A note to the ill-informed: women, in general, appreciate initiative. Initiative shows that you do, in fact, have balls, which helps to bring your overall attraction score up several points. Initiative leads to a diverse array of results and rewards, like sex and more sex. Of course, coital rewards aren’t all that you should expect from initiative. Every poker author in the universe will lecture you forever about the importance of position in hold’em, specifically that the last player has the biggest advantage because he gets the most information about his opponents. OK, fine, but consider the weight of the message that you send when you bet out without position.
Initiative - it's all about making the first move
Not a Fix-All
Initiative is not a fix-all. If you’re out on a blind date (why would you agree to this?) with a girl that you’ve spent two and a half hours with and she’s sitting, looking around the room with her arms crossed over her chest and her legs pointed out toward the rest of the room, that would not be the time to take the initiative and do something bold, like go in for a kiss. You’ll be embarrassed and perhaps injured. Likewise, if you’ve got something fun and playable like 6-5s, it would be a bad idea to take the initiative and bluff at a flop of Q-J-4. You can see a high-end flop like that probably hit your opponent somehow, especially if he raised pre-flop, and you probably aren’t going to get him off of it.
Great Opportunities
On the other hand, if she’s making eye contact, giggling, blushing, facing you, and very engaged, you can probably get away with a kiss. But pop a mint first, dude, that shrimp scampi has a lot of garlic.
And if you still have your 6-5s, you can get away with a bet out at something like T-7-3. The rewards that you can expect include winning outright (which is never bad) and, if unsuccessful, you get information about what he’s holding based on how he reacts. More often than not, you’ll probably find yourself taking down a lot of small pots if you integrate this play into your repertoire.
Taking Back Control
Of course, don’t let your new-found initiative be limited to taking away positional advantage. Look for other opportunities to bet out and take control, because the other option can cost you a lot of money. Come to think of it, if you didn’t know how to take initiative with women, you’d have to hire a dominatrix. And you’d still be losing money.
