Playing in position

Poker by nature is a game of position, position is what enables us poker players a medium to see what information is available. Being able to see what you opponents does first gives you a very large competitive advantage. Because of this you can base your play or decisions based on what they do first. If you are out of position then you are the one who is giving out information. Although there are ways to play out or position optimally, I will no discuss that at this present moment, and stick to a more basic approach to my begginer readers.

If you are in position it is much easier for you to raise with a big hand. Simply because chances are the action will take place before the action reaches you, if you look at it from the flip side, if you are in early position and raise, you are subject to a re-raise, and this will make your decisions much more difficult, to play good poker you want to keep things simple, and being in a tough situation is not one of them.

Also if you are in position you can play a much larger range of hands, like suited connectors and cards that are similar. The reason for this is that these are drawing hands and you almost always want to be drawing in late position, again because you know what is going on before you. You should keep it a common rule that if you are playing in early position, you should be only playing large hands like pockets from 77 and up, to suited connectors with a min of JQ suited, but also remember these are trouble hands as well, so be cautious