Casino Poker Lesson on Button and Position
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- on Jul 18, 2023
After basic opening moves in Texas Hold’em poker—selecting a hand at the start, what to do before and after the flop, betting strategies, the names of different positions in relation to the dealer—it’s time to learn a crucial and more in-depth casino poker lesson in position strategy.
Deciding early on whether to go on with a hand or not depends largely on one’s position. The quality of the hand and positioning is important. Stud poker may not be too particular about positioning—betting procedures vary here—but not with Hold’em. With the latter, it’s vital to know where we are seated from the button. An early position makes us enjoy all betting rounds. But remember that a poor hand makes an early position bad—players after our turn may raise us. Folding then would deprive us of a bet and see another card.
However, there are hands that improve with lots of calls because they are drawing hands. Hence, if we are in an early position, the odds are that we will never know if there would be players who would call or fold. On the other hand, if we are in the late position, we see everything unfold before us before our turn comes. This is an important casino poker lesson.
Hence, we enjoy a position that gets better with all the info on the opponents being revealed before us in a late position. We see where their strength and weakness are. If no raises were made a poor hand for starters isn’t all that bad. The flop might reveal something helpful for us. And there are a lot more other things that can happen before and after the flop that may change our play for the better. We can even be flexible from a late position—if the other players bet we raise, if they check we bet.
Thus, we see from this casino poker lesson that the hand played is largely dependent on the position we have. A poor hand is better folded if we are adversely positioned to not see what other players intend to do. Or at least we call. Yet, when we are privileged to see what others would do before our turns come, a weak hand may have a chance to improve and even win.
Knowing what position we are in from the dealer button is a major casino poker lesson to learn. Even excellent hands may prove useless when we’re poorly positioned to gain a vantage point.