Poker Positions Explained: A Complete Guide to Table Positions & Strategy

If you’re new to learning poker, brace yourself – the concept of poker positions can be challenging. Mastering poker seat positions and how to adjust your strategy accordingly is what will make you a great player. This guide explains poker positions, their importance, and how to play them effectively.

All You Need to Know

Poker table positions determine the playing order for the hand. The dealer button rotates around the table so that players take turns in each position.
Poker positions also have significant strategic implications, affecting your starting hand selection and approach post-flop.
You should play a much tighter range of hands from early positions in poker. From late positions, you can open up and play a much wider range.
Playing in position postflop gives you more information and ways to control the pot.

What Are Poker Positions?

On the most basic level, poker positions simply refer to your seat at the table. Your seat determines when it’s your turn to act, so poker seating positions establish the order of play for the hand.

However, positions in poker are about so much more than just playing order. They are also a huge factor when it comes to your starting hand selection and postflop poker tournament strategy. When you are in late positions, you’ll make your decision after everyone else, which is a huge advantage. You want to go last.

The dealer button rotates around the table, so that players take turns in each position for one hand during an orbit.

What is it? Poker positions refer to your seat at the table and determine the order in which you play.
Why is it important? It is an advantage to go last in the poker seating positions.

The Different Positions in Poker: Poker Positions Names

Now, let’s break down the poker positions to table arrangements. Most live casino tables play “full ring” and have nine poker seat positions per table, while online cash games tend to only have six.

Poker table positions – nine-handed:

Under-the-gun (UTG)
Under-the-gun + 1 (UTG+1)
Under-the-gun + 2 (UTG+2)
Lojack (LJ)
Hijack (HJ)
Cutoff (CO)
Button (BU)
Small Blind (SB)
Big Blind (BB)

Poker table positions – six -handed:

Under-the-gun (UTG)
Hijack (HJ)
Cutoff (CO)
Button (BU)
Small Blind (SB)
Big Blind (BB)

As you can see, the poker position names are the same. Six-handed poker table positions simply exclude a few seats. Eight-handed poker table positions are the same as nine-handed, but exclude the UTG+2 position.

Poker Position Strategy Preflop

For each of the poker positions, you’ll want to adjust your strategy for which starting hands you play preflop. To simplify situations, you can put the positions into three categories: early position, middle position, and late position.

The general idea is that you should play far fewer hands from early poker positions than you do from late position:

From early position, you have the whole table still to act behind you, making it likely someone else has a strong hand. You’ll also be out of position postflop, which is a massive advantage. Stick to pocket pairs, strong broadways, and just a few bluffs for balance.
From middle position, you can start to loosen up your open-raising range to include other strong to medium broadway hands, smaller pairs, and high suited connectors.
From late position, you should be open-raising with around 50 percent of your starting hands in many situations, including a lot of suited hands, offsuit Ax, Kx, and Qx, suited connectors, one-gap suited connectors, and so on.

Adjusting your ranges in this way helps to mitigate the disadvantages of having players left to act and of being out of position postflop, because when you enter the pot from earlier positions, you’ll have a stronger selection of hands.

For exact specifications on which cards to play in each position, poker software tools are your best resource. They will provide raise/fold guidelines for just about every situation as a poker player.

Poker Table Positions Explained

Now, let’s explain poker table positions one by one so you can get a feel for how each seat affects your play. Here are the nine poker positions at a full-ring table.

UTG

Under the gun is considered the worst position at the table because you’re the first player to act preflop, with eight players left behind. You don’t have any reads on the rest of the table, so you’ll only be opening a very tight range.

UTG+1

While UTG+1 is better than UTG, it’s essentially the same, as you only receive information from one player. You’ll just have a slightly wider range that is still very tight.

UTG+2

While you get to open about 15% of your total range, UTG+2 is still pretty early as far as poker positions go. You still have six players to get through and will be out of position postflop against most players if called.

Lojack

In an online cash game or a 6-max table, the lojack is the UTG seat. In a full-ring game, it’s one of the middle positions in poker. You’ll be able to get information from three players before you act. You can introduce a few medium hands to your range, but you’ll still be playing relatively tight.

Hijack

The hijack is where you start really using position to your advantage. You’ll have seen the action from the first half of the players already. There are still four players left to act behind, but you’ll have positional advantage over the blinds if they call. You can raise a wider range to include more steals and blocker-based hands.

