Another thing you often see playing online poker, and at lower level limit casino games in casinos, is an inordinate number of people who call the big blind from early position.

There’s not many situations where that id defensible. If you’ve got a good poker hand that you want to play, then make a nice raise, see what everyone does behind you. You can gain some good information that way. And as we know, information is the key to winning poker.

If you have a middling hand, throw it away. I all too many times see people call the big blind in first or second position with something like an 8-9 suited (people LOVE to play those hands) and lose lots of money.

A suited connector hand like that is alright to play if you’re going to limp in on the button, but why call with it in early position, when you have 6 or 7 other people who could easily reraise you. This happens, and often the caller than calls the reraise because he feels obligated to, and this just compounds the mistake.

And if the suited connector caller gets a draw on the flop, he’ll invariably call till the end, lose most of the time, and end up with a severely damages chip stack. And it all starts with making that early position call with a mediocre starting hand. Next time, just let it go.