| Position in holdem is everything. It is the difference between big wins and big losses. It costs many people a lot of money to find this out. DO NOT do it the hard way, read our following article on it to see why it is so important. |
| If you would like to know more about starting hands to play in certain positions, please see our chapter on nl holdem starting hands. |
| We will assume that the table contains 10 players for this article. |
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| 1) Early position. |
| In a 10 seated table, you are considered to be in early position if you are one of the first 4 people to act in a particular round of betting. |
| To play in these seats means you should have a much stronger than average hand at all stages in the betting. The main reasons for this are because:- |
| a. You will be giving other people the advantage of seeing what you do first (check, bet or fold). They will be able to asses your hand from your actions, you will have to guess their hand. |
| b. You will have the potential of being raised or re-raised by the people behind you left to act and you will need a strong hand to be able to call. The probability of this happening when you are in early position is greater as there are still more people left to act behind you. |
| It is VITAL that you understand the importance of having a very strong hand when in early position. Play your strong hands very hard from here, harder than you would in the later positions. This is because it is normally best just to win the pots here than to keep giving the people with better position the added advantage of seeing you act first in each round of betting. |
| 2) Middle position. |
| Middle position in a 10 seated table is when you are 5-7th to act in the particular round of betting. You still need a strong hand to play here, but you can play a few more hands than you would play in earlier position. There are 2 reasons for this:- |
| 1) There is less chance of being raised by someone left to act as there are less people behind you. |
| 2) There is more chance that you have the best hand in the pot as there are less people left to act. |
| In middle position, you could start to raise some of the more borderline hands pre flop such as AJ,A10,KQ,KJsuited etc as there is a good chance now that you hold the best hand. |
| 3) Late position |
| Late position is the place to be in holdem you are considered to be in late position in a 10 seated table if you are one of the last 3 people to act the button is the ultimate and last position. This is where you will make the most profit long term. You can now play your starting hands according to what has happened in the betting before you. |
| Late position is good because |
| a) You are unlikely to be re raised s most people if not all have acted. |
| b) You can assess the pot odds as most people if not all have acted. |
| c) You can steal pots as you have the opportunity to sense weakness in the players who have acted before you. |
| d) You can get away from hands that you could not in early position as you will see by the betting if the people acting before you have strong hands. |
| Top holdem players will play a lot of hands in the later postions and will raise with a lot of hands also. The only thing to remember is that if everyone just calls the initiall blinds, someone in very early position could be slow playing or trapping with a big hand and looking to re-raise. It is important to know your players to know the likelihood of this happening. |
| One of the very first things you must think about in nl texas holdem is your position, if you become skilled at this, you will increase your profit’s substantially long term |
| “If someone gave me the button each hand, I could break any Holdem game I was sat in” Quote by Doyle Brunson. |
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