If you’re not a seasoned professional, you may wonder why under the gun is so problematic in poker. Under the gun is the person who acts first before the flop. They are immediately left of the big blind and action starts with them after the dealer has completed the deal. In this piece we will share a few reasons why it sucks to play poker from this position.

No Information
As stated in the introduction, under the gun is where a player acts first. As such, you have the least information available. Why? Well, nobody has acted yet. In a game of incomplete information liker poker, having none whatsoever is going to make it challenging to say the least. Therefore, under the gun sucks as you will have tricky scenarios come about. You may also raise into premium holdings at a Malaysia online casino due to no fault of your own.

Must Play Tighter
Hand selection is a key element to playing profitable poker. Knowing when to enter the pot is fundamental to playing well. It’s a universal truth that winning players are more careful when entering the pot from the first position known as under the gun. So, we know we must play tighter ranges from this spot. This is a big reason why under the gun sucks. Even if we have had trash for 4 orbits, if we look down and find a pretty looking hand, we still have to throw it in the muck unless we have an especially weak table.

Harder Post-Flop
The last reason why under the gun sucks is the post-flop action that develops. Often, we will be acting first or sandwiched between someone in the blinds and others to our left. As such, it can be quite hard to play post flop when we have opened the action from under the gun. This is particularly true in cash games where multi-way action is common and we have deeper stacks. Even with premium holdings we may find ourselves being put to tough decisions due to our relative position at the table.