Relative Position

I'm constantly trying to improve my game by reading forums, articles and occasionally a few chapters in a book. Today, I stumbled across an article posted on pokernews that really lit a few light bulbs for me. This isn't anything that I haven't thought about or recognized during a tournament, but it was well written and very useful info to keep in mind while playing.

Here's an excerpt:

"An important aspect in an MTT is position. Most players understand the importance of being in a good position and play accordingly. However, many players only focus on their absolute position. So is there another position? Yes, this is your relative position. Your absolute position is your position before the flop. UTG is early position and the button is late position. Your relative position is your position after the flop with respect to the initial raiser. During the early stages of a MTT (especially one with a low buy-in) you will often find yourself in 5-way pot. Try to make it easy for yourself after the flop. Let's say you're in level one of a guaranteed tournament and you get a nice drawing hand on the button. Your first thought: "Nice, I have ace crackers in the best position." Then you get the following situation: blinds are 10/20, UTG limps, MP and MP+1 limp as well and the cutoff raises to 100. ..........You have a great position here preflop, but after the flop you are in the worst relative position. ..........But look what happens when you call here. Once you call, the other players will be getting good odds, and you will see that, in most cases, the rest of the limpers will call as well. In this situation the big blind calls, as well as MP and MP+1. The flop shows , so it's not a bad flop. If the cutoff has you can stack him here if, for example, a shows up on the turn. But what happens? Everyone often checks to the initial raiser, after whom you are next to act, with 3 players still to act behind you after the initial raiser fired out a C-Bet.

As you can see you are in the worst relative position in this situation, and many players often make the mistake and call with their straight-draws, after which the other players are free to check-raise and pick up the dead money you left in the pot. ..........If we take the example from just now but have you sitting in MP+1, you would be in the best relative position, as all the other player would have to act before you after the initial raiser bet, after which you have a lot more information to base your decision on. This will save you chips that you will definitely need in the later stages of the tournament.

- Robert Jan Hoogendoorn"
Read Full Article