Position in Poker

Your position at the poker table is a very important factor to your game. Position is simply where you are sat at the poker table in regards to the dealer button. Many professionals believe it is better to be the last to act in a given hand as you will be able to collate more information before you make your move.

Big blind and small blind are those sat to the left of the dealer, whoever is sat in the next position is ‘under the gun, or ‘UTG’ which means this person is required to act first in a given hand. It is this person who will have little information about the other players at the table. Often those sat directly after the player who is ‘UTG’ are referred to as UTG1 AND UTG2 etc. Being positioned in the middle gives you the advantage of seeing what your first few opponents do; however there are still players to act after you. If you are positioned at the end of the table, it is thought you have the most advantageous position and is referred to as ‘Hijack’, ‘Cut off’ and the ‘Dealer’ position. If you are sat in this position you will be able to gather the most information available after each player has played.

If you are in the blinds you will act last pre-flop and after the flop you will be acting first, it’s good to remember this. A recent online report showed that information was gathered from over 1400 poker hands from both online and in play. The information shows that 39.7% of people with winning hands were sat in late positions, those sat in early positions won 34.6% and those sat in the middle only won 26.7% of the time.

The figures gathered in the report make sense, those sat in late positions are more likely to raise before the flop in order to steal the blinds. However, poker is now played more aggressively and players often try to represent a strong hand whilst sat in an early position. There is also the fact that those who are big and small blind have already invested in the pot and will want to continue and not give up their blinds.

Strategy sites such as, onlinepokergenius.org and pokerstation.co.uk agree with these tips, but remember that every game of poker is individual and you need to take into consideration the style of players that you are up against.

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