Hi, i have noticed lately that a lot of my most difficult decisions occur during hands where im vs the btn hu. I dont think its just due to position alone i think its a number of factors position included. Can anyone help me put a finger on said ‘other’ factors that might be at play aside from position?


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Position is indeed a big part of play vs button. However are you ranging your opponents correctly? A theoretical button open range is much wider than most other positions. Are you getting into spots where (just as an example) you have KQ with a K83r flop and find that you are unexpectedly losing to a button with K8 who flopped top two? If so, you could review proper open ranges for button and see if maybe you are assigning too tight a range to opponents.

Will do


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I'll start off with this - too many players do not fully appreciate the power of positional advantage/disadvantage. To me the 3 main factors that determine the EV of a hand are position, skill, and hand strength. In that order. Just like AA is a much stronger hand vs KK than KK vs QQ; the advantage or disadvantage of position has a much greater influence than either skill or hand strength.

Now let's address skill. Are you proficient at observing your opponents' frequencies and betting patterns. These two things should provide you with a wealth of information. With this information you should be able to accurately range your opponents through the betting rounds.

The prerequisite is off the table work. For example, if you observe your opponents with a VPIP of 20; are you able to construct a range of 20%? At small stakes many of your opponents will fork their range - limping some hands and raising with others. Are you paying attention to showdown or their table talk so that you can pinpoint at what hand strength the fork occurs?

OTF and onward, are you familiar with combinatorics? There are great posts here on 2+2 that cover this and other math.

Just a few things to consider.