Position and Betting

Ok, since I'm still very new at the whole online gambling and what not (ok very new to everything),where can I go to read up on position betting and things like that.
I usually do pretty well in tournaments but I always come to a point where I lose too much by not playing enough.I could have the biggest stack(3 fold) over a table.But because I'm not sure where and when to raise (blind stealing) things like that,I tend to lose my advantage.
So,if anyone has any insight for me it would be greatly appreciated.
I know everyone is saying how could he not know that and do "well" in tournaments..yah I understand..
But,I tell myself "just think how much better you can be once you know what the hell your doing"...:rofl:

I learned a lot about the importance of position from some articles written by pros on full tilt's website. It seems from later positions(1-3 to the right of the button) you have a MUCH greater advantage. Meaning you'll know a lot more about what your opponents are holding. You wont want to make a steal from early position in front of 5 guys, chances are they come over the top and you'll either be forced to lay down, or get your chips in bad. But if they already check/folded around you have a much better chance of taking the pot down.

I'm sure that just about any poker book you could find will have 1-2 chapters dedicated to the intricacies of playing your position. There are a lot of places where its better to be in early position because when you're deep in a tourney, people will only be playing premium hands so when a garbage flop hits you can bet that the first bet will take the pot down.

I'm sure someone will give us some good (free)resources for this info, because I also need to learn this type of stuff, so far I've just been learning from trial and error, aside from FT academy and FT articles that I read from time to time.

On a 9 seated table for example:
Seat 1, button
Seat 2, Small Blind
Seat 3, Big Blind
Seat 4, Under the Gun (UTG)
Seat 5, UTG + 1 (early position
Seat 6, Mid Position
Seat 7, Mid Position
Seat 8, Late Position
Seat 9, Cut Off (C.O.) late position

Seat 4, UTG, is the weakest spot as first to act. Under the gun should only be raising with very strong hands, or calling with good hands like QK hoping not to see a raise.
Seat 1, the button, is the strongest position. Everyone else has acted apart from the forced bet positions (blinds). Therefore you have the opportunity to 1)fold to strong plays, 2) raise multi-way limped pots or 3)raise and steal the blinds if there has been no action before you.
Seats 2 and 3, the blinds, are great seats to trap with monster hands with as the button is highly likely to try and steal un-raised pots without giving much credit to the blind positions. They are also good seats to re-steal from the Button as he, in turn, often wont get credit for a strong hand.

Generally, the later you are to act, the more aggressive you can afford to be. Try to stick to late position raises after 4 or 5 players have folded. Its just a case of narrowing your field.
Recently though, a lot of pro's have been getting tricky with the UTG position as its not a traditional move to raise from there unless you're holding a monster. Its slowly becomming the new 'stealing' position. Dont worry too much about that though, that will come with advanced strategy.

The more you play the more you will get a feel for where you should raise and where you shouldn't here's a picture of the positions, http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.dicetalk.com/images/inpostimages/Example_of_position-poker.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.dicetalk.com/Thread-Position-in-Poker&h=415&w=593&sz=64&tbnid=kd1Sx0kLKS2iPM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpicture%2Bof%2Bposition%2Bin%2Bpoker&hl=en&usg=__4TcpB0lFB-lT5tHrf2l-k3cE7mo=&ei=gln9S7yiIcKqlAfa_9ibCQ&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=2&ct=image&ved=0CBsQ9QEwAQ.

well,that's all very helpful,I do appreciate the feedback.hopefully with that insight i can finish as strong as i was playing during the tourneys.Can't thank you enough,I was waiting for remarks like "If you don't know then you don't belong playing",so it means alot to get good advice from you guys...thanks
And above all,you guys explained everything short and sweet.I had an easy time understanding (or getting a better idea of it) the way you layed it out like that rather than really long articles and getting lost in the message.