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One important tactic in
helping you play your opponent is your
position at the table relative your
opponent. For example, you want to play more
hands against poor players or maniacs;
therefore, it is to your advantage to be
sitting to their left. When they enter the
pot, you can play a few more hands. When you
are sitting to their right , you never know
when they are going to play or raise, so you
will generally have to use your same tight
starting hand criteria as normal. Another
advantage of sitting to their left is that
you can raise or re-raise to try and isolate
yourself against the poor player.
Generally it is also
good to sit to the right of tight players,
especially when the overall game is
relatively tight. You should have more
opportunities to steal the blinds. Your
raises will tend to drive these opponents
out of most of the pots. On the flop, you
can often bet out and get these types of
opponents to fold. Sometimes, however, it
can be an advantage to have these types of
player sitting in front of you. If they are
so tight that they only bet the very premium
hands, you can easily fold your borderline
hands whenever they enter the pot.
There is one player
who I love to play against for just this
reason. He is a top player who wins a lot of
money; however this player practically never
check-raises or slowplays. He always bets
out his strong hands; therefore, when he
bets, I can easily fold unless I have a
super strong hand also. On the other hand,
if he checks I can try to steal the pot
since I never have to worry about him
check-raising. If he were sitting in my
left, I would not be able to use this
valuable information nearly as much since I
would always have to act before him.
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