Playing your position Q and A

by **Debel** Tue Sep 09, 2008 12:59 am

I work with many students new to poker. One of the most common things I hear from newbies is that they don't understand the whole 'playing your position' strategy. Anyone know of a simple way to explain this? Everyone's ideas are appreciated.

by **konawajim** Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:18 pm

What is Position?

The first concept that we are going to show you is the Position Concept. This is one of the most fundamental concepts of Poker, and it’s very important that you understand this before you move on.

Position refers to where you are seated on the table in relation to the dealer button. Play always goes clockwise so the position you are in determines what order players act in, which has a big effect on the decisions we make.

We split the table into 4 positions, Early Position, Mid Position, Late Position and the Blinds.

Position on a 10 man table

Early Position – The 3 seats to the left of the Blinds, these are the first people to act after the cards have been dealt.
Mid Position – the next 2 people after the Early Positions
Late Position – The last 3 people (the last person being the player with the dealer button)
Blinds – The players who put in the small and big blind, these are the two players to the left of the dealer button.

The best position to be in is Late position. – The reason for this is that we get to see everybody act before we have to make our decisions. This means we have more information in order to make the correct decision.

Also the later we act the less people there are to act after us, so therefore less chance that a person still to act after us is holding a strong hand.

Illustration

You have a marginal hand 3-3 and are in late position, you may be considering playing, but if a player in Early Position raises, then you will more than likely fold your hand.

Compare this to holding the same hand in Early position, you have now got to make the decision on whether to play or not before you see other peoples actions, which could lead to you putting chips in to play the hand and a player in later position raising and forcing you to fold your hand.

Can you see the difference – in both situations you have folded your hand, but when in late position you have done so without committing any chips into the pot, whereas in Early position it has cost you to fold your hand.

by **konawajim** Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:20 pm

Playing different hands in different positions.
Starting Hand Examples

Lets take a look at some example starting hands and walk through what the charts are telling you to do and what thought process to follow.

Example hand 1

You are sitting in early position and are dealt AJ. You are first to act and so nobody has bet before you.

What position am I in – Early Position
What group is my hand in - AJ is a Group E hand.
Has there been a Raise before me - No, I am first to act so it is UNRAISED

So from the answers to the above questions we look at the UNRAISED Action chart, and look in the column for Early Position. You will see that none of the actions allow us to play a Group E hand in Early position and so we would fold this hand.

Example hand 2

You are sitting in early position and are dealt A K. You are first to act and so nobody has bet before you.

What position am I in – Early Position
What group is my hand in - AK is a Group B hand
Has there been a Raise before me - No, I am first to act so it is UNRAISED

So from the answers to the above questions we look at the UNRAISED Action chart, and look in the column for Early Position. You will see that with a group B hand we are told to make an opening raise. So we would enter the hand by making a Raise (We will look at details of how much to raise in the next section).

Example hand 3

You are sitting in Mid Position and are dealt AA. A Player in early position has raised the pot up to 3 times the Big Blind.

What position am I in – Mid Position
What group is my hand in - AA is a Group A hand
Has there been a Raise before me - Yes, it has been RAISED

So from the answers to the above questions we look at the RAISED Action chart, and look in the column for Mid Position. You will see that with a group A hand we are told to make a Re-Raise. So we would enter the hand by making a Re-Raise. (We will look at details of how much to raise in the next section)

Example hand 4

You are sitting in Mid Position and are dealt 9 9. A Player in early position has raised the pot up to 3 times the Big Blind.

What position am I in – Mid Position
What group is my hand in - 99 is a Group D hand
Has there been a Raise before me - Yes, it has been RAISED

So from the answers to the above questions we look at the RAISED Action chart, and look in the column for Mid Position. You will see that we are not allowed to play an already RAISED pot in Mid Position with a group D hand. So we fold this hand.

Example hand 5

You are sitting in Late Position and are dealt 8 7. Two Players acting before you have limped in and called the big blind.

What position am I in – Late Position
What group is my hand in - 87s is a Group H hand
Has there been a Raise before me - No, it is UNRAISED

So from the answers to the above questions we look at the UNRAISED Action chart, and look in the column for Late Position. You will see that we are allowed to Call a Multi-way pot with a group H hand (multiple players playing the hand). As two people have already called and the blinds will likely also call we can call the big blind and play the hand. So we would call the big blind on this hand.

How much should I Raise?

An opening Raise in general should be between 3 to 4 times the Big Blind. Anywhere in this range is ok, and as guide to start with I would raise the following amounts:

When you are in EARLY POSITION	Raise 4 times the Big Blind
When you are in MID POSITION	Raise 3.5 times the Big Blind
When you are in LATE POSITION	Raise 3 times the Big Blind

You should mix and match the size of your raises to prevent your opponents getting a reading your betting patterns, but the above can act as a general guide whilst you get used to your new strategy.

The reason to Raise more in Early position is because we are out of position and want to put as much pressure on our opponents as we can.

How much should I Re-Raise?

A Re-Raise should in general be between 2 – 4 times the original Raise, As a guide:

When it has been Raised from EARLY POSITION	Raise 2 times the Raise
When it has been Raised from MID POSITION	Raise 3 times the Raise
When it has been Raised from LATE POSITION	Raise 4 times the Raise

The reason for this is it is more likely that a player in late position has raised with a weaker hand than a player in Early position.