The importance of table position in Holdem Poker

Your table position during each poker hand is a very important consideration.  Each position has various strengths and weaknesses and you must learn to exploit them in order to maximize your profits from each hand.

The seat of power

The most powerful position in each hand is the person with the dealer button. This is because they act last in each hand and therefore he gets to see what all the other players are doing before he acts. This means you are given a lot of information before you need to act  and poker is a game of information.

So when you are holding that button, keep your eyes and ears open and apply what you learn during the hand to maximum advantage. If the other players seem weak in the hand, or are nervous of the cards on the board, then act strong and take the money in the middle. If you see a betting war break out before you act and you are holding a very weak hand, then you know it is a good idea to save your money and throw your cards away.

The weakest link

The weakest position in poker is being sat in the blinds. You get to act first each round and so have to be extremely careful when taking your action as you are likely to fall into a trap set by a player who is going to act later. Play cautiously in the blinds unless you know you are holding a hand that cant be beat. Then you can come out with your guns blazing.

And that is the basic principle of position strength in poker  the later you act, the stronger your position is. The sooner you must act, the weaker you are.

So the players that act immediately after the blinds are in a weaker position than the players who act just before the dealer, because they must reveal their actions first.

Always keep this in mind and when you are in a strong position and take advantage of it to win pots and earn some money.