After you have gotten your hand and before you do anything you need to learn a bit about your position at the table. This is pretty much the first thing that you have to learn in order to be successful in poker; there is a lot of information about it availible on the internet. Most poker strategy books will have a section on position.
Most of the profit-making poker players use the term ‘position’ to refer collectively to the place where you are located in the poker table. If you are in the first three seats then you are in the first position. If you are in the last three then you are in the last position. Each player is always referred to as a position before they are referred to by a specific number in that particular position.
The first position is the best. If you have the best hand then you are in the first position. This is the most advantageous position at the table because you get to see how everyone else is playing their hands before you play your hand. As you last action, you can still bet, raise or fold as normal.
The next position is the middle position. If you have a draw in the first position then you have the option of betting if you are in the middle position. If you have a couple of cards in the second position then you can also bet as you have improved your hand.
The blinds are the positions located to the left of the dealer button. The player in the blinds is referred to as the Striker. The player in the big blind is the Strikers. Why? Well, in poker games the blinds are the worst position because you have to put money into the pot to play. If you go to the money then the big blind is the best position because you have the least amount of money in the pot. It gets confusing, the blinds are the players on your left and your position in the table is based on the size of the bet.
The other names that we currently have for positions in poker are the Under the Gun and the Button. These names refer to the positions held by the players on the left side of the big blind. Why are they called so? Well, the peoples that are in the big blind are the least advantageous position in the game. They are under the pressure of having to bet first, and if they don’t like the cards they are dealt then they can fold, they don’t have to face all of the opponents in the blind. The lighter colour indicates a more favourable position. The lighter colour indicates a better position. This is why players are often advised to play in the opposite position to their opponents.
The thing about poker is not just about what cards you get, the important thing is how you play those cards. You should be playing in a position where you can make the moves your opponents are not making. If you are in the blind and everyone is limping in then you should be raising strongly in order to narrow the field and maybe win the pot more simply.
You want players to think that you are in the blind because you don’t play a lot of hands. You could be in the big blind and if that’s the case then you are in the most difficult position because you don’t know what the other people have and you want them to bet so that you can win the pot. You are trying to make the pot bigger so that you can win the pot.
When you are in the position that you are from the small blind you are in the most difficult position because you don’t know what the other people have. You have no information and no idea what cards are held by other people.Everyone has a different view about their hand and they are not likely to hold a good hand.
When you are in the position of the big blind you should always raise. In fact, you should raise even more aggressively in the later position.People often say that the more aggressive you are the better your chances of winning.While this is true for some the situations this is not always the case.
For example, if there are only a few players in the pot and you think that they hold poor cards you should call or perhaps reraise so that you can weed out the weaker hands.
The trouble with this strategy is that some players, most notably the worse players, will call or raise strongly in the early position precisely because they don’t want you to take control.They hope that you will not re-raise also, allowing them to limp in, but that rarely happens.