Position explanation needed.

I keep hearing position, position, position over and over. I'm sure it has something to do with betting when and how much and had a couple of fellow players attempt to advise this old man that has someheimers and can't seem to understand. My advisor has helped me trementously and I have seen a lot of improvement here of late and am thankful for that. Good luck to all players on the felts. boston1993

the short of it is, and this is quote from the Full Tilt Poker Academy......

when playin in position you're able to win the max and lose the min.

im not good at explaining these things tho so ill let someone else have a go at it.

Position is basically where you are sitting in relation to where the action is occurring. In every hand, action starts with the posting of the small and big blinds. The person sitting immiediately to the left of the big blind is first to act, often called Under The Gun. This is considered the worst position, as you have no idea what anyone else at the table is going to do. As play progresses around the table, the following player is in better position by seeing what the other players have done. The blinds are last to act pre-flop, while the dealer is the last to act post-flop. The closer you are to those seats, the better "position" you are in.

I hope this helps. If not, I am sure and old-timer here has written a good post about this at some point.

You should practice different moves to see how powerfull position is, when it is folded around to you rasiing in position you will see that you can steal a lot more blinds. When a few guys limp in and your in position raising can tell you a lot about how strong or weak a player is. There are many strategys that can increase your profit when you know how to use position properly and act based on what others before you have done.

Having the last action is a powerful advantage. The main advantage is information, every action that anyone takes defines their range a little more. When villain is OOP your range is wider than if you'd already acted and that's tough for him to play against, he's also got to be aware that any action he takes will give you a better idea of his range so he has to be concerned about being bluffed off of his hand or value towning himself. I use the example of an opponent being OOP, because you don't want to be in that situation any more than you have to be.

Consider also that the pot is biggest on the river, and because of that the bets will be biggest then, at that point there is a very big advantage in getting to choose to value bet or check behind. That's huge, don't underestimate it.

My general rules of thumb:
When OOP, I'm never playing marginal situations without a solid read.
OOP I just call much less than 1% of the time, fold or raise. There are a ton of reasons behind this, mostly just that you should favour fold equity and raising gives a playable SPR compared to calling which highly favours the guy in position... suffice to say, calling is suicide and raising isn't terrible but neither is good because of position.
I'd rather open raise 72o from the button than raise ATs UTG.

Other random stuff I left out of my previous response.

Value betting OOP sucks. If you bet your cards are as good as being face up, if you go for a check-raise that too turns your cards face up and it also risks letting the other guy draw or just check being a marginal hand he'd otherwise be willing to check-call to the river with. - Of course, range balancing comes into play here but having a significant portion of your range being bluffs when OOP is dangerous without being against sophisticated opponents.
Way ahead/Way behind situations suck OOP. Bluff catching across multiple streets sucks at the best of times, having to do it OOP is just unpleasant. You can turn your hand into a bluff, which I prefer most of the time in these situations, but it's value is still minimal.
Bluffing OOP sucks. I still haven't figured out wtf I'm doing when I semi-bluff flop and turn and miss on the river. Check/folding sucks, bet/folding is even worse.

Overall, playing OOP isn't good.

Also, and this point is really important, the guy closer to the button has the best equity on his raises pre-flop because of his chances of taking the pot down uncontested.

position and aggression can make some hands play differently and usually cards don't matter. Example:

You limp with 77 from early position to try and make a set. Someone raises on the button with 44 (or any two cards fwiw) which is typical and flop comes K82 and what do you do on the flop ? You didn't hit and you check. He bets because you checked and you fold fearing AK... Next hand..

If you were deciding how strong your hand was in relation to your opponent's, would you want him to act first?

Boston you should definitely go to the full tilt academy and check out the series on position, it helped me alot. I had alot of ppl tell me, but watching it there helped put it into perspective.
I don't have a total grasp on it but a much better one.

ok I didn't watch the academy one for position and maybe it has valid points but I just wanna say that as a whole the videos in the FTP academy are pretty lolbad.

But yeah much easier to hand-read since you have more information and easier to control pot size. I mean it's tougher to get value out of the nuts, tougher to get to showdown with marginal made hands, and tougher to play draws oop. One thing you can do to attempt to minimize some of these factors is learn to donk and overbet effectively but these bring their own drawbacks and just generally no matter how well you play you're going to be a dog playing oop.

