Poker Positions Explained

What are poker positions, and how do you play poker in position? You’ve come to the right place. We’ll go through exactly what each position is and how to play it, and by the end you’ll have a complete visual chart to save and check whenever you need a reminder.

If you’d rather watch than read, here’s a video explaining the basics of table position. Beneath it you’ll find the full explanation and the in-depth charts. If you’re still learning the order of play, our guide to the poker rules covers the betting rounds first.

What Are Poker Positions?

Poker positions refers to the way players are seated around a poker table and in what order players get to act in a round. Being one of the last players to act is obviously a huge advantage, since you get to see all other players act before you need to make a decision.

Every round has a dealer. To the left of the dealer is the small blind, and to the left of the small blind is the big blind. Because the two blinds are forced to bet, the first player to act before the flop is whoever is sitting after the big blind, and the action then moves clockwise around the table, finishing with the blinds themselves.

After the flop it changes: the small blind acts first for the rest of the hand. We usually divide the seats into three groups – early, middle and late position.

Early Position

The first players to act in a round are in what we call early position. That includes both blinds and the player immediately after the big blind, who is known as “under the gun” (UTG) because they have to act without a single clue from anyone else.

At a table of nine or more, the seat after under the gun is usually counted as early position too, and called UTG+1. Early positions are the hardest seats to play from, with under the gun being the toughest of the lot.

How to Play Under the Gun

Sitting under the gun, you need to be careful – the only information you have is the two cards in your hand, and that isn’t much. We recommend staying inside the top ten starting hands: high pairs, and aces with a suited face-card kicker. If you’re unsure which hands those beat, check the poker hand rankings.

Middle Position

The players sitting between early and late position are in middle position. Early position is usually three to four seats and late position is three, so how many players land in the middle depends entirely on how many are at the table.

The later your position, the more hands you should consider playing. From middle position you’ve already seen some of the earlier players act, which is a real advantage – but you still need to keep a level head and know your odds.

How to Play Middle Position

If everyone before you has folded: raise with medium pairs or better, aces with a face-card kicker, or any two suited cards ten or higher – queen-jack suited or jack-ten suited, for example.

If someone has already called: call with medium-to-high pairs, suited cards of ten or above, and any suited connectors.

If someone before you has already raised: re-raise with pairs of tens or better, ace-king or ace-queen. Otherwise call, if you hold suited connectors or a pair of nines or lower.

Late Position

Sitting in late position opens up a lot of different hands to play. You’ve had the advantage of seeing how other players chose to act, and can feel a lot more secure.

The best seat at the table is the dealer’s, because you act third from last before the flop and last on every round after it. The dealer is usually called “the button”, since the position is marked by a physical or digital disc with a D on it. The player just before the button is the cutoff, and the one before that is the hijack – named because players there often “hijack” the late-position advantage from the cutoff and button with an opening raise.

How to Play Late Position

If all players before you have folded: raise with any pair, any suited ace, any ace with a kicker of seven or better, any two cards ten or higher, and any suited connectors.

If someone has called before you: raise with a high pair or an ace with a face-card kicker, and feel free to call with any pair, suited high cards, a suited ace or suited connectors.

If a player has raised before you: re-raise with high pairs or aces with a king or queen kicker, and call with medium pairs or suited connectors.

Mix Up Your Play in Poker Positions

So there you go – now you know what the positions are and how to play them. That said, you should still mix up your play from time to time to stay unpredictable, and remember that your position depends entirely on where the button is. The button moves clockwise after every round, so your position changes with it.

More on How to Play Poker

We’re not professional poker players – we’re people who fell in love with the game. Like every beginner, we went online to research it and found explanations that were overly complicated and not at all easy to follow.

That’s why we boiled it down into the “How to Play Poker” playlist on YouTube, which takes you from complete beginner to competent player in under an hour.

Now that you know how to play your position, you might want to read up on how to bluff and how to sniff one out, or on poker betting – position and bet sizing are closely tied, since acting last tells you how much a bet is really worth.