The Importance of Position in Poker

One of the most important phases of poker is position. Even some of us more experienced players forget to think about playing position at the poker table. If you are not aware of what position is or what I am talking about then you definitely need to keep reading. If you do know what I am talking about; read it anyways to remind yourself.

What is Poker Position?

When you play poker each player at the table is a specific “position” each hand. The position starts with the player left of the dealer and goes around to the dealer. The further away from the dealer that you are; the better your position is. The best position is the button (which is the dealer). It is really a must know if you are a poker player. This is very basic poker knowledge.

As you can see from the image above, there are three different positions at the poker table – early position, middle position and late position. As I said before late position is the best, then middle sucks and early position really sucks. It is a proven fact that you will win more hands in late position then early position. No; that doesn’t mean you will get better hands, it means you will win more hands.

Why Late Position?

When you are in late position it allows you to be able to see what your opponents are going to do before you have to do anything. That gives you the advantage because you can make your decision based off of your opponent. You have a lot more chances to get information on players then you would if you were in early position.

Early position forces you to make a decision before anyone else at the table. You can gather information from your opponents betting and decision making, but not until you have already made a decision yourself. It might be valuable information for the next round, but sometimes there is no next round; most of the time you need the information before you make your decision.

Example:

Your Hand (Early Position)

The Board

Automatically what worries you? – The 9!

As long as nobody has a nine you figure you have the best hand. Now when you are in first position, how do you play this? You can learn a lot from seeing what your opponents do and react to this hand. The problem is that you have to act first. Now, this situation specifically is not probably going to be a huge problem, but some will. Sure, you can bet out and then see how your opponents react, but then when you get re-raised you are going to lose that bet.

Now think about the same situation in late position. You can sit back and see what everyone is doing. Nobody is going to slow play a pair of nines. If everyone checks then you probably have the best hand unless someone has a monster. If someone bets then they probably have a seven or a nine – that is up to you to figure out. This is just a better position to be in. It also allows you to take control of the hand.

The example above is just a simple demonstration to prove the point. If you think about a more important situation or tougher situation you can see how important position can be. Position in poker is more then just the time that you must act. It is what will define the things that you can do at the table. You could have A 10 one hand and fold it preflop and have it another hand and raise preflop. This is all because of the position you are in. Being in late position makes any hand you are holding more valuable then if you were in early or middle position.