blonde poker forum

So, we need you to comment upon this.

"Position is the most over-rated factor in poker".

This comment was made by one of the world's top pros, to another guy of similar standing.

How important do YOU consider position to be?

not as important as getting the cards i aint good enough to play postional with rags yet

I think it very much depends on the other people on the table.. if its a game where everyone knows whats going on then position can be key but this is sometimes negated if u have a loose cannon or someone not so experienced taking no notice of position raises which can lead to you getting your pants pulled down

and who wants their pants pulled down when they are in the wrong position?

tend to think that position is only any good if the guys you play against realise the importance as well...otherwise its sticking yer arse in the air and seeing if somone will shoot it off.

particularly so in online poker.

yours sincerly

buckshot bum scottish division ;D

Would have to agree with Patman there...

In my limited experience (mostly online), position has little bearing on proceedings in any game which costs under 15 to play in... Carefree kamikazees are order of the day...!!!

I think that position is important, particularly in on-line games where there is less information to act on, and therefore you have a better chance of making correct decisions when you have the most information (ie a late position). The pro who made the comment (who is he/she?) is probably correct in what they are saying though about position being overrated. Top pros make the best use of the information available, and therefore position to some of them may only be a minor consideration. 

Position relative to key players is something you may have no control over, but is probably more important and has a bigger influence on my game than absolute position.

In Doyle's book he emphasises playing position.

I play position even in micro limit online games if I have the right type of opponents/situation.  As said, if you are up against calling stations/serial raisers position almost goes out the window.

I seem to struggle with position in PL. :-[

i think position is overrated in online games. i played online last night it was getting towards the bubble and a guy raised utg he had a flat caller in mid position. the flop came kh 9s qc. the guy still 1st to act after the flop bet minium and was raised by the guy acting last who was holding pocket kings. the turn showed jh. the guy acting 1st shoved all in and was called by the set of kings he showed 8 10 to make a straight. so he was obviously not thinking much about position when he raised utg with 8 10 was he. and then to call a raise with a gutshot straight draw after the flop, the word fish springs to mind

I think it's fair to say it's over-rated but it's still very important. I think position tends to have a bigger impact when you're the best player at the table. Poker is a game of partial information. the more information you have at your disposal the better your chances. also your table reputationand the ability and willingness of your opponent to interpret and believe the mis-information you're giving them.

People often think about position solely in terms of nicking blinds with rags. I tend to think more about traps. If I have a big hand, say Aces and I'm in late position facing a raise I'm not going to give away the strenth of my hand by re-raising. I'm going to rely on my opponents raise to narrow the field and hope / expect him to follow through on the flop and depending on what's out, RR of continue the trap.

If I'm in out of position with AA I have different considerations. If I have very good information that a player to my left is going to raise I'll limp and let him get in first. I'm not going to trap here though because after the flop he has more information than I do. He's going to have seen me limp call then check. he can slow right down if he misses or set traps if he hits hard. realistically I have to limp-raise and hope he has a big A or big pair and take my chances.

If I have no information to suggest there will be a raise to my left I have to come out betting rather than risk a family pot with my AA. I have got the whole table watching me before the flop has come and unless someone has a good hand, or picks up a big draw on the flop I'm not going to get a lot of business.

AA on the button with a couple of limpers and a lone raiser before you is perfection. if the raise is big enough that you suspect the limpers will go away your call is effectively getting 2:1 on what could well be an 80/20 situation and unless they flop a set (about 12%) or similar you're sitting on a pay day without them suspecting. that's when position is key.

Position is important, but it has to be an integral part of a strategy. "Oh, i'm on the button, RAISE!" isn't going to work very well without thinking through why you're doing it and how you're going to act/react to the various possibilities. It also depends who you have position on aswell, if the player is much better than you it can reduce the benefits of position.

