Why Does Position Matter?

This is something that newer players often ask me, so I thought I’d dedicate an article explaining the nuances of position. As most players—even newbies—know, you’d rather act last than first. But why is this?

As it turns out this question is fairly simple to answer. Although we could expound on the nuances of positional advantages until the cows come home, 95% of the benefits that last position affords a player can be found in the following three factors.

1) By having last position you’ll have a much better idea of how much it’s going to cost you to continue on.
Now this isn’t always true—after all, most of us have been in the spot where we try to ‘sneak in’ in an unraised pot while on the button, only to have a guy in one of the blinds raise. But generally speaking the players in later position have a better idea than the early position players of what it’s going to cost to see the next street. For instance: imagine you’re in early position, and are dealt T 8. Most winning players will fold here, since they really don’t have any idea if they’re going to be able to see the flop cheaply. If, however, that same player is on the button, he or she will have a better idea of what it’s going to cost to see the flop, since most of the players have already acted.

The above reason is why you can play more hands from late position than early position. When you ‘know the price’, you’re able to make more informed decisions; and in poker it’s informed decisions that put bread on the table. Remember: there is almost never a time when having more information about the strength of your opponent’s hand than he has about yours is a bad thing. And when you’re in late position this is exactly the spot you’ll happily find yourself in.

2) The later your position, the more opportunities you’ll have to go deep into the hand with a marginal (but slightly profitable) holding.
Sometimes you flop a monster. Sometimes you flop nothing. And sometimes you catch a flop that’s somewhere in between these extremes. When you catch one of these last types of flops (and you usually end up catching quite a few of them) you’ll often have the chance to see more cards for less money than you would in early position. Consider this: you have 7 5 on the button, and there are four limpers to you. You call. The flop comes down 9 6 5. Now everyone checks, and the action is on you…

You should probably bet here. You do this for a few different reasons. First, you might have the best hand right now, which means you’d really rather not give hands like Q T a free card. Second, if you only get one caller, a follow up bet on the turn might take down the pot. And third, if you get a gaggle of callers you have the option of checking the turn (assuming all check to you, which usually happens in these spots) in which case you’ll be able to see the river for free. Now note that if you’re in the big blind with this same hand, with the same number of callers, you can no longer draw on these same reasons for betting. Since nobody else has acted yet, you don’t have the same information about your opponent’s hands at your disposal that you would have in late position, which means it’s harder to know ‘where you’re at’ in the hand. Assuming you check, and someone else bets, you have a close (but probably slightly correct) call. But notice that you won’t have the option of seeing the river card for free, since if you miss on the turn and check again your opponent will almost always bet again.

In the first example you can probably get to the river for one small bet if everyone checks to you. But in the second example you don’t have this option, since you have no idea if everyone is going to check or not. Your hand is much harder to play in early position, since nobody has yet revealed the strength (or weakness) of their hand.

3) You can extract extra profit from your hand in late position much easier than in early position.
To best illustrate this third concept let me explain a hand that I played a while ago. Two players called, and I was on the button with the A 4. I called, the small blind called, and the big blind checked. The flop came J 3 3. The small blind bet, and everyone folded. Now it was up to me. I called, and the turn brought the 8. The small blind fired again, I raised, and he folded.

Why did I play it this way? Let me try to explain it. First, let’s do a bit of hand reading. I was almost certain that he would have slowplayed trip threes on the flop, so I didn’t figure him for a set. This left me with three other possibilities; either a) top pair with a jack in the hole, b) a flush draw, or c) nothing. If he had a Jack, and I raised, he would probably call my flop bet (and follow-up turn bet), meaning it would cost me two big bets to get to the river. If he had a flush draw, the action would go the same way (he would call the flop raise, and call the turn bet). If he had nothing he would fold on the flop. If, however, I waited until the turn to raise, it would cost me 2 ½ bets to get to the river, which means it would only cost ½ of a big bet more to play it this way as opposed to raising on the flop. If he had a flush draw it would be smaller than mine, which means I would be charging him 2 ½ bets to get to the river, which is a half of a big bet more than I would have charged him if I’d raised on the flop. Also, if he had nothing, I would have collected one more big bet by playing it this way instead of raising the flop (he folds on the flop if I raise, which means he only pays ½ of a big bet for making his ‘play’; but if he fires again on the turn, and folds when I raise, his bluff has cost him 1 ½ big bets). Notice that in two of these scenarios I make more by waiting for the turn to raise, while in only one of them does it cost me more money. Also—and this can’t be overlooked—by waiting for the turn to raise I might get him off a hand like 5 5, or A Q, since by waiting it looks like I’ve ‘trapped him’ with a set of threes.

The above conditions argue for waiting for the turn. But what happens if I have that same A 4 in the small blind, and my opponent has his same hand on the button? Assuming I bet the flop as a semi bluff (which is probably my optimal play here), he raises if he has a Jack, and bets the turn, which means it costs me 2 big bets to get to the river. If he has a flush draw that’s smaller than mine he’ll only pay 1 ½ big bets to get to the river (assuming he calls the flop and turn bets) instead of 2 ½ big bets. And if he has nothing he folds, which means I don’t gain the 1 ½ big bets that I gained from him those times that he bluffed from the blinds.

When he has the Jack it costs me ½ a big bet more to play my hand the way I did from the button than it would if I had the same hand in the blind. But in the other two cases I collect substantially less from the blind than I would on the button. It is precisely this kind of situation which makes having the button so profitable; if you’re able to do a bit of handreading, and at least narrow down your opponent’s possible holdings, you’ll find myriad situations where you can either collect more, or lose less, with your hand than you would when your opponent has position on you.

Return to Exclusive Netbettor Poker Articles

Other Poker Strategy Articles:
Three Mistakes on the Turn
Three Mistakes on the River
Poket Pairs vs. Suited Connectors