Position

You will often hear how important position is in poker but no matter how much you hear it, you will only really appreciate how important it is with experience and after you have slipped up a few times along the way. When you act last in a round of betting, you are said to have position on everyone else, that is you are in the most advantageous seating position at the table for that hand.

The reason why position is so valuable is because you get the most information possible before you have to make a decision. If you have to act first you have no idea how the rest of the table is going to react or how strong their hand is, but when you act last you have a much better idea. Let’s say you have missed the flop and are first to act in a three way pot, if you try and bluff you have no idea if your opponents are strong and if you check you give them a free shot at bluffing and taking the pot. Now if you are in the same situation but are last to act, if everyone checks to you then you can consider bluffing because the table has indicated they don’t have strong hands, if there is a bet and a raise in front of you then it’s clear someone has a hand and you can throw your hand away at no extra cost.

When you get to act last you can ‘pot control’ which means you can choose to just call or check in order to see the next card, keeping the pot small, because your position means you can close the action on that street. You can also pump the pot up with a nice big raise when you have a big hand. Position is power in poker, you have more control over the action and the pot size than anyone else. For this reason, you should only play very strong hands when you are out of position (Because playing a bad hand without position is like boxing blindfolded) but you can play so many more hands when you are in position because you have such a big advantage.

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