At the nine handed table, middle position is clearly the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th players after the dealer. What about a standard ten handed table; where does that tenth player fit. Well in the most often given answer in poker-It Depends! If you are playing conservatively or if your table is very aggressive, you might consider designating the first four seats as early positions. A passive table would call for four middle position seats and if you are being aggressive then four late position seats might be your assessment. In any case there is nothing wrong and a lot right about using ‘early-middle’ and ‘middle-late’ for those in-between decisions.

The whole idea behind the use of position in your decisions is to play different hands in different situations. Clearly pocket aces (AA) play anywhere in Hold’em and a lot of hands play early, middle and late when your table is very passive and there is little to no pre-flop raising. So position is an adjustable evaluation based on lots of in the moment factors at your table. Let’s use pocket sevens (77) as our example.

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We have already written that position may be the most important factor in deciding whether or not to play a hand. Position may even be more important than the cards you are dealt. There are several “positions” that players talk about; these include, of course, the blinds, the button, the cut-off seat and under-the-gun. These are often more generally divided into early, middle and late position. We begin with “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.

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