Dear 2+2 Forumites,

I don't know if this subject has been discussed already, but I still wanted to throw it out there. When you read pokerbooks and go by "official" poker-doctrine (which I don't, but still) you always read about the positional advantages and "how great" it is to be able to act last. But when you find yourself heads-up on the flop, and you missed the flop, and your opponent shoves or makes a sizeable bet, leaving practically no room for 3-betting him, I must admit that in these cases, with no further "read" on my opponent in an online MTT, I am not going to call all-in with for example AKs and an entirely missed flop, even though I know my opponent could (sometimes) very well hold significantly less than that (of course, when I did hit the flop in a way that suits me, I tend to appreciate the ability to act last of course).

I have called in these kind of situations with predominantly positive results (as my pf raise tends to reduce the amount of possible holdings, but you still can't count out pocket pairs for example), but the reason for this thread is not so much to ask "what you would do in this situation", but more because I would like to know how you feel about the whole "positional advantage" versus "first mover's advantage" argument.

Just wanted to know how you guys feel about this, from personal experience I must admit, also in real life, I tend to benefit more from first-mover's advantage than from having "position on my opponent".

Looking forward to your replies, thank you in advance,

wiZkindE

I read some thoughts from gus hansen about this subject, he said something along the same lines.

The notion that acting first may be better (because you have the first chance to bet or whatever) is just laughable. Position is just so powerful, especially in NLHE.

I don't know, isn't the whole stop and go play based on this idea?

Without getting into the pros and cons of the stop-and-go, there are specific situations where the player first to act benefits from being first. However, if you are looking at overall strategies, not just specific situations, the player with position has a clear advantage.

For example, If both player's happen to have total air, then the first player can bet and the 2nd player must fold. However, this is looking at a specific hand vs another specific hand (or part of a range.) If we look at the first player's specific hand (air) against the 2nd player's entire range, the 2nd player will have hands that can reraise for value, hands that can reraise bluff, hands that are clear calls, bluffcatchers that he may call or fold, and air that he must fold. If we look at the first player's entire range vs the second player's entire range, there are many possible scenarios, however the second player will always know if the first player checks or bets before he has to make a decision, while the first player must act with no additional information. This additional information is even more beneficial if the opponent is not balancing his checks and bets well enough.

The shorter your stacks relative to the pot, the less the advantage of position. I mean, if you have a 100 chip pot and each player has 1 chip left, position is pretty much irrelevant. So in the situation described in the OP, where the OOP player might shove on the flop, then stacks must be pretty short relative to pot size, and then position isn't quite as valuable. But if stacks are deep, the player in position has a huge advantage.

button/cutoff are my most profitable positions in 6max NL with utg and small blind my biggest losing positions over ?40,000+ hands

i will float you all day OP

IP you can maximize your winnings and minimize your losses

In cash "first movers advantage" does not exist. In mtts it does. For example say you're on the bubble of an mtt. If they get allin for a flip each player loses money in equity in the tournament. For this reason the person calling needs a significantly better chance to win to make the call and thus the person who shoves first is at an advantage (unless the IP player spite calls).

I think in an aggression war, when ranges are weak, bluffs are common, and the chance of someone calling all in is small, the person who gets to shove has an advantage. This is one reason why bet sizing is very important.

The exception is that when you hold the nuts, you want to be putting in the second-last bet, so that you can still get paid off by the bluffs in your opponent's range.

But you don't normally hold the nuts. You don't win MTTs by being a nit.

So I think when there's only one bet left to get in, I'd like to act first. It gives me the strategic advantage, the strategic option, of being able to choose whether I shove, or the other guy does.

You know we're not checking this **** down to the river. One of us is going to shove. I'd like the option of deciding who does it.

I think that zachvac is exactly right, although I can't prove it. My intuition is that the player in position has all the choices that the OOP player has, and more. For example: if we want to get all-in, we can arrange that both if we're OOP or IP. And if we want to fold, then we can arrange that as well, both if we're OOP or IP. But if we want to take a free card, that's a privilege we have only IP. In other words, I think that with any strategy for playing a particular hand OOP, we can devise a better strategy (i.e. more +EV strategy) for playing the same hand IP. But I don't know how to prove it.

So, what do I think OP's mistake is? I think he's too afraid to call wide. A tight player feels "uncomfortable" calling a bet with, say, ace-high. He should understand that when the OOP player is shoving wide, we should adapt by calling wide, and that will be more profitable than being OOP with the chance to shove first ourselves.

The only reason this is true is icm. In cash if you bluff shove pot the other person can profitably call if they have 33% or more equity. In an mtt calling a pot-sized shove for your tournament life near the bubble or itm is likely going to be a losing play at 33% equity. There are times where you might need 50% or more. For example let's say the player IP has a hand that has 55% against his opponent's range. But it's the final 4 in a payout structure of 25-30-45. I can't do the math on that but if all stack sizes are equal I'm assuming you might actually need over 55% equity to call a pot sized all-in here. So even though the oop player wouldn't have been able to make a profitable bluff in a cash game, just because of the nature of tournaments and icm the bluff will now be +ev if the IP player understands this fact. In fact this is one of the situations where as the oop player you'd probably prefer to have someone good just because he'd realize he has to fold more and let you abuse him more whereas a bad player is more likely to fight back and make calls that are actually -ev for both players.

Basically that's why tourneys are dumb though. In cash one player playing bad can only hurt himself. In tourneys a player can spite call and hurt both themselves and other players compared to making the correct play.

What about the toy games that are used for demonstrating GTO river bluffing (where its a shove).

Doesnt the bettor (who is first to act) always have the advantage in those toy games?

How does this relate, if at all, to the OP's question?

In every toy game i've ever seen the in-positon player has the advantage.

Well maybe you can help explain this to me, because I'm confused. When I read about the AKQ toy game in MoP (Ch13, pg140) where two players (Y and X, where Y is the bettor, and is presumably the first to act, and X is the caller, presumably the player last to act) get dealt 1 card from a 3 card deck (comprised of A,K, and Q) and each player antes on unit and and the bettor can bet one unit into the 2 unit pot, it says on page 144 that the bettor (Y) gains value in this game with an optimal betting strategy, and the game is worth 1/18 of a bet to Y.

It doesnt mention the value of the game for X, are you saying that X makes more than 1/18 of a bet in this game? Because I guess I just assumed by the way it was explained that Y has the advantage in this game. Perhaps this is where I'm wrong.

Thanks.

If the value to player Y is 1/18 of a bet then the value to player X is going to be -1/18 of a bet. Edit: I own MoP and just checked the passage. Seems to me that Y is in fact the player in position.