I know that doesn't make sense yet, but read on and by the time you are done it will. Lets start with a few definitions.
*****Best position: Being the last person to act in each round of betting after the flop.
*****Worst position: Being the first person to act in each round of betting after the flop.
Button: The button is the little round "D" dot on the table in front of one player indicating they are the dealer in that hand. On the pic its the "B." This person will always be last to act after the flop as long as they are in the hand. This person is in a late (good) position
UTG: Under the Gun. This person is directly to the left of the big blind. They have to act first before the flop and will act after the small and big blinds after the flop. This is considered an early (bad) position.
Cut-off: The person one place to the right of the button.
Hijack: The person two places to the right of the button.
Mid-guy: In this blog I'll call anyone playing from the green positions 'mid-guy.'
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Ok, now here is an example of playing a hand and using position.....
You are on the button (superior position!) with 
The flop missed you completely, so you feel pretty bad wasting you nice AQ right? Well don't. You still have a great opportunity to win this hand.
After the flop, UTG is the first person to have to decide what to do. They have to bet or check. But since they are first (BAD position) they don't have any information about mid-guy (the player in the green) or you.
Each player in a hand has about a 30% chance of pairing one of their cards on the flop. That means that there is a good chance that both of the other two players MISSED the flop just as you did. But you get to find out before you decide what to do.....
Lets say both players check. Since they both checked, you can be fairly confident that they have nothing or at most a very weak pair or a long shot draw. You can bet strong here and take down the pot.
You use position here. By being last, you got more information than either of your opponents. You don't have a pair, but after they check you can be fairly sure they don't have a pair and your AQ is the best hand. So from position you can win this hand by hitting the flop OR, in this case by betting after they both check. By playing from superior position you have given yourself two ways to win.
** Good position= low risk, high reward and more chances to win.
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Lets look at another example....
In this hand you are again on the button in superior position and have a weak 8-6.
After the flop you see that you've hit middle pair. And you have a pitiful kicker. BUT...you have position and you can win this pot.
You get to let UTG and mid-guy act first. If both check, you can be confident that your middle pair isn't so bad after all. You can bet strong and take the pot down.
If one of the other players bets strong before you, no big deal, you can fold and don't lose any more chips than the blinds. Even if they hit you lose a small amount.
Winning poker is not all about having the best cards! In this case using POSITION you win the pot with 8-6.
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Now lets look at the same 8-6 from BAD position.....
Again, you hit the middle pair. And once again you have a pitiful 6 kicker. But this time you are UTG. Now what? You don't get any more information than what you see. You have to act. What are you going to do? You could bet that 8, but if one of them has a jack and raises, you are going to have to fold and lose not only your blind, but the money you bet after the flop.
If you check, you are showing weakness. Both mid-guy and button can bet strong and you'll have to fold. Maybe they are bluffing, but are you willing to get deeper into trouble by calling their bluff? And if you call and they bet strong again after the turn then what?? These are the hands that give you a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach.
So with this 8-6 from BAD POSITION you have a very low chance of winning. Even when you hit the flop you are STILL in a bad position and likely to lose the hand.
** Bad position= high risk with low reward and few chances to win
Is it starting to make sense? Lets try a couple more examples.....
In this one you have the J-5 from UTG and hit the flop with your top card.
I know, you are saying, "I wouldn't play a J-5 so I wouldn't be in this spot." I'm using this to help you understand position, we'll talk about card selection later....
Now what? You wouldn't be able to see the the button had AQ. Since you are the UTG player, you have to be first to act. Mid-position guy will be second, and the button, who has the best position, gets to wait to see what everyone else does.
So you bet. Sure, you've hit that pair, so you bet. But you are going to get called or raised. You hit the flop, but you are going to lose here and you are not just going to lose the blinds, you will lose anything you bet unless you make a lucky suck out.
What if you bet and they smooth call? Are you going to bet again on the turn? Feeling a little sick? Bad position will do that to you.
Ok, at this point I hope I've made sense of this so that you understand what position is. Remember, after the flop it goes in order. Small blind is first to act, then big blind, then UTG, then UTG+1 and so on around to the last player. So the last player has the best position. The first player has the worst.
If you are still not sure, go back to the top and start again. It will make more sense the second time. Really, if you aren't with me go back and read it again....I'll wait....
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Ready?? Ok, lets look deeper into this position thing.
You said playing J-5 was dumb and thats why you lost that last hand? Ok...I won't argue. So lets look at a hand you would play....like AQ
Ok, we're in the hand and there's the flop. We missed. We're in bad shape here. Remember earlier when we had AQ with the same flop and we won even though we missed the flop (1st example)? Not this time because of our BAD POSITION! We're feeling that sick feeling again. What a waste of a good starting hand. If either mid-guy or button bets we are just getting ourselves in deeper and deeper if we call. We'll play smart and fold. Darn it...AQ stinks! Well, AQ was pretty good to us in GOOD position, but yes, it can really stink from BAD position.
EVEN IF WE WIN WITH THE AQ here, we will probably only win a very small pot!
I'm trying to show you that the cards are not the most important thing in poker. To consistantly win at poker you must find ways to win without the best cards all the time. GOOD POSITION gives you ways to win WITHOUT great cards. And avoiding BAD position allows you to avoid losing chips that you don't have to.
Now does this make sense??
** Good position= low risk, high reward and more chances to win
** Bad position= high risk with low reward and few chances to win
I can hear the comments already....."I'm not folding AQ no matter what position I'm in." Ok, again, I won't argue with you. Play it if you want to. I know feels great to play it and win. So you'll keep playing because you've won with it. "HA! Glennfish is wrong! I won a 1700 chips hand with AQ UTG!"
Ok, then lets look at 20 hands where we have AQ under the gun against the button who has 20 random hands.
