Positioning in Poker When the Play is Tight

Especially in tournaments, the play becomes tight when players are all good ones. This is where good hand strategies, hand reading, and positioning in poker come into play.

For instance, in a tournament, we sit just a seat away to the right side of the dealer button. We're dealt an AJ at the outset. With this scenario, we want to raise to somehow beat the others into stealing the button, if at all possible. It's all simple. Our goal is to make the player to left fold as soon as possible so that we get the chance to act in late positioning in poker on post flop.

We don't have to risk big in this play. The raise amount we need after such positioning in poker is about 3 times the big blind's multiple. Unlike most players, we should not opt to limp-in when we're on the button. Many players think that with this good positioning in poker limping is the best option at the table. When all the other players hold mediocre hands, our raise in this case would stop them from limping.

Many players also deem an unsuited AJ hand as "unlucky" regardless of the positioning in poker. But this is not true most of the time. Actually, the hand is tricky at times. AJ gets run down often and it shocks us at times to see this. Most times, there's no way of knowing, often from any positioning in poker, if the opponent has an AQ or AK. Or even an A10 or A9, for that matter.

The best remedy here is to make certain where our hand and our poker play stand at pre-flop play, with serious consideration about positioning in poker. Remember, it's not good to limp with AJ. At times, when we limp with this hand and lose, it's largely due to misreading the opponents' hands post flop. Pre-flop we may have a good hand, but then we have a bad positioning in poker. This may change everything on the flop and post flop.

What makes us misread hands post flop? It's because we fail to raise pre-flop, even with early positioning in poker. If, say, we raise an amount 3 times the big blind, the button player would likely fold. If the big blind has an A6, then this player might call, after which we may read the play as being in our favor.

Positioning in poker, especially when a play is tight, should be considered according to the context arising.