Position Importance

When you are playing any variation of poker, online or in a land based casino, your seat position can play a very important role in both how you proceed with your hand and how the hand is played by the other players at the table. For example, say you are playing at a table with a $5 min and $10 max. You start out with a pretty good hand and choose to see how things go for the min bet. The two players next to you fold, and the next one raises the bet. Now you decide that it isn't really worth $10 to see the next cards, and you wish you had never placed a bet in the first place. That is a prime example of how much difference something as simple as your seat position can make in any given poker game. If you had known that the forth player was going to fold, you could have saved your $5 and folded. A full poker game is divided into three sections when it comes to seat position.

The first three seats are commonly known as Early Position, and the players in these seats must act before most of the other players. Because of this fact, the players in early position should avoid playing marginal hands. Especially if the game is full (with up to 8 other players). The players in the early positions should limit themselves to playing only very good hands. The next set of seats at the table are commonly known as the Middle Positions. The players in these seats have the advantage of having seen some of the other players act, so they have an idea of what they are up against. If no one has raised, players in middle position do not need to limit themselves to only the better starting hands. Another advantage of middle position is that there are fewer players who have not acted, and so the chances that someone will raise you are lower. The last set of seats at the table are commonly known as the Late Position seats. These players have the advantage of having seen most of the other players already act, leaving the very last player to act with the best advantage that seat position can offer. They have seen everyone else act, and should they decide to call a bet there is no chance of someone raising them. Players in late position can play a wider range of starting hands because they already know how many opponents they will be facing.

Following these general tips will help to improve your game in the long run, along with developing a strategy that works for you in other aspects of the game. Strategies such as different betting strategies that can be used depending on your table position and the actions of your opponents, but the first thing to understand is that where you are seated in relation to the dealer makes a difference and improve your game even more.