Why people care so much about position?

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RickAversion

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At first, I thought late position was so desired since you can bluff and steal pots. Then I figured out that it's about not getting into weak hands by calling, only to have 2 people raise after you. I think the power of position is that it saves your blinds. If you're late or last to act, you know the deal, and won;t call only to have someone 3-bet the pot after you, wasting your call money.
 
Jblocher1

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At first, I thought late position was so desired since you can bluff and steal pots. Then I figured out that it's about not getting into weak hands by calling, only to have 2 people raise after you. I think the power of position is that it saves your blinds. If you're late or last to act, you know the deal, and won;t call only to have someone 3-bet the pot after you, wasting your call money.

What on earth are you talking about? Lol. The button is the best position because we always get to act after our opponent post flop, so we get useful information regarding villains holdings.

Poker is a game of incomplete information... The more information you can gather the better. Being IP allows you to get extra info from your opponent.

It also makes harder for the small and big blinds to call our opening, because they have knowledge they will need to act first every street post flop making their job real tough. It's great for blind steals... And when you get called, you can still take down the pot post flop because its easier to be IP than OOP.

Answer your question?
 
blueskies

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What on earth are you talking about? Lol. The button is the best position because we always get to act after our opponent post flop, so we get useful information regarding villains holdings.

Poker is a game of incomplete information... The more information you can gather the better. Being IP allows you to get extra info from your opponent.

It also makes harder for the small and big blinds to call our opening, because they have knowledge they will need to act first every street post flop making their job real tough. It's great for blind steals... And when you get called, you can still take down the pot post flop because its easier to be IP than OOP.


Answer your question?

Sounds like he flats a ton from early to mid positions LOL.

But yeah, if you could play every hand from BTN, you'd be a much bigger winner
 
Daniel72

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In lots of situations you can win more from your monster hands (like sets), if you have position. Otherwise the opponent could for instance check behind if you check and such stuff...
 
micromachine

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What on earth are you talking about? Lol. The button is the best position because we always get to act after our opponent post flop, so we get useful information regarding villains holdings.

Poker is a game of incomplete information... The more information you can gather the better. Being IP allows you to get extra info from your opponent.

It also makes harder for the small and big blinds to call our opening, because they have knowledge they will need to act first every street post flop making their job real tough. It's great for blind steals... And when you get called, you can still take down the pot post flop because its easier to be IP than OOP.

Answer your question?

This, and mainly this: "The button is the best position because we always get to act after our opponent post flop, so we get useful information regarding villains holdings."
 
DrazaFFT

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At first, I thought late position was so desired since you can bluff and steal pots. Then I figured out that it's about not getting into weak hands by calling, only to have 2 people raise after you. I think the power of position is that it saves your blinds. If you're late or last to act, you know the deal, and won;t call only to have someone 3-bet the pot after you, wasting your call money.

In order to really, really understand the importance of position, you need to understand the importance of gaining max value of your hands, and you loose value if someone have position on you, of course another thing that you need to understand first and as someone already stated, i think blueskies is that you might play to loose passive preflop thus giving the opportunity to your opponents to isolate your limps...
 
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jj20002

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well what i understand for position is the way one enters a pot, if one enters limping, calling raising or reraising,

and that is important because, unless one is slowrolling, always is suppose to raise when having a strong hand and reraising if a monster hand, and one will call if holding a spec hand, like trying to hit a set or a project,

now the last raiser has the position, and the player who checks is playing without position and most of the time will lose the hand, and that´s why position is so important in this marvelous game
 
