In Hold em, unlike other variations of poker such as Seven Card Stud, position is a crucial element to consider. In Stud, position is determined by the highest card showing (or on the first round, the lowest card showing), so the order of action is not fixed. In Hold em, action always starts to the left of the dealer. The first few positions, the small blind, the big blind, and the next two seats are considered early positions, the next three seats are the middle positions, and the last three seats are the late positions.

Why position is important
Why does this matter? It matters because poker is a game of information, and by acting first you are giving your opponents information about your hand that they can use to determine how they should act. For example, let’s say you have a pair of Kings in early position. You raise with them and are called. The flop comes: A, 8, 4. You check, fearing an opponent called your raise with an Ace in his hand, and he bets. What do you do now? Is he raising because he has an Ace, or because you failed to bet and he is trying to bluff you? It is difficult to know because you are acting on limited information. Now let’s look at this situation from late position. Your opponent, acting first, bets, and you call. The flop is A, 8, 4 and your opponent checks. It is now probably safe for you to put in a bet. Your opponent may be slow-playing you (intentionally not betting a strong hand to trap you for more bets later on), but if he is, he will either check-raise here, giving you a strong indicator that it is safe to release the hand, or flat call and if he checks the turn, hoping you will bet again, you can check and see the river for free. Remember that your opponent was in the same position you were in the first example. If he checks and you bet, he doesn’t know if you are betting because you have an Ace in your hand or because you sensed weakness. If he check-raises you, it usually indicates a strong hand.

When you’re out of position
This being the case, what hands should we play in early position? We should play only the best hands, for a number of reasons. First of all, with almost all of the players left to act after you, you will very often be raised if you limp in (just call) from an early position. Therefore you should only play hands that can withstand a raise. So, for example, 8, 9 suited would be a very poor hand to play from an early position (or “up front”), because this is a hand which you would like to see a flop cheaply with, as it will often miss. If you just call and are raised, you will have to throw the hand away, and you will have wasted a bet. Secondly, you will have to play the whole hand out of position, meaning acting before the other players, so if you flop what may be the second best hand, it will be somewhat difficult for you to determine the best course of action.

To be safe, you want to stick with high cards, cards that are likely to make the best hand if they match the flop. An easy rule of thumb is that if both of your cards are not in the Ace through Ten “zone,” you probably don’t want to play the hand. You can give slightly more credence to hands that are paired or suited, so it may be okay to put in a bet with a hand like 8, 8 or T, 9 suited, but remember that you may be raised, and these are really drawing hands, which need to connect well with the flop to be useful. If a game is looser, meaning people are willing to put more money in the pot than they normally would, it’s okay to loosen your starting requirements slightly, but not too much. The reason for this is that you can expect to win more when your hand hits, so you can afford to play it and miss more times.

In general you should be playing the fewest hands in early position. If you are on the fence on whether to call or fold with a particular hand, you’re better off folding and saving your bet for when you have a positional advantage.

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