Poker Strategy

Position, Position, Position

Good poker players are always aware of their position at the table. In some cases, your position at the table is more important than the actual cards you have.

If you’re first to act in a hand, with everyone else waiting, you need to have a really good hand before you should consider betting or raising. There might be a raise after you, then another raise, and suddenly you have to call two more bets, just to continue in the hand.

If you’re last to act in a hand, you get to see all the action before you. You know exactly how much it will cost you to see another card and you don’t need to worry about someone raising behind you.

The biggest effect that your position should have is on how many hands you play. If you’re in early position and have to act first, you only want to play the strongest of hands, such as AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010, and AK. Because you might get raised, you only want to play hands that you don’t mind potentially calling raises with.

If you’re in late position, you can play more hands, especially if no one has raised yet. You still want to only play good starting hands, but you can be a little looser in your standards, since you’ll be able to see the action before making any decisions throughout the hand.

Don’t just focus on your own cards and ignore everything else at the table, as sometimes your position can be just as important, especially when initially deciding whether or not to play a hand.