DrazaFFT

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well what i understand for position is the way one enters a pot, if one enters limping, calling raising or reraising,

and that is important because, unless one is slowrolling, always is suppose to raise when having a strong hand and reraising if a monster hand, and one will call if holding a spec hand, like trying to hit a set or a project,

now the last raiser has the position, and the player who checks is playing without position and most of the time will lose the hand, and that´s why position is so important in this marvelous game

well you are not quite right, or i didn't understand your post the right way... Having the position on someone means that you act after him, position in poker is determined by dealer button and it means that btn will act last after the flop and thus will have best image of the hand strength when is his turn to act. While preflop BB acts last and gains most info on the hand preflop he cant be considered as a good position or in position because after the flop he will be second worst position because he will act right after SB, so saying this playing always on the BTN is a something you should wish for...:D
 
abzdolc

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because 60% of your stack in mtt or sng - stealing bb-s, and without knowing position you will make a lot of mistakes with A+ , the most popular AJ - A9 like to raise if no one raise before and fold if someone raise
 
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trent32la

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What do you mean dude? Position is everything in poker....that's why you'll see players fold hands like A4 UTG since your first to act and you've seen no further action in front of you...Postflop you have to use the button to your advantage....when you have the button you can steal blinds more often as well as 3bet with a wider range of hands....If you flop a big hand and you in position it is much easier to get max value since you don't have to check-call the whole way....That's why you wont see people stealing blinds from EP...
 
SANDYHOOKER KY

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Well would you rather be on top of the pile, or on the bottom? Having position is very much a key element in holdem. All the above posts have said it all, so i can't really expand on it. But as a pro said once, "position, position, position!" No need to say more.
 
Mr Sandbag

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At first, I thought late position was so desired since you can bluff and steal pots. Then I figured out that it's about not getting into weak hands by calling, only to have 2 people raise after you. I think the power of position is that it saves your blinds. If you're late or last to act, you know the deal, and won;t call only to have someone 3-bet the pot after you, wasting your call money.

Aside from the fact that you seem to be limping/calling with weak hands...

I think you are focusing too much on preflop play. Position matters most after that.

For example: play K8o from the SB. How comfortable do you feel when it is a King high flop and there are four people left to act after you? My guess is "not very." That's why people have wider ranges in late position. They may not flop strongly, but they get to see what everyone else does, judge the strength of their hand, and make a decision based on the information.

Poker isn't about getting lucky. It is about knowing how to profitably bet/raise/fold/call based on the information at hand. Position gives you that information.
 
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smihailov

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In real life people are making always the best decisions with the information they have. In poker is the same and the more actions are made before you the more information you have. This helps you make more easy and correct decisions.
 
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terryg642

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power of position

I've been playing for a couple of years now ,and still consider my self a newbie.I
can see what your saying about position I've stolen plenty of pots when it was checked back to me on the river,but I've also been in tourneys there were so loose and preflop aggresive that position was the big blind,the dealer button is no good if the small or big blind go allin
 
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packernation85

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Position is so important because you want to see the other players action before your own every time, its not just about stealing pots and bluffing. Betting in position, you have more information about your opponents hand then they have about yours, because you already saw them bet or check.
 
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RickAversion

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Yea, but you aren't seeing anything from others just b/c you're in position.

A guy can be slow playing a full house, pocket AA's, or a flush flop. He might be raising big with nothing. What someone bets (or does not) tells you almost nothing about what he's holding.

I just don't understand this fantasy that people think position matters one bit. The cards you hold mean everything. All it's good for is maybe stealing some blinds once in a while, if no one has raised.
 
Jblocher1

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Yea, but you aren't seeing anything from others just b/c you're in position.

A guy can be slow playing a full house, pocket AA's, or a flush flop. He might be raising big with nothing. What someone bets (or does not) tells you almost nothing about what he's holding.

I just don't understand this fantasy that people think position matters one bit. The cards you hold mean everything. All it's good for is maybe stealing some blinds once in a while, if no one has raised.

Absolutely not. Read what has been written. Being In position is a huge advantage
 
jazzaxe

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Not too many people try to gain position so they are in a position to call. Calling in most cases is a weak move and the natural impulse is for someone acting behind you to raise.
 
Zorba

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Yea, but you aren't seeing anything from others just b/c you're in position.

