Posted 3/29/2022 by admin

Texas Holdem Position Strategy

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Basic Strategy:Tips : Position : Starting Hands : Bluffing : Betting : Money Management

Your position at the poker table will often be more important than the cards that you are dealt... seriously. You will find that the outcome of every hand will be largely dependent on the position of each of the players at the table.

So, I think its pretty important that we learn about the importance of position before the next time we play a hand. You will never look at a hand in the same way again...

What is table position in Texas Hold'em?

If you take a close look at an online poker table, you will notice that the dealer button moves to the left after every hand. This allows for each player to put an equal amount of blinds into the pot as the game is played through each rotation of the dealer button. In addition to this, the dealer button changes the order of which players are going to act on each betting round.

Other influences to your Pre-Flop Texas Holdem Strategy Position - The earlier you are the tighter you should be and vice versa. Game Flavor - In a loose game you could play just about anything and the more people in the hand the weaker your starting hand can be. Once you understand right preflop Texas Holdem strategy, the postflop poker strategy becomes significantly easier. When you play weak hands from poor positions poker is quite difficult; nobody likes to play Q7 from out of position (Out of position means you act first, so your opponent will have more information than you)! A texas hold'em hand is dominated if it has 3 or fewer outs against a hand it faces, like AQ against AK. In this example only a Q can help AQ, an A will not. A hand like AK is a 3 to 1 favorite over hands it dominates like AQ, AJ, A9, KQ, KT, etc. 32 is only a 2 to1 favorite). Because position is so important, you must adjust which poker hands you want to play (and/or open-raise with) from the various poker positions to achieve a winning strategy. The further you are away from the button (to the right of it), the tighter your starting hand range should be to compensate for your (likely) lack of position on the.

If you are to the left of the button (i.e. in the blinds or just to the left of those), you will be one of the first players to act on the flop, turn and river, and there will be a number of players acting after you. Conversely, if you are on the button or just to the right of it, you will be one of the last players to act, as the majority of the other players at the table will have to make their plays before you.

Why is table position in Texas Hold'em important?

Table position is important because it is going to be incredibly useful to be able to act after our opponents. If we are the last to act on a hand, we can see whether our opponents have checked or bet before us, whereas we would not have this sort of information on our opponents if we were acting before them. The actions of our opponents is going to help us a lot, as it gives us a strong indication of the strength of their hand.

Texas Hold'em position example.

Lets say we are up against one opponent on the flop and we have not managed to improve our hand. If our opponent checks to us, we stand a good chance of being able to run a successful bluff, because we can infer from their check that they are weak by not wanting to bet out. However, if we were the first to act we would have no idea of whether they are strong or weak, because we have not had the opportunity to see what action they are going to take.

You really want to try and avoid playing hands from early position, that is unless your hand really is too good to fold.

That was a pretty basic example, but the theory can be applied to almost every situation in poker. So if you can see why position is important from this example alone, you have already come a long way in developing your game.

Playing hands depending on your position.

As a general rule:

You need a stronger hand to play out of position than you do when you are playing in position.

So basically, if you are going to be one of the first to act on each betting round, you will want to stick to playing premium hands like:

However, if you have good table position and you are going to be one of the last to act on each round, you can comfortably open up your starting hand range to include the following hands (along with the hands listed above, and assuming that there hasn't been too much action before you):

This is all because of the fact that being out of position is going to be quite a big problem, and it is going to make the hand a lot more difficult to play. Therefore you will want to give yourself a much better opportunity to win the hand by only the playing better cards, and avoiding the ones that are likely to get you into trouble.

You can find out more about choosing the best starting hands in the starting hand strategy article, which should be your next stop on the strategy tour anyway.

General Texas Hold'em table position tips.

The big and small blind seats are horrible.

Don't be fooled by the blinds! You may be one of the last to act before the flop, but for every betting round after that, you will either always be first or second to act. So make sure that you stick to playing the best cards in these seats and throw away any marginal hands. You will want to look throw away the vast majority of your hands in these seats as they will lose you money more often than not.

The button is awesome.

The button is the best seat in the hand. If you are on the button, you can guarantee that you will be the last to act on every betting round after the flop. This doesn't mean that you should play anything and everything from the button, but you can really open up your starting hand requirements to get in on the action from such a great seat.

You should be playing a lot more hands from the button than you should from early position.

Middle position is okay.

Middle position is in the middle between the good and bad seats, funnily enough. When you are in middle position you will want to keep an eye on whether players have limped in or raised before you, because you could either end up being one of the first or last to act on each round depending on which players decide to see the flop. The less players acting after you, the better your position becomes.

Texas Hold'em position overview.

Every time you play a hand in Texas Hold'em (or any other poker variant for that matter), you should always take into consideration your position relative to the dealer button. You may well be surprised at how much of an influence your position at the table can have on the outcome of a hand, so don't just look at your cards the next time you decide whether or not to play your hand.

If you are familiar with the principles behind table position, you may want to take it up another level by having a look at the article on relative position.

Go back to the sublime Texas Hold'em guide.

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Comments

How are you supposed to know where you're going if you don't know where you are?

Position is greatly undervalued by every beginner poker player. Your table position is often the difference between winning a hand and losing one.

Before playing a hand in Texas Hold'em you should always be aware of your position relative to the dealer button. Take a look at your position before you take a look at your cards.

The seats nearest to the are called early position or EP for short.
The seats nearest to the right of the button are called late position or LP for short.
The seats in between these will be called middle position or MP.