[quote=bubonicplay;1450557]ok I didn't watch the academy one for position and maybe it has valid points but I just wanna say that as a whole the videos in the FTP academy are pretty lolbad.
You actually believe that the info that Fullt Tilt Pros are giving are"pretty lol bad". Get a life. You obviously haven't watched them

But yeah much easier to hand-read since you have more information and easier to control pot size. I mean it's tougher to get value out of the nuts, tougher to get to showdown with marginal made hands, and tougher to play draws oop. One thing you can do to attempt to minimize some of these factors is learn to donk and overbet effectively but these bring their own drawbacks and just generally no matter how well you play you're going to be a dog playing oop.[/quote]

^^^^This stuff makes no sense. You have a New player that's asked for help and your telling him that Full Tilt pros are Bad,

Boston 1993 sign up at Full Tilt Acadmedy and watch the info. I wish they had that 6 years when I started

[quote=the lab man;1450585]Well Lab, in his defense, what comes naturally to pros like him seem like these things should be common sense to everyone.
Trust us Boston, sign up for the academy, it does help.
Especially watching the tutorials.

Well I only watched like 2 but I would snap play them HU. You do realize that most of the red pros are just guys who luckboxed some donkament one time and actually suck at poker? Do you realize how many red pros are actually bumhunted? Seriously I remember the one academy thing saying how you should minraise UTG and 4x the button. Anyone who has any clue about poker realizes that it should actually be the other way around if you vary preflop sizes.

Seriously though I would be happy to play most of the red pros HU but usually they're rich from their live donkament winnings so wouldn't go down low enough to play me HU for a long time. But other than the solid nosebleed guys I would 100% think I was a favorite over most of the red pros. Poker's passed most of them by and in their defense they had plenty of money from before that they didn't really need to improve but PTR a lot of them and realize that when most red pros sit in on a cash game at 50nl+ they are the fish at the table.

I have to agree, it is widely regarded by most that those videos do not have much redeemable value and a lot of the advice given out seems to pretty bad and a good way to burn money. If you want to watch them by all means go ahead but just be aware that their advice is not necessarily right/ the best thing out there.

position is everything. if u are last to act, u are able to see where u at. for egs a flop like AA10. if its checked all around, and u have pocket Js. u are able to raise here. even if u dont have a hand. like 56 on a flop like that, a raise here may win u the pot. hence position is everything

Position is important because you are more likely to win more often than if you were in early position because their are more people after you when you are in early position to reraise you and scare you off your hand. The fewer players in the hand, the better chance of winning and not getting a bad beat.

Leading out in this position seems the stronger than being second. I can put out a bet before the other guy has a chance to bluff at it. I'm not gonna just assume he's stronger than me. In this particular instance I would prefer first position. MUCH harder to call down the bet than it is to open it. This probablly wont be "popular" but this is the kinda situation where I don't always want late position.

Stix

Being OOP does give you the initiative, since you're acting first you can bluff a little more, and if you're folding a lot your range should be strong enough to earn you some extra fold equity.

It is however easier to float bets when IP, where floating OOP is generally just getting too fancy and costing yourself money.

Having the initiative is really offset by the frequency with which the guy IP can float your steal attempts.

imo, it just comes down to how often you do it, bluffing OOP is fine, it's got it's advantages but you need a lot of fold equity to do it which means playing extremely nitty when OOP. When the situation does come up, being OOP is ok, but you should be getting in situations where you need to bluff a whole lot more often when you're IP, if you're not then I think you're doing something wrong.

Stack size is limited to the effective stack size in cash games (smallest stack in the hand).

I don't know that position necessarily means last to act. I define it as being in a comfortable position at the table. If I have weak players behind me, I always feel comfortable. If I have loose players acting before me, I find myself less comfortable and fold playable hands.

When you feel you can dictate the action at the table, you have position.

^ That, is backwards.

If the weak player is a fish then them acting after you is a terrible thing because fish typically call too much and you will be playing them OOP and it's not profitable. When you're OOP your ability to extract value is crippled so you're far more reliant on bluffs (you have less air in your range OOP, but what air you do have is bluffing rather than floating). You should not be bluffing into these players. As for value betting, despite being against a fish you're OOP and the standard line "you have less information OOP" applies well to this and your edge is dramatically reduced, in addition to value betting thin OOP being a pretty bad spot to be in.

If you were talking about a weak player who folds way too much rather than one who calls too much, then you can steal position reasonably effectively but if they enter the pot we're giving up really easy unless we have the top of our range.

Even a good LAG should run away in fear at the sight of a not-completely-braindead player with position on them who is willing to abuse them. Loose play only works IP, even when it's done well. If someone will continue playing loose against you from OOP then that is one of the sweetest things in this game.


Playing from OOP sucks. Position is huge. Basically no one respects and fears position enough which is one of the most exploitable things in poker.
When OOP: Play dead. When IP: you were dealt junk? Raise!