Table Position is Important to Betting Decisions in Texas Hold'em Poker

By Daniel L. Cox

"Hold'em is a lot like making love: Position is everything." - WPT Host Vince van Patten

Determining your opponents' playing styles is important, but gaining knowledge from your position is more so. Where you sit in relation to the dealer's button is called Table Position. The three basic table positions in poker are early (the Big Blind, Small Blind and Under the Gun), middle and late (including the Cutoff and the Button). The reason the dealer rotates the button after each hand is because table position is crucial to determining appropriate odds and bets.

The strength of position comes from the fact that the betting moves in a clockwise fashion. When playing in late position -- which is the strongest position -- you get to see how other players react to their hands before the action comes to you. The Pokerism "Position is power" comes from this simple idea.

Though your hole cards are crucial, how you use position to decide your betting strategy is the most important tool in your poker skill set. One of the gravest mistakes you can make is playing your starting hands the same, no matter what position you are in. Though you may understand the strength of playing premium starting hands, incorrectly entering every pot without considering position is costly. The more information you possess, the more you increase your chances of winning the hand.

You can easily end up with a raise or even re-raise by players betting after you if you bet with a marginal hand pre-flop from early position, as your margin for error is tighter from there. This could place you in the untenable position of immediately having to decide whether your hand is worth losing the extra chips (two or three small bets in limit, to an All-in in no-limit) just to see the flop. If you make the correct move and fold after betting, you lose the chips you already put in the pot. The correct move with a marginal hand in early position is to fold, avoiding costly raise losses in the future. Thus, if you are in early position, you should restrict the hands you play to the top premium hands. Statistically at least one of the players behind you also has a premium starting hand, and they have the advantage of acting last or closer to last pre-flop.

Though your pre-flop hand selection increases in middle position, in most situations you are still limited to playing strong opening hands. If you are playing from middle position, you have players waiting for action and others that have already played. You get better odds than early position when playing weaker hands, but you still have a significant risk from the players behind you.

Poker Legend Doyle Brunson once remarked, "If I had position on a player, I wouldn't even need to look at my cards." Being in late position with a good hand has major advantages over being early with a good hand. A player in late position holding a premium hand has the ability to manipulate the pot size, making future bets easier to call on the turn or river. Late position is especially important when playing marginal hands, such as suited-connectors or Aces with weak kickers. With the advantage of seeing your opponents' actions before you act, you can expand the range of your starting hands, often playing weaker hands from late position. If you do not consider position when playing a hand, you give an edge to players who do understand its importance.

Since the button is the strongest opening position, many players try to bluff or over-bet a weak hand from this position. Gaining knowledge of other players' styles helps you determine if they are overplaying a hand from the button or actually have a strong hand. Learning your opponents' styles also provides a clue to how strongly you should protect your own blinds.

The type of game and the stakes involved can magnify the importance of position. In a low-stakes, limit game, with a table of loose players, position means less, since these players tend to play any two cards and draw to the end regardless. As the stakes get higher, position becomes more important. Position becomes even more important in no-limit play, as the threat of the All-in on each hand considerably raises the stakes more than in limit play. - 31897

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Winning Texas Hold'em - The Power of Position

By Steve Schafer

One of the least utilized (for beginning players) and yet most important factors to consider when playing Texas Hold'em is table position. Your table position in hold'em is your location at the table in relation to the button. Your position rotates every hand with the button, so it's important to know how to play them all. Your table position will be a huge factor on how you play your hands, and whether or not to play a hand at all.

In Texas Hold'em, there are essentially four positions. They are the blinds (BB and SB), early position (EP), middle position (MP), and late position (LP). I gave the blinds their own category because the strategy for playing them is a little different. Understand that the tips below are general, in that they do not account for other game play circumstances. In general, though, following them will help your Hold'em game quite a bit. Let's look at how your table position affect you game:

Early position in Texas Hold'em is the two seats just left of the blinds. Those players are the first to act pre-flop and most of the other players act after them post flop.The problem with EP is that if you play too loose here, you will find yourself stuck in a pot against a premium hand and you can easily loose a bunch of chips. Play really tight here. Play only premium hole cards (AA, KK, QQ, AK, AQ). Your goal here is to take the pot down early if you can. Raise with high pocket pairs (aces, kings and queens). Limp with you AK or AQ. If someone in late position raises after you limped your AK, go ahead and re-raise them. If they call you, you can bet into them after the flop and try to win the pot there. If they re-raise your re-raise, you are likely either dominated, or at best facing a coin-flip.

Next is middle position. These are the two positions just to the left of the two early position seats. You have a little more room to play here, but not much. Play it pretty much like early position, with the exception of maybe adding JJ or suited AJ to your starting hand arsenal. Be wary of early position limpers (unless you have already seen them limp in EP with junk) and you should fold to just about any raises from EP.

Late position is the player on the button and the player just to the right of the button (called the cut-off position). In Texas Hold'em, late position is king. Here is where you get to open up your game a bit. You can add a much bigger range of starting hands to your arsenal. In fact, if the table folds around to you in late position, you should be raising with any two cards that have good post flop potential. Suited J-10, 88, and suited A9 all start to look really good in late position. You have already seen most of the players act, so you get to use their actions against them. You also get to act after them in the later betting rounds, which gives you an opportunity to outplay them.

One of the most difficult positions to play in Texas Hold'em is the small and big blinds. You already have chips committed to the pot before it is your turn to act and everyone is trying to raise your blind. The good news is that you often have the correct pot odds to call raises, since you already have in the pot. The bad news is that unless you are really really good at playing from the blinds, your position will put you at too big a disadvantage to be able to outplay your opponent post flop. In less you can see a flop cheaply, or have premium hole cards, I would fold.

There are some very basic strategies for playing Texas Hold'em according to your position. Hold'em is a game of patience and discipline. Be patient, pay attention to your table position and it will definitely help you to become a winning Hold'em player. - 31897

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