Late Position Poker Theory
Any military general will tell you that the most important weapon an army can have is information. When you are in the late positions you have the advantage of receiving all the available information for that betting round before you have to act. This information allows you to control the pace of the hand, and in turn, the size of the pot. Here are a couple of common situations where you can use your position to your advantage.
The first situation is when everyone folds to you, leaving you and the blinds. In this situation you should look to raise if you’re holding anything better than a queen. The odds that the blinds are holding good cards are low, so a raise forces them to make a call in a pot that has weak pot odds. This, plus the fact that they have poor position against you, makes a call difficult. The pots are small, but they will add up over a session.
The next one is when one or more players in the early positions enter the pot. If you get early callers you can be pretty sure you’re up against at least one premium hand. If you’ve been raising in late position, players will tend to slow play big cards against you. So when you get some early callers, look to limp in and hope to hit the flop in a big way.
Another common one is when you are on the button and the player to your right keeps raising you. If you have a skilled player to your right, they will test to see if they can steal the button from you. If you fold too often, this player will look to exploit this every time, and you will miss out on hands that should be profitable for you. Stand your ground, and periodically re-raise back.