A guy can be slow playing a full house, pocket AA's, or a flush flop. He might be raising big with nothing. What someone bets (or does not) tells you almost nothing about what he's holding.

I just don't understand this fantasy that people think position matters one bit. The cards you hold mean everything. All it's good for is maybe stealing some blinds once in a while, if no one has raised.

Oh you have a lot to learn........position is king.
 
crusinnn

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At first, I thought late position was so desired since you can bluff and steal pots. Then I figured out that it's about not getting into weak hands by calling, only to have 2 people raise after you. I think the power of position is that it saves your blinds. If you're late or last to act, you know the deal, and won;t call only to have someone 3-bet the pot after you, wasting your call money.

ask yourself this question after the flop which position would you want to be in ?Only then you will find the answer as to why it's important, then after you figure out why it's important you will use that knowledge to figure out your problem in your preflop post above. It's absolute nonsense to think position has nothing to do with the game, almost every detailed poker blog, forum, site or book teaches you about position, if it wasn't important then why is it there for us to read, you think it's not important because you are not learning poker

Sorry to be so blunt but position is like one of the key to poker why would you think it's not important
 
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RickAversion

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Ok, give me a specific example scenario where position matters.
 
Jblocher1

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A solid TAG player opens UTG, we call his raise with a tighter range than we would call a TAG raising on the button why? Because we know that someone on the button knows he has position on the whole table post flop (assuming he's decent, therefore will open a wider range of hands pre.

UTG.... His range is a lot tighter, he's first to act pre so he must consider a 3 bet as a likely possibility. He will also be OOP if about 2/3 of the table calls because he only has position on the SB and the BB. His range therefore will be a hell of a lot tighter than the buttons range is.

What we see here, is an example of using a players position to define the strength of his hand. A person who opens the button has a very wide range of hands. Some players even open 100% of their hands on the button, with UTG a solid tag will probably only open top 5-10% of starting hands so we can. Polarize his hands down to a range.

Questions?
 
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it gives us control and extra information

specific scenario where position counts

lets say we open from the button and get called by the sb and bb.
the sb then acts first on the flop, he bets, the bb raises and we fold our middle pair.

another

lets say we open from the button and get called by the bb.

he checks and we bet 1/2 pot with our middle pair. he calls

he checks, we check back, controlling the size of the pot.

he checks river and we bet out a small value bet

or

he bets on the river and we decide to call or fold



a lot of the time it's more subtle than this, but position is very useful, it really just makes hand easier to play, giving us control when we need it and putting other players in situations where they can make mistakes.

lets look at the last hand from the BB point of view

we call a button raise with some decent hand, we call because the button has been raising a lot or whatever.

we check our middle pair and button bets, we call.(we have no idea if he hit or not at this point, likely just a continuation bet right?)

we check again, trying to keep the pot small, and he bets again. (great, still no idea, he could just be thinking we are weak, which is likely considering our line. we fold because we cannot face a river bet)

or we check, he checks back (our middle pair is likely good now, but we let him see a card for free, if there are draws there he got to the river cheaply, damn you position!)

river we can't really value bet much, because he likely has nothing.

so from two points of view with the same hand, we can see how being in the BB can lead to mistakes, and mistakes cost money in poker.


hope those rambles help you to see how important position can be, it's great, it can however be overrated at times, you can't just go crazy and play anytwo just because you have the button.
 
pasqua544

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When I started out, I was supertight... playing only my premium hands. And I did have success but always feel I could be more empowered. My chip stack envy.
Well, I learnt about using position to your advantage and my chip stack grew and I progress further, eventually bursting the bubble that dogged.
Now, I am incorporated leverage, continuation bets, etc, and my bankroll has grown. I have moved up my league standings.
But basically, my game improved. Button play is important even when your hands are worthless, read your table and if you can exploit it without much risk... fold equity I think it is called.
Good luck
 
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