Poker Positions Explained – Why Position is Everything

If you’re new to learning poker, brace yourself—the concept of poker positions can be challenging. However, if you want to succeed and achieve big wins, there’s one undeniable truth: you must understand positions in poker. No exceptions.

Mastering poker seat positions is what will make you a great player.

Keep this magnitude in mind as we delve into our position in cash games and how it can impact your poker tournament strategy. Even if you’re a beginner it’s never too early to think about position and form a solid foundation.

What are Poker Positions?

On the most basic level, poker positions simply refer to your seat at the table. Your seat position determines when it’s your turn to act. Poker seating positions establish the order of play in the game.

The best poker seat positions are the “late” positions which make their decisions after everyone else. You want to go last.

What is it? Poker positions are where you sit at the table.
Why is it important? It is an advantage to go last in the poker seating positions.

The Different Positions in Poker — Poker Positions Names

Now let’s break down the poker positions on table arrangements.

Please note that most live casino tables play “full ring” and have nine different poker seat positions, while online cash games tend to only have six.

The poker positions names are as follows.

When you play at six-max tables, which will most often happen in online cash games, these are the seat positions.

As you can see, the poker position names are the same. Six-max simply has a few seat positions removed.

In each of the poker positions, you’ll want to adjust your strategy for which cards you play preflop. To simplify things, you can put the positions into three categories: early position, middle position, and late position.

For exact specifications on which cards to play in each poker seat position, you will want to look at the best poker software tools. They will provide raise/fold guidelines for just about every situation as a poker player.

But on a conceptual level, here are each of the nine poker positions:

UTG

Under the gun is the worst position at the table because you’re the first player to act. You don’t have any reads on the rest of the table and you’ll only be opening a tight range.

UTG+1

While UTG+1 is better than UTG, it’s essentially the same as you only receive information from one player and you’ll just have a slightly wider range than the opening poker position.

UTG+2

While you get to open about 15% of your total range, UTG+2 is still pretty early as far as position goes. You’ll still be out of position post-flop against most players.

Lojack

In an online cash game or a 6-Max table, the lojack is the UTG seat.

In a full-ring game, you’ll be able to get information from three players before you act. However, you’ll still be playing relatively tight from the lojack.

Hijack

The hijack is where you start gaining an advantage on the rest of the table. You’ll have seen the action from the first half of the players and you’ll have a wider range to include many more blocker-based hands.

Cutoff

One of the best positions for stealing the blinds as you’ll be in the second-best spot on the table. Most of the time, when you open from the CO, you’ll be in position postflop. Even if you do see a flop, you’ll be able to take it down with a continuation bet a lot.

Button

The absolute best position at the table. The button has received all the information and is last to act postflop.

The button can open a very wide range, can call somewhat wide against early positions due to their positional advantage, and can apply a lot of pressure on opponents postflop.

Small Blind

The small blind is guaranteed to be playing out of position postflop and has to post half a big blind before the hand is dealt.

SB ranges are relatively narrow but a great spot to be 3-betting against late-position opponents.

Big Blind

The big blind posts a full big blind and is out of position against everybody except the small blind.

You’ll be playing the most hands out of the big blind, as you’ll be getting incredible pot odds to see a flop. However, you’ll be losing the most money in the long run from this position.

Why Position is Important in Poker

Hopefully I’ve convinced you by now that poker positions are a can’t-miss-concept when learning how to play poker. Here are some further points to hammer it home.

You Collect More Information In Position

Poker is a game of limited information and you need to make educated decisions based on your range and the decisions of your opponents. When you’re in position, you get the benefit of seeing what your opponents do first.

By acting last, if your opponent has checked it to you, you get the opportunity to either see a free card or to deny your opponent a free card.

You can use position to check to see a card for free and gather more information on the hand, both from the board and your opponent.

Denying your opponent a free card could get them to potentially put money into the pot with a weak hand or a draw. It could also get them to fold a better hand that misses the board.

Naturally, this means you get to make better decisions, which will net you much more money in the long run.

In Position Players Control the Pot and Can Extract Value Easier

When you’re in position, you’re last to act, which means you’re able to control how big the pot gets. This is one of the most critical aspects of poker which can either save you or make you a ton of money.

For example, when you’re confident you have bet with the best hand on the turn and a scare card appears on the river, you’ll likely get to check back as opposed to having to make a big decision if the roles were reversed.

Say you have a pocket aces on a jack-high flop and your opponent calls your flop bet and your turn bet and a second jack appears on the river. Obviously, this is far from ideal and you’re more than happy checking back the river and finding out if you’re the winner for free.

Let’s say the roles were reversed and you were out of position, you may have bet the flop and the turn but now after checking the river, your opponent makes a huge bet on the second jack. Now you have a difficult decision to make for a very big chunk of your stack.

Playing Out of Position is Tough

Folding everything except the most premium hands in early poker positions is a strategic compensation for the disadvantage of being “out of position” — other players getting to act after you with more information.

Because the early seat positions suffer such a considerable hindrance, it is recommended you only play top-tier hands in EP because their strength makes them less likely to lose.

Here is what makes being out of position difficult:

1. When you have a good hand, it’s hard to get paid. Your opponents will be able to see you betting into them and are much more likely to get scared into a fold.
   Even if you just open your hand with a raise preflop, opponents might fold hands they would’ve otherwise played because they saw your decision first.
2. When you have a weak hand, it’s hard to navigate. Bluffing is much more troublesome when you have less information than your opponents — they might have an extremely strong hand and you can’t even realize it.
   You could be betting and essentially lighting your chips on fire! It’s also tougher to deduce whether or not your opponents have you beat in hands that are close calls.

I can’t emphasize these two points enough.

Annette Obrestad Wins a Tournament Blind

Annette Obrestad is the youngest person to ever win a World Series of Poker bracelet, and once won an online poker tournament without looking at her cards. She beat 179 opponents playing poker “blind.” Annette put tape over her screen so she couldn’t see her cards and filmed the whole tournament.

In Obrestad’s words, she wanted to “show just how important it is to play position and to pay attention to the players at the table.”

Watching other players act first gave her all the information she needed. Rather than relying on her own hand, she observed the actions of those ahead of her and made decisions based on what she estimated about their hands. This is how you play your opponent, not the cards, and it’s a valuable skill when playing at any of the best online poker tournaments.

If Annette can win a poker tournament without ever looking at her cards — succeeding through poker positions alone — then mastering the strategy is certainly worth the investment.

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