Playing Before the Flop and What Your Position means

Grabbing information is one of the most important
skills that you need in poker. From your opponent’s
betting patterns and the “tells” that they make simply
define your hand and are simply integral on your next
decision. But you can’t do that without proper
positioning, which is on the button or somewhere near
it.

But that doesn’t mean that you should fold every hand
if you’re not in the proper position, each has its
pros and cons, and it should also determine how you
should play your hand.

In this article, I’ll tell you how to utilize
perfectly your position in pre-flop play.

Early Position

This position is from under the gun to the third turn
in a ring table, which has around eight people seated.
In this seat, you have to be choosy in raising your
hand or simply limping into the pot because there are
about five to seven people yet to act, thus there are
more chances for them to raise the bets and given that
you don’t have a hand that’s good enough, you just
lost money the size of the blind.

So it’s important that you only raise premium hands in
this position like AK, AQ and AJ suited. When someone
re-raises after you, you have a good idea that he/she
has jacks or queens. So not only is raising pre-flop a
good way to drive out people who have small cards that
may get lucky after the flop, it also gives you
information on who probably has a hand better than
yours.

Middle Position

In this position, you have to be looser, but not to
the extent that you’re virtually throwing your chips
away. A9, K10 and QJ may be raised here, given that no
one has raised and indicated that he/she has an
excellent hand.

Again, the reason why that you should raise pre-flop
is to mine important information about your opponents,
if they have good to great cards.

Late Position

In late position, you can practically raise any hand
you want, depending on the circumstances. If everyone
just limps in to the pot, and a raise is nowhere in
sight, then you stick your foot right in and raise
around four to five times the big blind, even with
cards like 24. It may win you the pot right there.

But be wary when everyone calls when you do raise,
because they may sense that you’re trying to steal the
pot. Don’t cringe if your technique fails and if the
flop shows high cards like A-J-4, raise outright and
try to steal the pot again. They may rethink that you
tried to steal the pot before the flop and give you
credit for hitting aces or jacks.

As you may observe, one may get looser in choosing
his/her cards when nearing late position and also
presents you the opportunity to steal the pot. Late
position also entails you to play more aggressively
and show some muscle, enabling you to hammer on pots,
do isolation plays and basically eat up the blinds. So
to speak, position should guide you on how to play
your hands because it opens the option of instilling
fear into your opponent, bluffing your way into the
pot or does the complete opposite of the previous two.