As a poker player, you must take advantage of anything you can. Whether it is gaining valuable experience from playing online poker in poker tournaments or cultivating your ability to learn poker at a poker school, the many nuances of poker require that you take advantage of anything at your disposal. One of the advantages that can be utilized in poker tournaments is your position in a hand. Quite simply, position in poker is your relationship to other players when it comes to betting. Depending on your position, you can monitor the relative strengths of your opponents’ hands and adjust your betting based on what has been wagered before you.

There are different strategies and benefits in positional poker playing depending on the game and working fine in both live and online poker. For example, in Texas Holdem, you always want to be the last bet. Unless you are playing behind a rank amateur who has no clue about proper betting strategies, betting later or last offers you opportunities to play more hands because weaker hands may reveal more strength depending on the betting that goes before you do. The last position does not always offer the same advantages however for all games.

Stud games, where all cards are shown, doesn’t always lend itself to the last bet advantage. Because the position of the bet changes could change after “Fifth Street,” the advantages found on the first bet (“Fourth Street”) may no longer be pertinent after that first bet. However, you will still have an advantage to the player on your immediate right but positional considerations are far more complex with the fluid positional betting conditions.

There are instances where the last position in the bet is a detriment. In Omaha, bluffing from the last position, against good players can be a big mistake. In Omaha, playing from the middle positions is the area from which you want to bluff.

Taking advantage of position is a critical component that can lead to success when playing poker. There is no replacement for experience and playing online poker, with its abundance of poker tournaments is a good way to learn poker and the benefits of positional betting. A good poker school can also offer instruction of positional betting which can be used in poker tournaments. Take advantage of position and you will increase your chances of poker success.