» Why position is important in poker
For newer players, position is a greatly underutilized and misunderstood factor in their poker success. Your position at the poker table strongly affects your results for one simple reason. Information is power. The more information you have, the more prepared and educated a decision you can make. The better decision you make, the more likely you will win the hand or make the correct fold. Poker is a game of limited information. You don’t see everyone’s cards, so the best way to piece together the limited information available is to see how everyone acts before you do. To do that you need position.
Having position means acting after other players. The last player to act each round, the button, has the best position. The first seats to the left of the button are called early position (EP). The seats to the left of them are middle position (MP). The seat to the right of the button is call the cut off and along with the button are considered late position (LP) and considered to be the best seats at the table. The positions rotate clock wise every hand, so you will need to learn to play every position well.
The early position players have to act first on any given round and have no idea how the players after them will act. Thus it is usually wise to only play your strongest hands from early position. The middle position players have position over the EP players which gives them some information and opens up a few more hands to play, but they still must be somewhat cautious.
The button and cut off positions have the advantage of acting last or second to last each round. With the advantage of acting last, they have more information to work with and thus can afford to play a wider range of hands. They can read all the other players actions prior to theirs before acting. This allows them to take advantage of weakness and possibly bluff, or to let go of marginal hands when a lot of betting happens before them. The late position player may chase a draw, knowing if they don’t hit on the next card, they can release the hand if an early position player continues to bet their hand, or pick up a free card when the player checks or pot controls the the hand. In early position you might make a bet with a hand you think is best, only to be raised by a better hand or bluff by a later position player which puts you in an uncomfortable position. So the early position player will lose chips, or be bluffed, by being out of position. They are giving away the strength of their hand by their bet size and action before later position players decide on theirs.
Having position and the additional information that goes with it is surprisingly powerful. Some early position players will adapt and try to trick you by check raising their strongest hands if you regularly bet from late position, but in most cases, players adapt to only playing their strongest hands in early and middle position to avoid the disadvantage of less information. Their hand ranges and actions become more predictable which allows the later position players to wield more power and thus win more hands with their powerful position.
