Early Position
Position is most easily described if we use a nine player table. The first three seats after the dealer (or the dealer button) are in early position. The next three players are in middle position and the last three are in late position. The very basic idea is that the more players who act in front of you, the more information you have to make your decision whether or not you will enter a hand.
The general rule is that the earlier your position the more caution you should apply to your decision and the later your position the more hands you can play. This, of course, is dependent on what the players in front of you actually do in any particular hand.
In early position, since you have so little information on the other players (none if you are first to act under-the-gun); you should play premium hands in early position. Early position includes both of the blinds in Hold’em and Omaha, even though you have the advantage of acting last in the pre-flop betting round. Early position means not only are you acting with less information on the other players but also that you will have to act first in the subsequent betting rounds.
A primary mistake of new players is playing too many hands and the compounded mistake is playing too many hands in early position. Suppose you have pocket threes (33) in first position and you call the big blind. A middle position player makes a small raise and a late position player makes a bigger raise. A wise player will throw those threes away to the raise and reraise; a wiser player may not have put that first, now lost, bet into the pot with pocket threes in early position.
-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #27
