Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

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That being said, I will prefer to have position on a TAG (tight and aggressive player, the kind of foe I wish to avoid as much as possible), than to have position on a target.

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is it possible that the editors of the "Two Plus Two Internet Magazine" could make a slight effort to keep blatantly wrong advice out of its articles?

it should be plain to see for everyone with a basic understanding of poker theory that it is more advantageous to have position on people that you want to be involved in pots with rather than having position on people who you would prefer to avoid competing for pots with

even if you had no preference at all whether you got involved in pots with your "targets" or with a TAG the math behind the superiority of having position on your target is simple

if your target sees 50% of flops while the TAG at the table only sees 25%, even if your involvement in the pot was completely random you are still gonna be in twice as many pots with your target than the TAG

unless im wrong and as a poker player one should prefer to play the majority of their hands out of position, i don't see how a statement like this in an article will have anything but a negative affect on someone reading the magazine in an attempt to improve their poker ability

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

I agree. I'd take position on a fish over a TAG everyday of the week. The ability to isolate them is reason enough by itself. Not even taking into account that position lets you maximize how much money you can pull from them.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

The worse your opponents play the less important position is, fish will also call two bets cold much more than TAGs will.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

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The worse your opponents play the less important position is, fish will also call two bets cold much more than TAGs will.

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Position matters on other streets besides preflop, and there are advantages to being in a pot HU with a fish rather than 3handed with a fish and a TAG.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

Position matters much more postflop than preflop. I'll take a multiway pot with a TAG who is now OOP and a fish who will coldcall many bets than the other way around.

Think about it this way, do YOU play better in position? Me too.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

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Position matters much more postflop than preflop. I'll take a multiway pot with a TAG who is now OOP and a fish who will coldcall many bets than the other way around.

Think about it this way, do YOU play better in position? Me too.


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ok since we seem to be in agreement about the fact that WE play better in position, do you for some reason play in more pots with TAGs than you do with high vpip players? unless you make a deliberate attempt to call when a tight player enters a pot and fold when a loose player does i think it's pretty close to mathematically impossible to play more against tight players than loose ones over time

i don't know maybe we have completely different ideas on how one makes money in poker, i always thought it was by playing against loose, bad players, but if you make most of your money in pots with tight players i can definitely see how you would rather have position on them

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

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Think about it this way, do YOU play better in position? Me too.

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Right. Which means that if the loosie is always in the pot, and the TAG is rarely in the pot, then having position on the TAG but not the loosie means I'm rarely going to be in position.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

1. You want to be in position against the players you are going to be battling with the most (loose donkfish).

2. You can steal the button more often from TAGs and T-passives. You can also steal blinds more often.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

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Position matters much more postflop than preflop. I'll take a multiway pot with a TAG who is now OOP and a fish who will coldcall many bets than the other way around.

Think about it this way, do YOU play better in position? Me too.


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ok since we seem to be in agreement about the fact that WE play better in position, do you for some reason play in more pots with TAGs than you do with high vpip players? unless you make a deliberate attempt to call when a tight player enters a pot and fold when a loose player does i think it's pretty close to mathematically impossible to play more against tight players than loose ones over time

i don't know maybe we have completely different ideas on how one makes money in poker, i always thought it was by playing against loose, bad players, but if you make most of your money in pots with tight players i can definitely see how you would rather have position on them

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I raise and a TAG calls or 3 bets.

Ok have fun.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

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fish will also call two bets cold much more than TAGs will.



I raise and a TAG calls or 3 bets.


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you do realize you are contradicting yourself here right? it doesn't make sense to base a decision that will affect every hand you play on one of the most statistically unlikely situations you will end up in

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

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Position matters much more postflop than preflop. I'll take a multiway pot with a TAG who is now OOP and a fish who will coldcall many bets than the other way around.

Think about it this way, do YOU play better in position? Me too.


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ok since we seem to be in agreement about the fact that WE play better in position, do you for some reason play in more pots with TAGs than you do with high vpip players? unless you make a deliberate attempt to call when a tight player enters a pot and fold when a loose player does i think it's pretty close to mathematically impossible to play more against tight players than loose ones over time

i don't know maybe we have completely different ideas on how one makes money in poker, i always thought it was by playing against loose, bad players, but if you make most of your money in pots with tight players i can definitely see how you would rather have position on them

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I raise and a TAG calls or 3 bets.

Ok have fun.

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yep... its sucks when this happens BUT two things to consider:

1 - it doesn't happen very often. TAGs by definition aren't playing many hands AND they respect a raise and are less likely to come into a raised pot. So you play few hands this way. Fish on the other hand limp limp limp limp limp limp limp every hand and by raising behind them with your playable hands you stand a better chance of isolating them and playing HU against a bad player with position.