The math....Remember earlier we talked about each player having about a 30% chance of hitting a pair on the flop? (before you comment this blog and tell me thats wrong, I'm using rounded numbers to keep this simple and easy to understand. The 30% number is not exact, but close enough.)
We'll set the blinds at 50/100. To keep it simple we'll assume neither of us raises. Or if you want, we'll be agressive and raise with our AQ. That makes it 50/100 blinds and a raise to 300 every hand with AQ.
So...in each hand after the flop there is 600 chips in the middle.
Now, we'll hit the flop 30% of the time and bet and take it down. That means 6 out of 20 hands we'll win. GREAT HUH?? We're going to win 6 out of 20!! We'll make some chips here right?? Lets do the math......
A. We win 6 out of 20 for a total of winning 3600 chips.
B. We will MISS the flop 70% of the time. Our opponent is a good player, he'll bet every time we show weakness and check when we miss the flop. Even if we bluff two times out of the remaining 14, that still means we lose 12 times for a total loss of 7200 chips.
C. Of those 2 times we bluff we'll get caught 1/2 the time so those even out. But just for the sake of arguement, we'll say we win those 2 bluffs. So for these two we win 1200 chips.
Thats 20 hands with AQ from bad position. We feel good about winning 3600 chips, but add it all up.
A. +3600
B. -7200
C. +1200
= we LOSE 2400 chips!!!!!
In twenty hands from bad position even with AQ, we LOSE 2400 chips!!! WE LOSE!!!
Still think the cards are more important than position?
Still want to get AQ twenty times in a row if you have to play from bad position?
Yes, we could play super agressive and bluff a lot of the hands where we miss the flop. But even if we get lucky a lot, we're putting ourselves a big risk bluffing and even if we don't get caught, we're still AT BEST going to come out even.
POSITION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT IN POKER!! It is FAR more important than the cards! Yes, the cards are important, but to win, THEY MUST BE PLAYED ACCORDING TO POSITION!
Okay, so if the button is always the superior position we're going to lose unless we're on the button? No, we won't, because we're going to ELIMINATE the button and take the superior position for ourselves....
In this hand we're the cut-off. We have 
Mid position guy is in the worst position being first to act. We're next. Yes, we're in the blue "good" position zone, but the button has the superior position over us, so we have a negative expectation of winning. With us on the cut with A-10 playing against the button, we're going to come out behind in chips. So we're not going to PLAY from this poor position, we're going to take the superior position by RAISING pre-flop.
RAISE IT UP!! When the button folds, we're in the very best position, because then WE will be the last to act on each street. We always want to raise our good hands to improve our position.
This time we're in the green zone with the A-10. Two players behind us is not too good. We want to be in better position so we raise. If we make a strong raise, we force them to fold their junky cards so they can't use position to steal from us. And the more people we eliminate from the hand pre-flop the better our position becomes. If the cut-off and button fold, then WE have the very best position in this hand on every step of the betting and........
** Good position= low risk, high reward and more chances to win!
Even if either the cut-off or button calls our raise and stay in the hand, we are still much better off with 1 player behind us than with 2. With two players in better position than us we are in bad shape unless we hit that flop just right.
****RAISE IT UP to improve position!!!
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Ok, finally we'll talk about starting hands according to position. Remember that AQ under the gun? Its bad. If you have to play it, definately raise pre flop and hope they all fold. But look back at the example where we won with an 8-6 from the button.
If you're the button and there are no raises you can play some looser cards.
If you are in UTG, you should fold everything but the very best hands and with those best hands, RAISE.
So tight in the red and loosen up as you get closer to the button. Good hands from UTG would be AA, KK, QQ. Depending on the other players at the table I might play JJ or AK from UTG, but often I'll fold those unless I have a big chip lead and am willing to take some risks. I will NOT play A-Q or less from UTG (unless I'm short stack of course, or when I'm HU or maybe down to the final 3 or 4 players of a tourney). I'de rather save my chips for another time when I am in....
** Good position= low risk, high reward and more chances to win!!
and avoid...
** Bad position= high risk with low reward and few chances to win.
Everything in poker flows from position. Bluffing is very often a disaster without understanding and using position. But if you understand and practice position play, you can learn to develop useful agression and the art of successful bluffing.
Ok, there it is. I have really enjoyed using position against rb's in tourneys to take chips and fill my page with trophies. I like winning, so I don't want to play against people who understand position. I like the ones who keep playing against me out of position. I can always count on them to feed me chips. Which are you? See you at the tables!!
**If you have any questions about this, shoot me a PM. I'm always glad to share ideas and help anyone who wants to learn and improve.
© Copyright 2008
39 comments
great blog glenn hope some one reads this and starts to use it well
ps i like the part about filling up page with trophys you show off
I will comment so I can read this later and be able to find it.
Preflop, is BB considered to be good position as you are last to act during that round or should position not be considered preflop?
Good blog topic, and I will get through the whole thing by 2010
I find that position in ONLINE poker is one of the most overrated strategies.
Big Blind is 'poor position' for the simple fact that you will have to act first after the flop.
Sometimes (very late in tourney) 'reverse postion' can take effect... where acting first can have an advantage.
it is a sex blog! If your not in position you're screwed . so you have to get position to do the screwwing ! Now this is either going to get me more wins
or cost me some more chippies
I like this entry Glenn, i got it saved so i can absorb it fully.
Glenn, very nice blog and thanks for the information but we all know this is not the "position" you prefer! He He!
Keep up the great blogs and thanks for all you do!
Great Blog! I quoted Doyle in my "pro" blog yesterday, "Give me the button and I don't even have to look at my cards to beat you"!!! That says it all!!!
Nicely written. Thanks!
Great blog Glenn!