Small Adjustments, Big Results

One small adjustment that has made a noticeable difference in my sessions is paying closer attention to position.

It's tempting to play hands that look pretty, especially after folding for a while. But I've found that simply folding more often from early position and opening a little wider from the button has kept me out of a lot of difficult post-flop spots.

Poker is full of big moments, but many winning sessions are built on small, disciplined decisions that don't seem exciting at the time.

What's the single adjustment that has improved your game the most this year?

My adjustment was stealing in LP when the BB folds too much and betting when opponent likes to CB flop but gives up a lot on the turn, when I added that skill to my arsenal I won a lot more pots, also 3b light against opponents that's like to steal a lot on the button and fold way too much against a 3b 😊

Upendra Nath said:

One small adjustment that has made a noticeable difference in my sessions is paying closer attention to position.

It's tempting to play hands that look pretty, especially after folding for a while. But I've found that simply folding more often from early position and opening a little wider from the button has kept me out of a lot of difficult post-flop spots.

Poker is full of big moments, but many winning sessions are built on small, disciplined decisions that don't seem exciting at the time.

What's the single adjustment that has improved your game the most this year?

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Well done! There's always room to keep improving your game.

For me, it's been learning to fold more. I used to call too often just because I was curious, but now I'm much more comfortable letting hands go when they don't make sense. It has saved me a lot of chips over time.

Upendra Nath said:

One small adjustment that has made a noticeable difference in my sessions is paying closer attention to position.

It's tempting to play hands that look pretty, especially after folding for a while. But I've found that simply folding more often from early position and opening a little wider from the button has kept me out of a lot of difficult post-flop spots.

Poker is full of big moments, but many winning sessions are built on small, disciplined decisions that don't seem exciting at the time.

What's the single adjustment that has improved your game the most this year?

Click to expand...

That's no small adjustment. That's a big adjustment and good on you because so many players play for years and never adjust their ranges for position.

Actually, we can play a a LOT wider on the button, and even be fairly wide from the cutoff. Those 2 seats are the money makers. Often if I'm on a really weak table or if I have a large stack to bully with I will open 100% of Ax from BT, or even any suited K. Insanely wide for a tight exploitative game.

The button is powerful because you always have position post-flop.

The cutoff is powerful because you only have to make ONE dude fold to get position post-flop.

So from these 2 seats we can afford to open wider. This does not necessarily mean that we PLAY wide, we only OPEN wide. There's a difference. If someone opens before us, we fold roughly the bottom half of our LP opening range. In other words, our LP opening range and our LP calling range are not the same.

The Hijack is not nearly so powerful since having to make TWO dudes fold behind us to get position is doubly hard. And the lojack, forget about it. Gotta stay tight.

Being positionally aware is ultra important for two different reasons:

1) The more players still left to act, the bigger the risk, that someone wakes up with a premium hand

2) Being in position makes it much easier to realise equity especially with deep stacks

It's also much easier to bluff in position, especially for a newer player learning to bluff.

Semprini said:

It's also much easier to bluff in position, especially for a newer player learning to bluff.

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Yes and this is part of the reason, why its easier to realise equity. When we successfully bluff, we realise more than our fair share of equity in the pot. Maybe we had 25%, and when the opponent fold, this goes up to 100%.