2 - If a TAG does come in with a cold call or a 3-bet. It generally gives you a VERY good idea of their hand range. You know more about what they have based on the cold call or 3-bet then they know about your hand given that you just raised. Yes, OOP sucks against a TAG, but you lessen this to some extent by having more knowledge about their hand then they have about yours.

Position on Fish
OOP on TAGS

~FishNChips

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

Why wouldn't you want to have position on a TAG? So he can raise you? The only thing he's going to do that you'll like is fold, and it seems to be much better to see that behind him rather than in front.

You've already stipulated that a 50% flop player is playing with cards he shouldn't be playing with, right? What am I missing here? You lose position on a donk with holding bad cards maybe half the time. You gain being raised out of a pot by a guy that often brings the nuts, without even taking into account his bluffing frequency.

If you randomly call the donk's raises, half the time you catch him in a bluff. How many times are you going to catch a TAG raising behind you? Well, how about when you're holding AA (1 out of 220 hands) and KK (another 1 out of 220 hands) and maybe QQ ( 1out of 220). That's 3 out of 220 and the rest are gambles (AK,AQ,AJ,KQ,etc).

If you steel your will and play wired pairs for, say TT and 99 (I think we're on thin ice with 88 and 77, but some people will play 'em), that's another 2 out of 220. You're going to catch a set 11.8% of the time when you play 'em, so out of a thousand hands, thats a set of tens or nines equal to (2/220)*1000*0.118, or 1.07 hands per thousand.

So you're running uphill against Mr. TAG. Me, I like having the donk anywhere on the table, although betting last is always nice.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

im fairly certain that you and anyone else who advocates having position on good players rather than bad players is severely overestimating the amount of times you are raised, reraised, or have your raise called by a tight player behind you

why this is i really cannot say, do you guys know what the word "tight" means?

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

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im fairly certain that you and anyone else who advocates having position on good players rather than bad players is severely overestimating the amount of times you are raised, reraised, or have your raise called by a tight player behind you.

why this is i really cannot say, do you guys know what the word "tight" means?

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perhaps.

consider this:

it seems the argument is OOP on fish AND in position on TAG VS. OOP on Tag AND in position on fish. an either or.

if so, then...
OOP on the fishy is small disadvantage made up for by superior play, and superior hand selection. also, I can avoid tangling with the TAG because I have position on him. having position on the TAG vs him having position on me is very important. knowing what the strong opponents are going to do before you decide to take advantage of the weak ones is far more useful than pounding the fish and hoping the TAGs get out of the way.

while it is true that you will play more hands against the fish than you will against the TAG, you will also still FOLD more than 50% of the time. wouldn't you like to have position on the TAG so that you can fold accurately? you're going to be FOLDING more than 50% of the time, so don't you want to do it at the right times?

also, when considering the advantage that position gives you against fish, consider that a fish WON'T be able to punish you with superior position like a TAG will.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

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Position matters much more postflop than preflop. I'll take a multiway pot with a TAG who is now OOP and a fish who will coldcall many bets than the other way around.

Think about it this way, do YOU play better in position? Me too.

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Without trying to be a giant douche, i can't believe that there are regular 2+@ers who still believe you would perfer position on a TAG. As others have said its simple math most of the time. If you are a full ring player with a 12% PFR and the tag with "position" on you will be three betting with the top 50% of his PFR range- so hes reraising you 6% of the time- in all you will play a hand where you raise and he three bets 0.7% of the time.
On the other hand the TAG that is OOP will get first shot at the fish. When there is 1-2 limpers and he raises you will be throwing away hands like A9, KTs, 66 that you would otherwise have played (and probably raised) yourself. You are losing out no matter how you look at it if you put a tag to your right instead of a fish.

If you are talking 6 max this get even worse as most of the hands you play will be steals from the c/o and button. Here its best to have the tag 2 seats to your left as when you are in hands together most of them will be with you IN position after attacking his blinds.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

pick your seat so you have position on everyone. duh.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

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Without trying to be a giant douche, i can't believe that there are regular 2+@ers who still believe you would perfer position on a TAG.

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completely agree.

we had a semi-similar discussion in general a few months ago and IIRC BicycleKick (and a couple others who I respect) pretty much said the same thing.

Unfortunately, you don't get to have position on everybody.

You want to have the bad-playing LAG's on your right.
This means that the TAG's are going to have to stuck on your left.

More preferrable imo would be to have passives to my immediate left, and any TAG's on the opposite end of the table.
But that's a different disucssion I think.

Re: Enhancing your Multi-tabling - Position Advice
 

I stand corrected.