POSITION PLAY AND RECOMMENDED STARTING HANDS - ADVANCED POKER HOLDEM

you have little use of the rest of your poker skills. Being in position means that you act last. The later you act, the better your position is, because you will know more about the other players’ hands compared to being in an early position.

Late position – having the edge

In late position you also know more about what pot odds to expect for a hand. Anyone in late position also has a certain psychological advantage over someone in early position. In order to present this to readers who are not entirely familiar with positions, in a way that is easy to understand, we have divided the positions in the chart below.

The player holding A7 is in position, and has the advantage of acting last in all betting rounds (except the first, where the big blind acts last). The later your position is, the more hands are profitable to play.

If you play A♣7♣ with two other players in the pot, and the flop comes 3♠9♥A♠ it is not improbable for another player to have an ace as well, but with a better kicker. If you are in early position, it is, as a rule, far more expensive to find out about that, than it would be from a late position. Playing a hand like A♣7♣ in early position is often more expensive than profitable. If someone sits behind you with a worse hand, you do not often get good money for your hand, but if they have a better hand than you, it could get expensive for you. The better your hand, the less the risk of someone sitting behind you with a better one, and the same is true for any position. The later your position the less the risk of someone sitting behind you with a better hand. Thus, the later your position, the worse the starting hand you can play (although, there are many hands that should not be played at all).

Recommended starting hands

A table of recommended starting hands can be found below. Many of the available poker books and articles have similar tables, and there are always small differences between them. What is essential is not to know exactly which hands you should play, but rather how you should play them. The table is only for giving you an idea of what kind of hand is playable in any given position. When we write that a hand is playable in a certain position, we do not mean that it should be played in that position no matter what. There are many scenarios where for example K♠Q♠ is completely unplayable from an early position. In order to know how and when to play a certain starting hand, more information is required.

This table is intended for an average Hold’em table. Naturally, hands that are listed for early position in the table, are possible to play in later positions as well. Hands that are not in the table should be avoided entirely; hands like J♠5♠. Depending on how others at the table play, you can play certain hands from an early position that you normally would play only in late position, depending on the projected pot odds, how aggressive the game is and how many players, on average, play each pot. As you get better at Hold’em, you can deviate more from the recommended starting hands.

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