Poker Set Mining Explained - Online Poker Sets. When out of position and you flop a set, you will usually want to go for the check raise, if your opponent elects to check behind in position. Position is simply the single most important and valuable commodity to have at the poker table. If you're unfamiliar with the term, position simply means you are the last to act in the hand (meaning you have the dealer button, or the players acting after you have folded).
- In Poker What Does Position Mean
- What Does Out Of Position Mean In Poker
- What Does Playing Out Of Position Mean In Poker
- What Does Out Of Position Mean In Poker
Most of us learn early on in our poker education that having position on our opponents is always much more desirable than being out of position. It’s a fundamental strategic truth of all poker variants, and especially true of no-limit hold’em. With position, we get to act with the knowledge of our opponents’ action, and as a result have more information available to us than when we have to act first.
There are certain mistakes many no-limit hold’em players make time and time again when playing from out of position. Becoming familiar with these mistakes can both help us avoid making them and perhaps help reinforce the lesson that it is better to play in position than from out of position.
What follows are five common mistakes no-limit hold’em players make when playing from out of position. These mistakes occur often both in cash games and in tournaments, and can be detrimental to the players making them in both.
Mistake #1: Playing Too Many Hands
First and foremost, as a general rule you should be looking to play more hands from later positions (the hijack seat, the cutoff, and the button) and fewer hands from under the gun and UTG+1.
That doesn’t mean you should never be opening pots from early position, whether with strong starting hands or even occasionally with medium or weak holdings (to balance your preflop raising range). But some players overdo it, and as a result set themselves up for further mistakes when stuck having to play from out of position after the flop.
Mistake #2: Calling Too Many Three-Bets
Sticking with preflop problems, some players who are willing to open-raise from early-to-mid position with non-premium starting hands subsequently have difficulty folding to reraises coming from players in the later positions.
For instance, it folds to a player in middle position with who notices three tight players to his left decides to open with a raise. But the player in the cutoff then three-bets and it folds back to the original raiser. Letting such a hand go is perfectly fine to do, and in fact can affect your image in a useful way when you later raise with a legitimately strong starting hand from early-to-mid position and get reraised again.
Depending on the opponent doing the three-betting, folding hands as strong as or middle pairs can be acceptable as well. Even calling a three-bet with pocket jacks from out of position is not going to be a play that makes you money in the long run. Don’t be stubborn when calling three-bets from out of position with hands that become difficult to navigate without having hit a perfect flop.
(File the mistake of “calling too much from the blinds” under this entry, too, as the problems are similar.)
Mistake #3: Playing Overly Passive
Moving to postflop mistakes, it is natural (and even correct in many cases) when playing from out of position to become passive — that is, doing a lot of checking and calling in an effort control the pot and prevent getting raised out of hands. But too often players having to act first on the flop grow accustomed to such passivity and fail to recognize when it is right to make more aggressive plays like leading with bets (or “donk betting”).
Playing a lot of hands “OOP” might even cause some players to begin playing a more passive game in other spots, too, including in hands when the player has position on an opponent. Often when out of position it is necessary to play a “defensive” style, but if that becomes your default mode you’ll find it difficult ever to pressure opponents as you’d like to be doing.
Mistake #4: Not Check-Raising
This mistake could be regarded as a variety of the previous one — that is, letting your passive play from out of position rule out the idea of check-raising in spots when doing so would be profitable.
Whether done with a strong hand (like two pair, a set, or better) or as a bluff, check-raising is a show of strength that puts an opponent on the defensive. Say your opponent opened from the button with , you called from the blinds, then check-raised following a flop. It doesn’t matter if you have it or not, your opponent who missed is going to have a hard time staying after your aggressive play.
However, players who play lots of hands from OOP are often also not aware of other fundamentals, like how check-raising can be a powerful way of grabbing the initiative away from an opponent who has position on you, enabling you to take charge of a hand postflop. The fact is, if you’re going to play hands from OOP, you have to be comfortable with check-raising and be able to recognize when you should employ the move.
Mistake #5: Check-Raising Too Much
Finally — and on the other end of the aggression spectrum — is the player who check-raises too frequently when playing from out of position, thinking it’s the only way to manage a hand postflop when OOP.
In some cases, check-raising a lot is just an extension of the loose (or reckless) mindset that encourages someone to play a lot of hands from out of position. Occasionally those with a limit hold’em background might check-raise more than they should in NLHE given that it is a more commonly seen move in LHE.
In any event, check-raising all the time can become a very exploitable pattern, with opponents knowing they can check back to get free cards or bet big hands knowing you’ll be helping them bloat the pot.
Conclusion
Sometimes you haven’t much choice when it comes to playing postflop from out of position, such as when you raise preflop and someone calls you from the cutoff or button, or when getting involved from the blinds. But be wary about getting involved in hands too often from out of position, and when you are playing from OOP remain mindful of other common mistakes players make to hurt their bottom line.
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cash game strategytournament strategyno-limit hold’empositionaggressionstarting hand selectioncheck-raisingvalue bettingbluffing
How are you supposed to know where you're going if you don't know where you are?
Position is greatly undervalued by every beginner poker player. Your table position is often the difference between winning a hand and losing one.
Before playing a hand in Texas Hold'em you should always be aware of your position relative to the dealer button. Take a look at your position before you take a look at your cards.
- The seats nearest to the are called early position or EP for short.
- The seats nearest to the right of the button are called late position or LP for short.
- The seats in between these will be called middle position or MP.
Poker table position diagram.
