In general...

...could someone discuss the merits/faults of a strategy that includes not playing, preflop, any hand whatsoever in the first 3 positions (not including SB and BB)?

[BluffTHIS!]

1) You would effectively be paying more per hand to play since the blind cost is now effectively divided by 7 or 6 and not 10 or 9.

2) In actuality since you will get dealt either totol crap in the blinds that won't be playable, or will be forced to play good blind hands out of position, you now have limited yourself to having to catch good hands in only the last positions, and also decreased your long term earn significantly.

3) You have severely limited your ability to disguise your hands by playing even fewer. You *should* never get paid off.

4) You fail to learn what hands to play and how to play them in early/bad position. This is very important because if you get headsup in the cutoff with the button, then your relative position is the same as if you had been under the gun.

5) A more critical matter is often seat selection than what/how you play in early position.

Thanks. I'm mulling over the dichotomy in PLO of the alleged unimportance of preflop selection and the utter importance of position, and possibly the effect on degree of variance.

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Thanks. I'm mulling over the dichotomy in PLO of the alleged unimportance of preflop selection and the utter importance of position, and possibly the effect on degree of variance.

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Playing garbage is still -EV. It is just that playing garbage OOP is more -EV than garbage in position. In general, the same is true for most hands (garbage or not).

[beset7]

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Thanks. I'm mulling over the dichotomy in PLO of the alleged unimportance of preflop selection and the utter importance of position, and possibly the effect on degree of variance.

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I know it was a hypothetical situation but you are on to something. Dpending of course on seat selection and what players are at the table and how they are playing, it's typical for me to play tight as hell from the first three positions. Not quite no hands but WAY tigther from the first 3 positions.

I hadn't thought of it much until I read in Pot and No Limit Poker that "top players avoid drawing hands out of position, especially in pot limit" coupled with "Pot Limit Omaha is a game of drawing to the nuts."

However, when looking at my PTO position stats for all hands(about 40,000 hands to this point) my first three positions are all in the green.

[xorbie]

I think it would be very easy to limp/call PF and just fold post flop if you don't hit the flop absurdly hard, and check/raise whenever you do. Why just fold?

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Why just fold?


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Ask Stewart Reuben and Bob Ciaffone. Or better yet, read their book.

[beset7]

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Why just fold?


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Ask Stewart Reuben and Bob Ciaffone. Or better yet, read their book.

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He didn't ask them he asked you.

Yeah that was snide, sorry. I'm really not sure enough to say anything definitively.