Poker table position diagram.

The seats in Red are early position
The seats in Blue are middle position
The seats in Green are late position

Early position.

Early Position is least favorable because you'll be one of the first to act after the flop. You want to avoid playing weak cards from these positions. You're relying on your cards to help you win the pot, as being first to act throughout the hand gives you less opportunities to outplay your opponents.

Don't get yourself in to trouble from EP.

Middle position.

Middle Position is better than Early Position, but it's not as awesome as Late Position. You can afford to play a few more hands from MP than you would from EP, as you do not have as many people left who can call and act after you from the flop onwards.

However, if all of the players from Early Position fold, this will still mean that you will be the first to act on each round. When it comes to poker strategy, it's not so much about your seat at the table as it is about who you've got acting before you and who you've got acting after you.

Late position.

Late Position. is highly advantageous.

There is a high chance that you will be last (or one of the last) to act on each round. This is so powerful it means you can be far more flexible with the range of hands you play. Just remember, just because you have position it doesn't mean you can get away with playing absolute junk all of the time.

Texas Holdem Strategy Book

'Being in position', 'having position' and 'positional advantage' all mean the same thing. Although it probably makes more sense to think of a positional advantage as an informational advantage.

The button.

The Button is the best seat in the hand because on every betting round (except for before the flop), you will be last to act. This is amazing. This is also why you should look to play as many hands as possible (within reason) from the button. I'm usually looking for a reason not to play my hand when I'm on the BTN

The cut off.

The 'cut-off' is the position just before the button. This is the second best seat in Texas Hold'em because if the button folds, you will be the last to act on each hand. The button and cut-off are very useful positions for stealing the blinds as there are less players to act behind you, which makes it less likely that they are holding a good enough hand to call a raise with.

How to use table position in poker.

If you have position over another player, it means that you are acting after them on each round.

This means they will give you information before you make your decision.

They could check - possibly a sign of weakness.
They could bet - possibly a sign of strength.
If they bet, the size of their bet could mean something.
The time it takes for them to make their decision may also give you extra clues.

For example; if you have position over your opponent and they check quickly, this could be a sign of weakness. So you could use this information to bet out and take the pot. It's not always this easy, but getting some kind of information is infinitely better than being the one giving information to your opponent.

Poker table position example.

Lets say you're on the flop with a bunch of players in the pot, and you hold a mediocre hand like middle pair.

If there's a lot of betting and raising before the action gets to you, you can be sure that your hand isn't the best and you can happily fold without losing any chips.

On the other hand, if you are in early position you may bet out with a decent hand, only to find that there are much stronger hands out there that will re-raise you and force you to fold. Therefore you will have lost chips due to a lack of information.

The later you act in a hand, the more information you will have available to you about your opponents.

Positional awareness.

In general, you want to play more hands in position than you do out of position.

Texas Holdem Position Chart

This doesn't mean that you force yourself to play any old hand when you have good position. Instead, be more inclined to play a wider range of hands when IP, but don't play this wide range of hands when OOP.

Try not to think of your position as dictating which hands you can and can't play. Instead, think of it as taking advantage of being last to act as often as you can.

Take KJo for example:

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In early position I would be reluctant to play KJo. It's on the low end of the 'good hands', and the fact that I have poor position makes it an unattractive situation. The hand isn't strong enough to counteract my positional disadvantage.
In late position I would raise this hand almost every time if there were no raisers before me. I may also call raises with this hand if I have position on the raiser. I have an advantageous position combined with a decent starting hand, so the situation is looking good.

As a beginner player it's tricky to get to grips with the hands that are okay to play in LP, but are not good to play in EP. How are you supposed to learn the subtleties of which starting hands to play in which positions?

Trust me, you will pick it up as you go along. It will take time, but the more experience you get under your belt the more you'll get to grips with it. If you're completely new to the game, there's no harm in sticking with the premium hands and entering pots with them irrespective of position – that's okay. Just be prepared to broaden your starting hand requirements based on position as you improve.

Positional awareness graph.

Following on from my last point about playing more hands in position, here's a graph that shows a winning player's VPIP based on their position in 6max cash games.

Position abbreviations explained (UTG, MP, BTN etc.)

The graph above shows the seats acting from first to last during the preflop betting round. So…

UTG - This is the seat to the left of the big blind. This is the first player to act preflop.
MP - This term can to varying positions between early position and late position. In this example it is the seat to the left of the UTG position.
CO - The seat just before the button. This is the second best position in the game.
BTN - The best seat at the table. This player acts last on every postflop betting round.
SB
BB

VPIP indicates the percentage of the time a player either raises or calls preflop. So essentially this chart shows the percentage of the time they 'play a hand' from each position.

Position In Poker Texas Holdem

Notice how this player is playing a lot more hands in late position than they are in early position. They do not play the same set of hands from all positions. They're not forcing these statistics either – they're just wisely taking in to account their table position and then selecting which starting hands to play with.

If you asked any winning cash game player to show you their VPIP by position, their stats and graphs would follow a similar trend to the one above.

You can find out your own VPIP stats (and also those of your opponents) by using the popular Poker Tracker software.

Evaluation.

Table position is easily one of the most underestimated factors in playing a hand by many amateur poker players. Position is so important that often hands can be won or lost based on your position alone, irrespective of the strength of the cards that you and your opponent hold.

The sooner you start paying attention to your position, the sooner you will start making more money.

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