Playing Position in Poker

When you’re reading poker strategy articles on the Internet or poker books you are always told that you have to pay attention to your position when playing poker. Especially after the flop in Texas Hold’em it’s crucial to be in a good position. This means that you want to be the last player to act, known as the dealer or the button. But there’s more to the whole story.

The advantages of playing position in poker are obvious to the more experienced player, you can see what your opponents are doing in front of you and collect information before investing any chips.

To show you the value of position it makes sense to look at the following example for Texas Hold’em :

You’re sitting on the button, the strongest and last position at the table, and another player from middle position called a raise from one in an early position before the flop. Now you see the flop which gives you top pair with a mediocre kicker. The original raiser makes a continuation bet and the other player raises this bet. At this point you haven’t invested one single chip on the flop but you can make a very easy decision. Your hand not be strong enough with the weak kicker and you can easily fold.

Now lets say you are the original raiser in the early position and you have to act first after the flop. You can easily make a solid bet with this pretty strong hand but you’ll see a raise and maybe a re raise after your bet. You are then “between a rock and a hard place” and probably should fold.

This is one big disadvantage of being out of position and playing. But if you act first it can also be your advantage because you have the so called first-mover-bonus also called first-in-vigorous. That means that the player that makes the first move to win the pot is usually the favorite. For instance you see a flop and hit a flushdraw. You can now semi-bluff out of position, having the first-in-vigorous and most likely take down the pot.

Furthermore you have the chance to check-raise if you’re out of position. You can check first and then make a raise when another player makes a bet.

Position in poker is not a one way street. You can’t say if it’s good or bad in general. It just depends entirely on the situation and the longer you play, the easier playing position will come.

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