Position, Position.. Position! 

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     The importance of position is something often overlooked by most online poker tournament players. Some players will bet and raise their hands and have no clue why position is important.  Since the dealer button moves after every hand is finished, your position at the table is consistently changing. In No Limit Texas Hold em there are four positions at the poker table. These consist of early, middle, late, and the blinds (small and big). Early position is when you are the first one to act preflop. This is also known as under the gun or UTG.

  Poker Tip #1 -  Only premium hands should be played from under the gun. If you raise with trash, there is a higher likelihood someone can pick up a hand since there are so many people left who haven’t folded. Not knowing what the other players are going to do is enough to fold most marginal hands and sometimes even low pocket pairs. You will be wasting your chips if someone re raises you or you get a lot of callers and flop nothing.  Playing hands from middle position could get tricky as well.  If the first couple players in the hand fold, you are in

Poker Tip # 2 – Middle position.  When Playing hands from middle position  you have to  pay attention to how close to the dealer button you are. You can loosen up your raising range from middle position but don’t get too sloppy.  Sometimes you can get caught in a tough spot if you raise with garbage from middle position and getreraised by the button and the blinds. Late position is a good place to steal the blinds when the anties kick in later on in the tournament. If you raise and get called by the blinds, you can usually continuation bet the flop if it is checked to you. Either way you get to see what he does before you make a choice to either fold, re-raise, or call.   The dealer has the best position on the table because you get to act after the other players for the remainder of the hand.  Seeing what the other players do before you decide to act gives you a significant advantage over them throughout the rest of the hand. This gives you the opportunity to raise or reraise the other players and see what they do on the flopPlaying out of the blinds is generally a bad idea because no matter what, you are going to be first to act for the entire hand. Don’t get caught up playing a hand that you normally wouldnt play just because you already have a small amount of chips invested. You want to try and avoid tough spots where the opponent has position on you.  If a player has position on you, they will have information on you based on your actions. Lets say for example you raise out of position and get a caller. You check the flop and he bets. Now is he just betting that flop because you checked and he really has nothing? You will have this same problem on the turn and the river. This makes it harder to win hands because you not only have to act first on the flop, but also for the entire hand.  Your hand may actually change strength based on the position you pick up that hand at the table. For example If you pick up KQ from early position, you might even be able to just fold it since you know ahead of time if you raise and get called you have to play that hand out of position for the entire hand. Paying attention to where you are at on the table and adjusting your raises based on your table position is an important piece of knowledge that can make or break someones tournament.