Page 10 - March 2007 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Jim Mercurio: Poker
My Position on Position
y wife’s nine-year-old daughter was playing with an electronic version of 20 Questions. e little machine gives 20 yes-or-no questions and narrows down the answer and usually nails it with surprising accuracy. I was kidding around with her and asked if she wanted to play a game called One Question. I told her the rules: “I pick an item, you ask a
question like what color it is and then you have to guess what the item is.
After a few games, it was clear she wasn’t having fun. It’s sort of hard to take the clue “Yes, it is bigger than a bread box” and deduce that the item is a Green 74 Newport Custom with bald tires. Of course, my wife’s son, the ever-so-logical one, overheard us and asked to play. His approach was foolproof. He asked,“What is it?”
So much for that game.
And then the epiphany came to me. e di erence
between 20 Questions where you have a lot of information to narrow down the item and One Question where you don’t have as much information is the di erence between playing in position and playing out of position. We all would like to be able to know “What is it” regarding your opponent’s hand. However, just like in 20 Questions, in poker, you don’t get to ask that question. You may have several questions to ask in poker, but when you are playing in position as opposed to out of position, it’s a whole di erent game.
Imagine three players. Let’s call them EP, MP and LP for early position, middle position and late position. If you are EP, and MP checks and then LP bets, you know that he could be just making a standard continuation
bet. He could be betting because you showed weakness, he could be value-betting with a monster. So basically, you have no information. But let’s say you and MP call. So the next card comes. What information do you have? Not much.
So let’s say EP and MP check and LP bets. Is he betting because the pot is getting big? Is he betting because you two checked? And if you call, what is MP going to do? Once again, you really don’t have any information other than your holdings and that MP called both of you on the op. is is like playing “One Question” where you aren’t allowed to ask“What is it?”
But let’s say you are LP. On the op you make a bet and are called by both players. You know both players called. It takes a stronger hand to call then to bet. You also know what EP knew in the last situation (that MP could call). en on the turn, imagine that EP bets.
When you are LP and last to act, you now know that EP called and is betting into two players—one who overcalled and one who bet on the op. And before you have to act, you will know whether or not MP is part of the equation. You have a handful of facts.
And if you see the river, you are going to have another couple pieces of information. Did EP re again? Into one or two players? You are going to know that no one can raise or call behind you. When you are in late position, you literally have two to three times as much information as the player in early position.
So even if you don’t understand it in all of its nuance, be careful about playing in early position. Playing in late position isn’t exactly “20 Questions”, but would you rather play “Five Questions” or “One Question” if your life were riding on it? Or your money?
If you like Jim’s column, let him know by pre-ordering his lm Hard Scrambled, starring Kurtwood Smith, at www.hardscrambled.com. The bonus material includes more than an hour of Jim’s teaching about lmmaking.
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