- The seats in Red are early position
- The seats in Blue are middle position
- The seats in Green are late position
Early position.
Early Position is least favourable because you'll be one of the first to act after the flop. You want to avoid playing weak cards from these positions. You're relying on your cards to help you win the pot, as being first to act throughout the hand gives you less opportunities to outplay your opponents.
Don't get yourself in to trouble from EP.
Middle position.
Middle Position is better than Early Position, but it's not as awesome as Late Position. You can afford to play a few more hands from MP than you would from EP, as you do not have as many people left who can call and act after you from the flop onwards.
However, if all of the players from Early Position fold, this will still mean that you will be the first to act on each round. When it comes to poker strategy, it's not so much about your seat at the table as it is about who you've got acting before you and who you've got acting after you.
Late position.
Late Position. is highly advantageous.
There is a high chance that you will be last (or one of the last) to act on each round. This is so powerful it means you can be far more flexible with the range of hands you play. Just remember, just because you have position it doesn't mean you can get away with playing absolute junk all of the time.
'Being in position', 'having position' and 'positional advantage' all mean the same thing. Although it probably makes more sense to think of a positonal advantage as an informational advantage.
The button.
The Button is the best seat in the hand because on every betting round (except for before the flop), you will be last to act. This is amazing. This is also why you should look to play as many hands as possible (within reason) from the button. I'm usually looking for a reason not to play my hand when I'm on the BTN
The cut off.
In Poker What Does Position Mean
The 'cut-off' is the position just before the button. This is the second best seat in Texas Hold'em because if the button folds, you will be the last to act on each hand. The button and cut-off are very useful positions for stealing the blinds as there are less players to act behind you, which makes it less likely that they are holding a good enough hand to call a raise with.
How to use table position in poker.
If you have position over another player, it means that you are acting after them on each round.
This means they will give you information before you make your decision.
- They could check - possibly a sign of weakness.
- They could bet - possibly a sign of strength.
- If they bet, the size of their bet could mean something.
- The time it takes for them to make their decision may also give you extra clues.
For example; if you have position over your opponent and they check quickly, this could be a sign of weakness. So you could use this information to bet out and take the pot. It's not always this easy, but getting some kind of information is infinitely better than being the one giving information to your opponent.
Poker table position example.
Lets say you're on the flop with a bunch of players in the pot, and you hold a mediocre hand like middle pair.
If there's a lot of betting and raising before the action gets to you, you can be sure that your hand isn't the best and you can happily fold without losing any chips.
On the other hand, if you are in early position you may bet out with a decent hand, only to find that there are much stronger hands out there that will re-raise you and force you to fold. Therefore you will have lost chips due to a lack of information.
The later you act in a hand, the more information you will have available to you about your opponents.
Positional awareness.
In general, you want to play more hands in position than you do out of position.
This doesn't mean that you force yourself to play any old hand when you have good position. Instead, be more inclined to play a wider range of hands when IP, but don't play this wide range of hands when OOP.
Try not to think of your position as dictating which hands you can and can't play. Instead, think of it as taking advantage of being last to act as often as you can.
Take KJo for example:
- In early position I would be reluctant to play KJo. It's on the low end of the 'good hands', and the fact that I have poor position makes it an unattractive situation. The hand isn't strong enough to counteract my positional disadvantage.
- In late position I would raise this hand almost every time if there were no raisers before me. I may also call raises with this hand if I have position on the raiser. I have an advantageous position combined with a decent starting hand, so the situation is looking good.
As a beginner player it's tricky to get to grips with the hands that are okay to play in LP, but are not good to play in EP. How are you supposed to learn the subtleties of which starting hands to play in which positions?
Trust me, you will pick it up as you go along. It will take time, but the more experience you get under your belt the more you'll get to grips with it. If you're completely new to the game, there's no harm in sticking with the premium hands and entering pots with them irrespective of position – that's okay. Just be prepared to broaden your starting hand requirements based on position as you improve.
Positional awareness graph.
Following on from my last point about playing more hands in position, here's a graph that shows a winning player's VPIP based on their position in 6max cash games.
The graph above shows the seats acting from first to last during the preflop betting round. So…
- UTG - This is the seat to the left of the big blind. This is the first player to act preflop.
- MP - This term can to varying positions between early position and late position. In this example it is the seat to the left of the UTG position.
- CO - The seat just before the button. This is the second best position in the game.
- BTN - The best seat at the table. This player acts last on every postflop betting round.
- SB
- BB
VPIP indicates the percentage of the time a player either raises or calls preflop. So essentially this chart shows the percentage of the time they 'play a hand' from each position.
Notice how this player is playing a lot more hands in late position than they are in early position. They do not play the same set of hands from all positions. They're not forcing these statistics either – they're just wisely taking in to account their table position and then selecting which starting hands to play with.
If you asked any winning cash game player to show you their VPIP by position, their stats and graphs would follow a similar trend to the one above.
You can find out your own VPIP stats (and also those of your opponents) by using the popular Poker Tracker software.
Evaluation.
What Does Out Of Position Mean In Poker
Table position is easily one of the most underestimated factors in playing a hand by many amateur poker players. Position is so important that often hands can be won or lost based on your position alone, irrespective of the strength of the cards that you and your opponent hold.
The sooner you start paying attention to your position, the sooner you will start making more money.
Further reading.
A useful article to read from here is starting hand selection, as it highlights how you should stick to playing only the strongest hands from early position due to the big disadvantage of having to act first on betting rounds.
Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.
Can You Afford Not To Use
Poker Tracker 4?
What Does Playing Out Of Position Mean In Poker
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