Much is made in poker literature about defending your blinds but less is said about defending your button. It is very important that you try and play as many pots as possible when on the button, as you can use the sledgehammer of position to really put your opponents to the test. In the current poker climate, where many players are starting to play a very aggressive and loose style, you will frequently have a raise in front of you before the action gets around to you on the button. It is important to send a message to the players at your table that you will not allow them to continually raise when you are in position.
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By playing lots of pots on the button, you will quickly start to make it clear that you will not give up position lightly – players quickly notice that they always sem to be playing pots out of position with a specific player and try and adjust their behaviour accordingly. The button is an incredibly important position in any form of poker that has rotating blinds – the largest percentage of your profit will come from it (particularly if playing short handed where position is extremely important due to the much larger number of decisions players have to make).
If you want to see the effects of this for yourself, simply download any of the available poker tracking software and look at your positional statistics – you will quickly see that the button is by far the most profitable position, followed by the cut off, then the hijack and so on around to the blinds where your profit will turn to a loss.
Playing in position as often as possible is perhaps the most important concept that has to be grasped in order to become a successful poker player. Because of this, it is imperative that you do as much as possible to a) play as many pots as possible when on the button; and b) do your utmost to make the table wary of opening when you are on the button – giving you the best chance at not only being the first player to raise, but also to do it in position on the players holding the reason your at the table – those sitting in the all important blinds.
Remember that your time on the button will always be the most profitable of your time at the table. Protecting it and playing on it are critical to poker success and you forget this at your peril.
To read more poker articles by Marcus Bateman head over to the Betfair Poker Blogs
About Bill Rini
Bill Rini has been working in the online poker industry since 2004. He was a product manager for poker at Full Tilt and was the poker room manager at PartyPoker.
Bill has been blogging about online poker since 2003 and is considered one of the leading authorities on the online poker industry.
“I like What Bill Rini said in his blog” – Doyle Brunson
“In other news, we had Bill Rini write an absolutely home run blog.” Daniel Negreanu
“Industry insider Bill Rini has one of the most popular blogs in poker, with thousands of subscribers and fans regularly coming back for his universally respected insight into the industry” – Barry Carter (News editor for PokerStrategy, Co-Author: The Mental Game of Poker)
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Hi, my name is Bill Rini and this is my poker blog. I've been blogging about poker and the poker industry since around 2003-ish. Like most people I started out playing poker as entertainment in home games whenever we wanted to sit around and smoke cigars, drink beer, and eat pizza, and needed a good excuse. I started playing online shortly after the first online card rooms opened and it wasn't long before I was playing 20, 30, or even 40 hours a week or more. One day I received a phone call about a program manager position at Tiltware which was the company that consulted to Full Tilt Poker on software development and marketing. After Tiltware I spent about 2.5 years working at Party Poker where I was the poker room manager.
Greg
Important point.
It took some time for me to realise how beneficial the button was when I first started out. Getting something like PokerOffice or PokerTracker like you said really opens your eyes.
CardMafia
over doing it on the button will destroy you. Gotta be sure you atleast have a top 20 hand. top 10 if there are several limpers