Poker Position

Definition of position: Your relationship to other players in terms of the betting for a particular hand.

Position is important in most competitive games. In baseball the home team is given the advantage of batting last. Batting last allows the home team in the final inning to know precisely what to aim for. In a tied game, only one run matters. Down by three, then three runs are a necessity. In the top part of the inning the visiting team would not know for sure if going for one safe run was better than taking the risk of going for two runs. In football, physical position, having the wind at your back, often plays an enormous role in who wins a game.

Position in Hold ‘Em

In Texas Holdem poker, the value of position is generally self-evident. You want opponents to make their decisions before you do, and then you want the final say, the last word. On top of that, Holdem is a game where it is common that nobody has much of anything. You are making decisions based on whose “nothing” will outplay the others to win the pot. While superior position doesn’t automatically win hands, it does make it more likely you will make better bets — in the same way that a general who positions his troops on terrain he is familiar with will have an edge.

But position in Texas Holdem is simplistic. Last is basically best, particularly when only two players are in a pot. You can either have the first or second position behind or in front of a maniac. Often it is better to be in the second or last position to act.

Position in Stud

Position in Seven Card Stud and Stud High-Low is far different. Position here tends to be variable. The highest board showing acts first from the fourth street onwards, so when a king high bets first on the fourth street. Should another player have an ace or pairs, he may act first on the fifth street. You do still be likely to have an advantage over the player to your immediate right, but the consideration of positions are complex in Stud games. Certain hands should be more playable when you are not the high hand, while representing hands becomes more important when you act first. Some hands can be played more aggressively when an opponent shows a king or ace, meaning they will likely be forced to act first throughout the hand.

Omaha positions

But the biggest change in the positional intricacy comes in judging against Omaha HiLo to Holdem. Being in the last playing position keeps on having common advantages, but is not excluded from the disadvantages as well. For example, to try and bluff while in the last position is suicide against good players. The bluffing arrow is almost removed from your quiver when you are last. In Holdem having middle position seldom offers any advantages but middle position is the prime bluffing position in Omaha.

At the same time though, the players in the middle is having it at the short end because this game is about positioning. If you have the nut hand in one way, and one of the earlier positions bets on another nut hand, playing in the centre position becomes very difficult to play. Most people tend to have a difficult time being successful in playing at this position. It happens frequently that the player will raise a nut high hand in order to eliminate players from behind and agree to split the winnings with the initial low betting player. The right way will be to just call upon the low bettor, and look forward to overcalls; however, sometimes this will not work out to be right. You may suspect that a player behind you possesses a low nut, and you raise with a high hand, you can end up with two bets into the pot from low hands rather than just one.

Holdem’s simplistic last-is-best positional concept is out the window in Omaha. Very generally, if you have a low hand, betting first is advantageous, while having the nut high hand is best in last position. Suppose you have the nut flush on the river against more than one player. Betting first is totally action killing. The best you will do is get called. If you are last with the nuts, you might get a bet in front of you, or you might even get a checkraise bluff from an opponent who thinks you are bluffing. In contrast, betting the low from early position can lead to scrambling where the later position players try to drive each other out; or, if there is another nut low in play, betting will tend to slow that player down so that they don’t raise in three-way situations.

Moving from Holdem to other games, there are often considerations that, while not totally different, are more complex — even if some other concepts are not as complicated. (Winning more than your share of situations when no one has much of anything is more important in Holdem than Omaha for instance.) Position always matters, but it is much more variable in Stud and Omaha than in Holdem. You have to “think on your feet” about position more in Stud and Omaha.

Manipulating position is a skill that Holdem players need to focus on developing more deeply when moving to other games.