Starting Hand Requirements - Page 1: Defining Position

Texas holdem is a game of position. Position is the single most overlooked aspect of the game. The better your position, the more informed of a decision you can make. You may have overheard somebody say that they made a bad call out of position, or perhaps they said they were on the button. What exactly does that mean?

There are four positions in Texas Holdem: Blinds, Early, Middle, and Late.

Your position is based on where you act in relation to the dealer. For this discussion, we will assume that you are at a full table with ten people.

You are in an early position if you are in one of the FIVE positions to the left of the dealer (or one of the first three positions after the Big Blind). The person who is first to act preflop (the person to the left of the big blind), is also said to be "under the gun".

Next, we have the middle positions. These are the next three seats after the players in early position (positions #6, 7, and 8 in our example).

Finally, the last two people are considered to be in late position. If you have the dealer button in front of you, it is referred to as "on the button". The person that is one position to the right of the dealer is said to be "in the cutoff".

The later the position you have, the more information you will have about your opponents' hands. This gives you a tremendous advantage when playing the hand because you will have seen how your opponent have reacted to the flop, turn, and river.

Early Position  Middle Position  Late Position  The Blinds