Raising, say, Phil Ivey's BB just because you're on the button might not get you very far. Raising mine you'd probably have a nicely positive expectation.

good points Bongo and well thought out.

i know when  i`m in late position or on button if i raise on a strong table then i generally have something as i`d get salughtered bluffing too often. Conversley on a strong table i get called or bet to the river less often than on a weak/novicey table

I find on line that a button raise or a late position raise even when substanstial will get called more than i`d expect and by a greater number. I wonder if its just novicey play or low stakes tournaments generating folk prepared to take more risk.

so for me position is important but can be affected by who is playing, how they view me and also what level of competition i am playing in.
For top players i couldnt even begin to guess but i sure wouldnt be playing games with a top player using position unless i had a decent hand so therefoe it must have a fair amount of importance

me i`m still learning so be very interested in some of the senior players thoughts. ;D

my answer is: it depends

what is the texture of the table? who is sitting on my left (ideally weak-tight, not savvy-aggressive)?

What I would like is some estimate from long time players as to how frequently they try to steal at various stages of the tournaments and how strategy changes as blinds rise?

One of the things I enjoy is being able to call a raise in the blinds with a hand, hit a flop and bet out out of position/first to act thereafter...very satisfying as the pre-flop raiser (who may or may not have been stealing) then has no clue back....high risk (you lead out betting top pair, he's got an overpair for example) but it can pay off well

I think said pro was bluffing. Or having a larf.

chip position, disposition and position are the most important factors after cards, I would argue, so I would.

I think position is important too. In a 400 person MTT you will normally find me out in 400th position. I would prefer it if I normally finished in 1st position really.   ;D

In all honesty though, I think you could write a book on positional play - every decision you make is affected by position in some way or other.
Some of it is pretty basic, eg. ten-handed, ATs UTG cf ATs on the button in an unopened pot. Using your position on the flop, turn and river can be more subtle and I certainly don't always get it right but put it this way, if I have top pair Q kicker on the turn I want to be last to act!
Agree with Bongo and patman too.

I used to play ten-handed limit cash a lot, less now, but loaded my hands into pokertracker a few months back. Almost fell out of my chair when I saw the amount won on the button - accounts for almost half of my total profit!

Check here http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-tournaments/event.php?id=1270&screen=logs&type=1

Read "Who's the man" thread.

I think everything has already been said in this thread...but I would suspect even those who don't rate position highly probably use the information provided by better position without even knowing it. It's common sense really. The later you are, the more information you have, the easier it is to make the correct decision.

No Limit Hold'em or Pot Limit Hold'em  does of course throw up the occasional perverse swerve ball when you want to be first to act after the flop..so that you can be first to move all your chips in... but that's a different story

Postition is one of the most important factors in poker comps.

Think about all those times blinds are nicked and the part position plays to the thief.

Everything is relative, the Importance of Position is secondary if your name happens to be Ernest

My first post!

Don't tell me position isn't the key to the game! No wonder I've been doing so badly all this time!

In all seriousness, I'd say it's probably not as important now as it used to be as people seem less afraid of being aggressive from any position on the table, particularly the scandinavians!  The general approach these days seems to be that a huge raise from any position will take the pot the majority of the time.
That said, it's still an important factor which a lot of online players seem to ignore - far too many limpers from early position who then fold to a raise and waste their chips.

Positional play I'm ok with, but boy do I need some aggression!  Who's gonna give me some tips?

...but if you're on the button and there's been a huge raise you can pass but if you're in early position and there's a raise after you've already entered the pot you loose chips. It's pretty basic isn't it.
As I said before, people are talking about position mostly in respect of nicking blinds from the button and that's missing 90% of the point about positional advantage. That's just "paying the rent". position is about having informational advantage in the big hands and also the moderate strength stuff your investment hands like K,Q, low pairs, suited connector or suited Aces. you get a good idea of the odds to make a proper decision on whether or not to play these hands.
I'm not a big maths player but I like to know if I'm going to take a flop with a low pair to hit a set or chuck it I want to know I'm getting a good price to do it.
If I'm going to set a trap with AA I want to know if I'm facing 1 or 2 players rather than face a family pot.

We all know this stuff don't we? it's pretty ABC stuff. maybe that's the point. playing out of position is a tougher skill so maybe the guys at the top draw an advantage from doing that well.

I can now reveal that the 2 guys whose conversaton sparked this thread were Mr Dave El Blondie Colclough, & the self confessed World Pot Limit Champion, Mr Brian Wilson, aka WSOP in05, & WSOPin06.

El Blondie contributed to the thread, but Brian did not. Maybe Brian does not understand position.