5 ways to improve your Out-of-Position play

Playing out of position in poker presents a significant strategic challenge. In such situations, your opponent will always act after you, which gives them the ability to control the size of the pot and make more informed decisions.

This informational advantage is quite substantial, so learning to effectively play out of position is a key skill for a successful poker career.

In this article, we will explore five strategies that will help improve your results when you are playing without a positional advantage.

Table of Contents:

- Increase the size of your 3-bets against fish

- Apply donk bets on the flop

- Induce aggressive players to bluff

- Bet yourself against passive players

- Fold to the third barrel from passive players

Increase the size of your 3-bets against fish

When playing against a fish out of position with a strong hand, it’s crucial to build a big pot preflop.

This will diminish your opponent’s positional advantage and allow you to put money into the pot more quickly, enabling you to take their entire stack before someone else does. If a weak player raises and you have monsters on the blinds, make a large 3-bet without hesitation.

Do not worry that a large 3-bet will scare off a weak player. Fish often do not pay attention to the size of the bets and focus on the dollar amount, rather than the blinds. If the price seems reasonable to them, they will call to your 3-bet, especially if they like their cards.

Let’s see how they react to 3-bets of different sizes using the multi-player reports in Hand2Note 4. This feature allows you to identify common trends in opponents’ play and develop exploitative strategies against them.

For analysis, I selected all the fish in my database who have played at least 100 hands with a VPIP of no less than 50%. Using a filter, I also simulated situations where these players made a raise preflop:

In Hand2Note 4, the user-friendly reports navigation makes it easy to move between related spots. In the “Faced Next” tab, I navigated to the scenario where weak players faced a 3-bet:

In the new report that appeared on the right, the “Bet Sizes” tab presents detailed analytics on betting patterns.

The data shows that fish rarely fold to 3-bets preflop, regardless of whether the 3-bet is twice or four times their initial raise.

Therefore, making a large 3-bet with a strong hand against weak opponents significantly increases your potential profit right from the preflop stage.

Apply donk bets on the flop

Many poker players are biased against donk bets and unjustly exclude them from their strategy.

If you hit a straight draw or a flush draw on the flop, a donk bet as a semi-bluff can be a good decision.

By using a donk bet, you seize the initiative while out of position and put pressure on your opponents, while still maintaining the potential to build a strong hand and win a large pot at showdown. Let’s check the effectiveness of this tactic in the Hand2Note 4 reports.

I filtered all the hands where I called a raise preflop while out of position:

Then, by clicking on the “Bet Flop” stat, I moved to the situations where I made a donk bet on the flop without waiting for the preflop aggressor to act:

In the new report on the right, the Action Profit indicator shows that, on average, this tactic earns me 3.6 big blinds in each such situation.

In the “Graph” tab, we can observe the behavior of the graph when employing a donk bet on the flop:

The steady rise of the red line on the graph indicates that in this scenario, profit is generated through winnings without showdown. Opponents often fold either immediately on the flop or to aggression on subsequent streets, making the semi-bluff very profitable.

Induce aggressive players to bluff

If you have the nuts, and your opponent also has a very strong hand, all the money will end up in the pot one way or another.

Your task is to maximize your earnings against the weaker part of your opponent’s range, relying on their playing style.

When you have a very strong hand and are out of position against an aggressive opponent, it makes sense to skip betting to represent weakness. Your check will often provoke aggressive players into bluffing, allowing you to extract maximum profit from the situation. Let’s consider an example:

We raised from the Early Position with AJ suited and got a call from a fish on the Button with stats of VPIP 55% and PFR 27%. The flop came K93, with two cards of our suit, and we made a continuation bet with the nut flush draw. The opponent called, and on the turn, we completed our flush.

To play our nuts as effectively as possible, let’s open the opponent’s popup and analyze their tendencies.

First, we see that this player has already folded to a continuation bet on the turn twice out of two times. Given the wide range the opponent plays, on such a turn, they will have many marginal hands they are unlikely to continue with against a bet.

Secondly, their aggression frequency increases on each street, reaching 80% on the river, indicating that the opponent is inclined to actively contest for pots.

Given these statistics, against such a player, a good strategy would be to check with the goal of inducing a bluff on the turn and river with hands that have no chance to beat us and which they would fold to our bet.

Bet yourself against passive players

In hands against passive opponents, you should maintain the initiative. If you play a check intending to go for a check-raise, you risk losing an entire street of value because passive players rarely will attack your assumed weakness.

Instead, with a strong hand, it’s better to bet yourself to ensure you don’t miss the opportunity to build the pot and maximize your payoff.

Let’s consider a relevant situation:

We opened with a raise from the Early Position with K9 suited and were called by a fish with a VPIP of 51% and PFR of 16% on the Cutoff. The flop came QT7, with two cards of our suit. The opponent called our continuation bet and we hit a straight flush on the turn. Let’s examine the opponent’s tendencies to choose the optimal line of play:

The popup indicates that this player has faced a continuation bet on the turn four times and has never folded. At the same time, they exhibit low aggression frequency on each street.

If we check, it’s unlikely that such an opponent will often bluff. With medium-strength hands, they are most likely to check back but will call our bet. Given these considerations, against such a player, it’s better for us to continue betting ourselves.

Fold to the third barrel from passive players

When playing in position, most low-limit players rarely make a third barrel bet on the river with medium-strength hands; such action usually indicates either a very strong hand or a bluff.

When out of position and facing a third barrel, assessing the aggressiveness of your opponent is crucial. This will help you make the correct decision: whether to call or fold.

To determine how aggressive your opponent is, you can refer to the WWSF (Won When Saw Flop) stat in Hand2Note 4. The lower this indicator, the more passive the player, and the fewer weak hands will be in their betting range. If an opponent has a WWSF below 40%, the likelihood of them bluffing is minimal. Let’s confirm this in the multi-player reports.

By applying the expression, I selected all players with a WWSF less than 40% and added a condition that each of them has played at least 100 hands for a more reliable sample:

Then, using filters, I selected the scenario where they opened with a raise preflop and made continuation bets on each street, including the third barrel on the river while playing in position:

According to the report, they win at showdown in these situations 71% of the time. This high percentage indicates a very strong range. Let’s explore it further in the “Hand Strength” tab:

The chart reveals that when passive players make a third barrel bet on the river, weak hands comprise only about 11% of their range. In contrast, stronger hands, starting from top pair with top kicker, constitute an overwhelming 76%.

This suggests that calling with just a single pair would likely be unwise when facing such a strong betting line on the river from a typically passive player.

Improving your play out of position requires flexible thinking and the adaptability to different playing styles and tendencies.

Hand2Note 4 provides you with powerful tools to analyze your opponents’ game patterns, pinpoint their weaknesses, and devise effective strategies against them.