Position – the most valuable commodity at the poker table
You know what they say: if you’re unable to spot the sucker at your table within a reasonable amount of time, chances are you are the sucker. The good news is though that it doesn’t take a whole lot to catch up with the other poker players and to leave your sucker status behind for good. All you need to do is hammer a few basics concepts into your head and you’re good to go. About 95% of the players you’ll meet online are not any better than that, and it won’t take much to catch up with them.
First thing’s first: there are a few basic advantages you can secure without ever playing a single hand of poker. Take rakeback for example. Don’t know rake back is? Read around, stay informed. Be the guy who reads, and not the one who follows the pack blindly.
Sign up for a rakeback deal like the Absolute Poker rakeback or the Full Tilt rakeback and get about 30% of your rake back. Once you understand how poker rooms take their rake, you’ll understand why rakeback is so important.
Similarly, when you hit the table and you get down to actual play, you need to keep reading. If you do that, you’ll become a reasonable player within an amazingly short period of time.
One of the basic concepts that make a difference between reasonable players and suckers is starting hand selection. Another such concept, possibly an even more important one, is that of the position. Texas Holdem Poker is a fixed position game, which means certain players will enjoy an advantage over other players, simply on account of the position they have at the table. Here’s how position really works. The dealer button is the point of reference when it comes to position. Because the dealer button moves around the table in a clock-wise direction with every hand, nobody will be stuck in a certain position for good. You will still be able to secure lasting advantage over an opponent by sitting down on his immediate left, because that will mean you’ll have to act after him most of the time.
Anyway, here’s how the positions are allotted in relation to the dealer button. The person sitting on the left of the dealer button is the SB, the guy on his left is the BB. Except for the first betting round, these are the people that will act first on every street.
The position on the left of the BB is called Under the Gun. He is the guy who has to act first in the very first betting round. These are all early positions which force the players to act blindly and thus to lose value on their starting hands.
The best position to be in is the button. The button is the last to act on every street. The cut-off is a late position too, which carries the possibility to foil the blinds-stealing plans of the button. As far as the other positions are concerned: the closer they are to the UTG the worse they are.
Here are some of the strategic advantages that late position offers you at the poker table:
- If offers you numerous and cheap possibilities to steal blinds and to bluff.
- It offers you information in the form of reads which you’ll be able to deduce from the betting patterns of those who act before you.
- Value betting properly will be a cinch from late position.
- You’ll have control over the size of the pot. This is probably the most important advantage that position offers you: it gives you control. Most of the advanced strategy moves require that you have control and your success rate sky-rockets every time you’re in control in a hand.
- Your starting hands gain additional value when you’re in late position.
If you need an illustration of how position works in poker, take a look at the hand histories of the durrrr challenge. You’ll see an obvious trend surfacing: both players (Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius) have logged most of their winning hands while in position. They both lost more when out of position.
Given the fact that these two are currently among the best cash game players in the world, this statistic should say plenty about the importance of position in poker.
Tags:
Betting, Blinds, Bluff, Dealer, Late Position, Patrik Antonius, Pot, Rakeback, sucker, Table, Texas Holdem Poker, Tom Dwan, Under the Gun, UTG
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