Bad ways to combat position

A very common situation in short-handed NLHE is playing from the blinds against an aggressive player opening from the button.  Something to keep in mind from the outset in these spots is that especially with deep stacks, the button has a BIG advantage.

  

Unless you have a very good read on your opponent (good enough to offset the positional disadvantage), you should often be just giving up your blinds, even if you have a hand that is ahead of the opening range of your opponent, especially hands that play poorly out of position.  A-2 offsuit is a good example of this.  A good opponent will be opening a very large portion of his range on the button.  Ace-high rates to be well ahead of this range and if there were only one round of betting, you would be crazy to fold it.  The problem is that ace-high hands (especially weak ace-high hands) are not very far ahead of any two cards and rarely make hands strong enough to profitably call down multiple streets of betting.

When put in this situation, many players at the stakes that I play start playing way too predictably.  They will call button opens with a pretty wide range of hands, only re-raising their very strong hands, and proceed to check-call down unless they make a really strong hand, in which case they will check-raise.  Often, they will play their draws passively and will try to bluff when they miss on the river.  Taking these sorts of lines is playing directly into the strength of being in position.  By that, I mean that the actions of the OOP player give up far too much information about the strength of their hand, which allows the player in position to make extremely well-informed decisions.  Because the player in position has so much more information, the player out of position is put into a guessing game.  "Is he betting because he knows that my range of hands here is weak or because he has a strong hand himself?"  "All the draws missed so he could be trying to bluff me off of middle-pair here with a missed draw, or he could be value-towning me with top pair...".

In addition, poor OOP players often go for ill-advised check-raises when they hit draws that they chased without proper odds.  Given that the amount of money that a pot-sized river bet can extract from the opponent is twice the amount that either player has put into the pot so far, missing river bets GREATLY reduces the profitability of OOP draws.  This same situation applies to good one pair hands like TPGK (top pair good kicker) or MPTK.  Furthermore, OOP players often bluff on the river when they miss, which allows the player in position to get a lot of value for their A-high/one pair hands.

These two hands illustrate these tendencies pretty clearly (even though I was raising from earlier position than the button)

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($43.60)
Button ($119.40)
SB ($386.70)
BB ($100)
Hero (UTG) ($205.25)
MP ($107.85)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with K, A

Hero raises to $3, 1 fold, CO calls $3, 1 fold, SB calls $2.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($10) 8, 9, 8 (3 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $6, 1 fold, SB calls $6

Turn: ($22) 3 (2 players)

SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($22) 9 (2 players)

SB bets $22, Hero calls $22

Total pot: $66 | Rake: $3

Results:

SB had J, 10 (two pair, nines and eights).
Hero had K, A (two pair, nines and eights).
Outcome: Hero won $63

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (5 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($212.25)
SB ($230.40)
BB ($120.20)
Hero (UTG) ($319.70)
MP ($200)


Preflop: Hero is UTG with 7, 5

Hero raises to $3, 2 folds, SB calls $2.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($7) 5, 9, A (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $4, SB calls $4

Turn: ($15) 9 (2 players)

SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($15) 3 (2 players)

SB bets $15, Hero calls $15

Total pot: $45 | Rake: $2.25

Results:

SB had 8, 3 (two pair, nines and threes).
Hero had 7, 5 (two pair, nines and fives).
Outcome: Hero won $42.75

Don't let yourself fall into playing this way.