disguise your hand. If you only raise AA preflop, it's pretty obvious that when you raise, everyone else should fold. If you raise all your hands that you're going to play preflop, it's not obvious whether you have AA or (say) JTs.

Yeah, I guess I still gotta long way to go. I mean all I know is that: I'm very good at reading people & knowing if they're bluffing, I'm good at trapping people sneaky sneaky, I know what cards to play and how far to take 'em, and I rarely lose heads-up. But what I don't know YET is: the mathematical calculating & percentages & technical odds, I don't understand pot odds, I'm STILL not convinced that raising pre-flop is good, and I have to learn all about that whole 'position' thing. So I gotta long way to go. The only reason I thought I was kinda good, pretty decent was because, okay see, I play a lot of those PS Hubble 9000 people freerolls, and the .10 buy-in 360 people tourneys, and those 5000 people freerolls, and I usually place in the 6-7hundreds out of 9000 people, and in the 360 people ones I usually place 30-50th, and in the 5000 people ones I usually place in the 400's (although one time I placed 289th). I also love 9-handed sng's, I usually place 1st or 2nd, once in a while 3rd. So, I guess all of the above I thought I played pretty okay, but recently I found out that only donks play micro, so I thought well then, I guess I only beat 8300 donkey donks, so then I was like, then that means I'm not that good because I'm only playing against aggroblufferdonksthatplay&raise everyhandtheyget, so that just makes me a mediocre donk that can't even get to a final table wit 'em. So, boy, I can't wait to learn all about positions & math calculations & pot odds. Yes, boy after I learn that I'm excited to think about how I'll place then! Yay, maybe in a few months or however long it takes, I'll let you guys know how it all turns out, if any of you care, that is. Man, I wanna make some serious dough! Well, just enough to pay my student loans off so I'm not living paycheck to paycheck. And what a fun way to make money!!! This is the funnest game ever, I'm so addicted (but not to where I'm gonna blow my money, I'm smarter than that). Again, thanks for all the advice guys!! I'm off to learn!

I'm still learning too. Like you, I often disregard the importance of position. These explanations help much more than most others, so hopefully we'll both start winning! Oh, btw, welcome to CC!! GL! MM

Seriously, one day you'll be playing and the position idea will just click in your head and you'll be like, "HOLY CRAP, why didn't I see this before?"

It's hard for me to explain, but the simplest explanation I can think of is the fact that you always have the most information when you act last. You see what everyone did up to the point where it is your turn to act. You get a better feel of who might have hit that flop, who might be chasing a draw, who has a strong hand, things like that.

Imagine a...hm...well, a football game. Imagine if one team had to go out on the field first and set their formation up and declare what play they were running. The other team gets to observe and then choose their play in secret before they go out on the field. Which team would you rather be?

(Some football savvy person will probably explain why that analogy sucked, heheh.)

A mistake about position that I think a lot of beginners make (I know I did.) is thinking, "Well, he acted first and made a big bet and I folded! So isn't it better to act first?" but they don't realize that they still had the advantage there. They dodged a potential monster hand. If you had acted first and bet, then got raised, what then? You're still probably folding - or worse, calling - and you're out a lot more money.

As for playing every hand...our brains tend to remember the exceptions, not the rule. You won't remember every time some donk with J2o calls you and loses. But you WILL remember when he raises you with that same hand and hits a Jack on the turn and a Jack on the river and you're kicking a puppy.

When that happens, take a deep breath, cool down, and remind yourself that the next 100 times he pulls shenanigans like that, you'll win 99 of those hands.

alright, seems like a lot of people gave you great advice, so i will keep it short. from my point of view you shouldn't play like on tv, players at your level know nothing (well most of them) so in order to use a smart tactic you have to outsmart your opponent, if your opponent has no brain you can't outsmart him. so i tell you this, if you want to get serious about poker, pick a a book, learn ABC poker and buy a HUD program, like pokertracker 3 or holdem manager, you can even download them for free and give them a try. also get to golden archive and start reading till your eyes pop out.