Position, position, position....

Well, things continue to confound and amaze. At this time, i have been playing poker for 2+ weeks. I am down $27, but deposited $10 to unlock UltimateBet's RAI$E promotion, so I have $33 left in my bankroll. I am losing at the rate of $1.53 per 100 hands, actually down from $2.86, but still losing. I see ~60 to 80 hands per hour as the only games regularly available at $0.02/$0.04 Limit are 6-max. My sessions typically last an hour as well, so I have roughly 30 to 35 sessions left before I go bust at my current rate of play.

On Pokerstars, I won $0.31 in the PPA freeroll, had a nice session where I added $0.90, then lost it in the next session, lol. I got bounced out of the $0.20 tourney for America's Cup, but will try again until all of contraSol's stake has been used. I think I am going to fold my way as far into the money as i can stand next time though....

As far as why I continue to lose ? Looking at my stats, I have a massive spread eagle leak at the small blind position, having lost $11.51 from that position - almost half of all the money I ever lost ! I chalk this up to my lack of understanding position.

See, what throws me off is the change from preflop betting, to flop-turn-river action. The Button always acts last, but the blinds are posted first. Then, everyone has a chance to check, raise, or fold - all the way round to the button. Now, after that, the button can decide if he wants to call the BB or not. I often call - but lately have been folding more in general, so I do not do that as often as I did last week. (For the record, I lost $4.88 and $4.87 from the Button and BB, respectively)

After the button acts pre-flop, the SB and BB have a chance to act. I often would sit there and call the BB thinking I would get to see the flop at a discount compared to the BB - but would get nasty surprises post-flop. Why ? Post-flop, the small blind is first to act - I believe this is called Under The Gun (UTG).

It is very non-intuitive, though, because I focused on the "action" after the BB has been posted, thinking that the next person to act after that was the first to act... after the flop, though, he's UTG+2. And actually, once it dawned on me what was happening, the SB is still the first to act, and the button is still the last; the extra two steps after the button in the pre-flop betting allow the people posting the blinds to raise or reraise the pot, or fold.

So, for the past two days, I have been paying extra attention to this. Too soon to tell if I have plugged the leak, but at least I know where $20 of my money went... In the meantime, I will need to change my thinking from "seeing flop at a discount" to "can I hold on to this from early position post-flop ?" Much more folding should commence.

Oh, and some Ed Miller books should arrive tomorrow. Viva la UPS tracking number !