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Pitfalls and Remedies in Early Position

Early position in Holdem can be played successfully if we know what to avoid doing from the very start.

On pre-flop, if we decide to call the blinds and someone raises the pot, we should not opt on folding our hand when in early position. We are bound to lose the blinds this way. Or, if we call the blinds and call a pre-flop raise as well, while the board cards on the flop have no use for us, we better not check. When another player makes a hefty wager we might be forced to fold our hand when in early position.

Watch out when we decide to place a bet post flop and we're playing from an early position. If someone raises us, we might be forced to fold. Getting a good hand may be encouraging from an early position, but when some one else gets a monster hand and slow-plays us, we're better off folding. It's easy to beat early players with a slow play in Holdem.

Now, if we think of all these losses from early position and think of all those chips going to waste, it'd be consoling to think that we'd play from early position only once per game in a position rotation. At least, with 4 games, we'd be playing from early position only once and play other favorable positions three times.

Is there any other option in playing from under the gun aside from folding? The alternative sometimes is to play with the correct hand, if there's any, and to play them correctly. Playing A10 from early position is a disaster. We would have a chance if we played only best hands like AK, AQ, or KQ. Pairs would also be tolerable if we know how to handle them. Suited connectors are also bearable if we can handle them from early position---although these hands are best folded majority of the time. Always call the blinds when we have AQ, KQ or top pairs and limp.

We may also use lower pairs. In fact, any pair from 22 to JJ may allow us to call. Then we hope to get something from the flop to improve our hand. Should some player raise pre-flop we may safely call it using the said hands. Small pocket pairs can be spiked when we're in early position on the flop to have a three of a kind or a set to surprise opponents with.

Early position is unfortunate but there's still hope of playing competitively in it.