Importance of Position
A big mistake that many beginning poker players make is not taking position into consideration when deciding on how they want to play their hand. Position refers to where a player is sitting in reference to the other players at the table. The players who act first are in “early position”, while the players who act last are in “late position”. The best position at the poker table is the button. The button is the seat directly to the right of the small blind. The second best position is directly to the right of the button. This seat is called the cutoff. The worst seats are the small blind, the big blind and under the gun (under the gun is the seat directly to the left of the big blind). Beginning players often underestimate the importance of position and it ends up costing them a lot of money.
So why is position important? Poker is a game of limited information and the later position a player has the more information that player receives compared to the players in early position. Before the late position player has to decide if they want to invest any money into the pot they get to see which players call, which players fold, which players raise and how much, and post flop they get to see which players check. There could be a tight-passive player in middle position that makes a big raise, or the short stack could move all-in, or maybe a very aggressive player that they don’t want to get involved with folds. Those were just a few examples of the additional information that the late position player can take into consideration before deciding how they want to play their hand.
Since a player has more of an advantage from late position than in early position, they should play a wider range of hands from late position than from early position. A player under the gun with a drawing hand like 10,9 in a full ring game should probably fold. However, a player in late position can play this hand and even raise with it depending on what the players before them do. Say that the late position player is on the button and everyone before them has folded. The best play may be for the player on the button to raise to see if he can steal the blinds. Even if the blinds call, he has position on them post flop and might have the opportunity to steal on the flop if he doesn’t hit the flop. If there were a couple of limpers preflop, then the late position player can either chose to call or raise. If a player raised preflop and there were a couple callers, then the late position player might have the pot odds to make the call. There are many situations where the late position player can play a hand like this when a player under the gun should just throw it away.
It is essential to adjust your play based on your position to be a profitable poker player.
So why is position important? Poker is a game of limited information and the later position a player has the more information that player receives compared to the players in early position. Before the late position player has to decide if they want to invest any money into the pot they get to see which players call, which players fold, which players raise and how much, and post flop they get to see which players check. There could be a tight-passive player in middle position that makes a big raise, or the short stack could move all-in, or maybe a very aggressive player that they don’t want to get involved with folds. Those were just a few examples of the additional information that the late position player can take into consideration before deciding how they want to play their hand.
Since a player has more of an advantage from late position than in early position, they should play a wider range of hands from late position than from early position. A player under the gun with a drawing hand like 10,9 in a full ring game should probably fold. However, a player in late position can play this hand and even raise with it depending on what the players before them do. Say that the late position player is on the button and everyone before them has folded. The best play may be for the player on the button to raise to see if he can steal the blinds. Even if the blinds call, he has position on them post flop and might have the opportunity to steal on the flop if he doesn’t hit the flop. If there were a couple of limpers preflop, then the late position player can either chose to call or raise. If a player raised preflop and there were a couple callers, then the late position player might have the pot odds to make the call. There are many situations where the late position player can play a hand like this when a player under the gun should just throw it away.
It is essential to adjust your play based on your position to be a profitable poker player.
