The Power of Position

"As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information."
                              ~ Benjamin Disraeli


    Benjamin Disraeli did not even live during the time of Texas Hold 'Em, but what sage advice he left us.  He knew that the more information you were given the easier it is to make the right decision, and making the right decisions are what makes men successful.  In poker there are many ways to gather information and the first you need to know about is position.
    Position is your seat at the table and how it relates to the big blind.  We're going to show you how you can use your position to gather information about your opponents and how to sometimes throw away those hands that will get you in trouble.
    First let's explain the seats.  Seat 1 is the person to the left of the big blind and seats go up in order clockwise.  So the seat to the left of seat 1 is seat 2, and so on.  Now how do we use this strategy to gain information to make us a successful poker player?  The answer is easier that you would ever believe.
     We're going to assume you're playing a normal 9 player table.  The later you act in the hand (the higher your seat number is) the more information is given to you.  Think about it.  If you are in seat 1 and you have pocket 10's, what do you know about anyone else's hand?  Nothing.  Why?  They haven't acted yet.  You could easily be up against AK, AQ, AJ, or even a pocket pair higher than you.  Too often do I see people going all-in from seat 1 with a hand like pocket 10's which is very vulnerable.  Let's just assume one person has AJ, you're what they call a coin flip, meaning that you win about as many times as you lose.  That does not make a successful poker player.  Now let's look at the same hand if you were in the big blind.
     If everyone just calls your big blind (no raises) you can now safely assume that you have the favorite hand and can raise.  Reasoning, if someone had AK, AQ, or a pocket pair bigger than 10's they most likely would have raised you pre-flop.  You see you gathered information from acting after them.  Therefore the big blind is the best position to have pre-flop (you have the most amount of information).  So what about post flop?
     The best position to have post flop is the button (the dealer).  If the dealer is not in the hand then the person to the right of the dealer has the best position.  This is why you will see numerous players raise on the button.  They know that post flop they will be able to gather all the information they can, to see wether they can win the hand with a raise, check or just fold and go to the next hand.  For example, a player had 9,10 suited on the button.  He calls a min raise and three players are in the hand.  The flop comes out 8,7,J.  He has hit a straight, but he gets to see how to best act on his straight.  If player 1 bets and player 2 calls.  Player 3 can now decide whether he feels he can get the most from his opponents by just calling or re-raising.  If he feels the players do not have a made hands yet, he can just call and let him bluff more money off to him.  Now he has the best hand possible and the other players are betting blindly into him!  Now let's take a look out how this hand might play out.
     Let's just assume player 1 has A,J  so top pair with top kicker.  He bet big and player 3 re-raise him 2.5 times his raise.  Now the pressure is on player 1.  He has no information about player 3's hand.  He does not know if he is reading him as weak, so are re-raising him to have him fold.  He doesn't know if he has trips, or a straight.  He now has to decide what you could have called the raise with.  Most novice players in this position assume that he is bluffing and will raise all-in.  After all they have top pair, that's a good hand.  Player 3 is going to get all of player 1's money because he acted with less information.
     Hopefully you'll think about position and the information you can gather before you play next time.  Remember the player with the most information is able to make the best decisions and the player that makes the best decisions makes the most money.