Position!

What's up? So firstly, I'm no pro! I've been playing Poker for around 6 or 7 years perhaps... Or just about. Well down in South AFrica, specifically Cape Town, poker is not a huge thing and is merely played among friends socially as Casinos are slowly phasing it out as it is most probably not profitable for them (I assume). That said, most of the games I play are either arranged games by the city's avid players, home games and mostly online poker. Let me say that I've won more money through poker than I've lost so I'm at a stage where I'm pretty comfortable with my game. If you're starting out then I might be able to help. Feel free to drop a comment below if there's anything you need to know. So let's get into it... THE AGGRESSIVE - LOOSE PLAYER TO MY LEFT! So I've been looking for Live action in my city and came across this group of guys that hosts regular tournaments and cash games at an undisclosed venue. I attended a tournament of around 18 players, Buyin was R100 for a stack of 12000 with stakes starting at 100/200 and increased double the BB every half hour. So with two tables of 9 players each, being the "new kid on the block" I found myself sitting next to the most aggressive player to my left I've ever played with. It was all fair though, I sat there based on the cards we drew at the start. This guy made my experience very uncomfortable as he made it known that every hand has to go through him with his over-betting strategy. Needless to say, I did not fair too well that night at all. During level one with BB being 200, he would raise preflop to like 1700-2400. Like what the fuck?? Anyway I said to myself I'll wait for premium hands and get into a pot with him... it never happened because the Best hand I got all night was AJo. Before i knew it, I had bled out and rebought a few times. I then sat out and watched him play. Into a limp pot of around 1200 he pots 1200 preflop, gets a few folds and re-raised to 2400. He slows down this time round and makes the call and they see a flop heads up. Flop comes AT8 rainbow. Player UTG* half pot bets to around 3.2K and again just gets called by my Nemesis. The turn brought the 8 of spades. UTG then fires again with a bet of 4k and after taking his time a while gets re-raised 8k by Nemesis followed by a Fold by UTG. I don't know why, but Nemesis then shows his hole cards T2o and laughs it off... UTG then reveals that he had AQo and clearly the best hand. I took home what I saw and went back the next week with that in mind. Week 2: This was my week. Again, this guy was two seats to my left. I chose a strategy that worked for me: 1: Play marginal to premium hands in position. This, combined with playing fewer hands helped in avoiding losing valuable blinds. Ask yourself, will I call a re-raise with this hand? If so, then play it. 2: Play suited connectors - hands such as 89-suited can be exceptionally profitable and good to trap with. BLOG INCOMPLETE - WILL CONTINUE IT SOONEST! MEANWHILE MAIL ME AT maynu26@gmail.com *UTG - Under the gun - First to act