Cutoff

One of the best poker positions for stealing the blinds, the cutoff is the second-best seat on the table behind only the button. Most players have already acted, and two of the three players left are out of position in the blinds. You can steal pots, and even when you see a flop, you’ll often be able to take it down with a continuation bet.

Button

When it comes to poker positions on the table, the button is the best one. When you are on the button, most players have already acted preflop, and you are guaranteed to act last postflop, giving you the most information as the hand progresses. You can open a very wide range, flat call raises, and apply position postflop from the button.

Small Blind

The small blind is guaranteed to be playing out of position postflop and has to post half a big blind before the hand is even dealt, making it one of the losing positions in poker. The aim is to avoid marginal situations, maximize value with strong hands, and look for spots to three-bet against late position opponents. Overall, ranges are quite narrow.

Big Blind

The big blind posts a full big blind of chips and is out of position against everybody except the small blind. You’ll be defending with a wide range from the big blind due to pot odds, but it’s still the most consistently losing position long-term.

Why Position is Important Postflop in Poker

Hopefully, we’ve convinced you by now that poker positions are a can’t-miss concept when learning how to play poker. With each of the poker table positions now explained in terms of preflop implications, let’s explore why position is so important after the flop.

You Gain More Information In Position

Poker is a game of limited information. As the hand progresses, you’ll need to narrow down your opponent’s range based on the board and their betting actions. When you’re in position, you get the benefit of seeing what your opponents do before making your own decisions.

This gives you more information throughout the course of the hand. For example, if your opponent checks to you on the flop and turn, this suggests weakness. If they check-raise the flop and bet the turn, they are giving off signs of strength.

Of course, opponents can always try to deceive you. However, they will have a harder time doing so from an out-of-position. Your poker position strategy allows you to gain an edge.

Control the Pot, Extract Value, Find Bluffs

The additional information you gain from later poker positions on the table, combined with the fact that you can act last on every street, gives you a lot more control over the betting action and size of the pot. This is useful in any situation, whether you want to keep the pot small, make it bigger, or take it down with a bluff.

With medium strength hands, you can keep the pot small by checking to take free cards or flat calling bets to close the action. The aim is to make it to showdown for cheap.
With strong value hands, you’ll be able to use the information you gain to bet, raise, or trap to gain the maximum amount of chips.
With draws, you’ll be able to take more free cards by checking, as well as find opportunities to semi-bluff.
With weak or missed hands, it’s easier to apply pressure and bluff from one of the late positions in poker.

You could rightly say that every type of hand is easier and more profitable to play in position than out of position, which is why poker position strategy is so important for your results.

Playing Out of Position is Tough

When it comes to playing from the early positions in poker, the reverse is true. Here is what makes being out of position difficult.

We can’t emphasize these two points enough:

When you have a good hand, it’s hard to get paid: Your opponents will be able to see what action you take before they have to act. When you bet into them or check-raise, they are much more likely to fold with worse hands or use pot control to keep the betting relatively small.
When you have a weak hand, it’s hard to navigate: With weak or medium strength hands, it’s unlikely you’ll make it to showdown when out of position. Bluffing is much more troublesome when you have less information than your opponents – they might have an extremely strong hand, and you won’t even realize it. They can also float weaker hands in position. Bluff too often out of position and you could be lighting your chips on fire.

Because the early poker seat positions suffer such a considerable hindrance, it is recommended that you only play top-tier hands. Folding everything except premium hands in early poker positions is a strategic compensation for the disadvantage, as the hand strength makes them less likely to lose.

Annette Obrestad Wins a Tournament Blind

Annette Obrestad is the youngest person to ever win a World Series of Poker bracelet, and once won an online poker tournament without looking at her cards. She beat 179 opponents playing poker “blind.” Obrestad put tape over her screen so she couldn’t see her cards and filmed the whole tournament.

In Obrestad’s words, she wanted to “show just how important it is to play position and to pay attention to the players at the table.”

Watching other players act first gave her all the information she needed. Rather than relying on her own hand, she observed the actions of those ahead of her and made decisions based on what she estimated about their hands. This is how you play position and your opponents, rather than your own cards.

If Annette can win a poker tournament without ever looking at her cards – succeeding through poker positions alone – then mastering poker position strategy is certainly worth the investment.