Articles From The Pros

Poker is a game of incomplete information. The more information you have, the better your decisions will be. Where you are sitting in relation to the blinds and the button dictates your "position" at the table. In early position, you will be forced to act first, without knowing what your opponents will do behind you.

While in late position, you have the advantage of knowing what each of your opponents has chosen to do before you make your decision. This is why position is perhaps the most important factor to take into consideration when devising your strategy in any given hand.

In a perfect world, you'd get to have the button on every single hand. But, since poker is an egalitarian sport, the button moves forward every hand one seat at a time, so that everyone gets their turn to be in the blinds and to also be in late position.

In a typical full 10-handed table, before the flop, you might consider early position to be the first four seats (the blinds and the two seats to their left). Middle position would be the fifth, sixth and seventh seats, and late position would be the eighth, ninth and 10th (10th being the button). Position determines the order in which you are to act, not the actual seat you are sitting in. The closer you are to being the button, the more likely you are to be last to act. For instance: you might be in the big blind, but you would be last to act should you find yourself up against only the small blind.

In early position, you really only have the strength of your cards to base your decisions on. You have no idea what the subsequent actions of your opponents will be, so it is much more dangerous territory to find yourself in. It is best to play significantly tighter in early position, and avoid finding yourself in marginal or tricky situations.

Middle position gives you a little more information than early position, so you can broaden your spectrum of hands slightly, but if you are still the first to enter the pot, you are still in unknown waters as to what those behind you will do. I consider middle and mid-late position to be good at disguising what type of hand you might hold, because your position is more undetermined than if you were clearly in early position, or steal position. However, this might make it even trickier to play for a beginner, so novices should still play somewhat cautiously.

Late position is where you have the biggest edge. You can be far more "creative" when you know that you are going to be last to act in subsequent betting rounds. This is the best spot to play in, so you can be much more liberal with the kinds of hands that you play. When you find yourself last to act, you will be able to maximize your winnings more effectively by value betting more often. You'll also be better at cutting your losses when you miss by not bluffing in a hopeless situation.

-Evelyn Ng