HomeThis week’s article is the penultimate in this particular series on the importance of position in poker and how it affects your hand selection. Today we offer you advice on how to play before the flop in late position.
Hand Selection from Late Position
When you are sat in late position for a hand, you have an advantage over all the players that have to act before you. The strongest position is the button, but the two players to the right of the button are also pretty well placed. It is worth remembering one thing though – although being on the button means you will be the last to act after the flop and in subsequent rounds (assuming you stay in the hand), before the flop there are still the blinds to act after you. Therefore, although you can loosen up a fair bit when in late position, don’t forget that one of the blinds could still be sitting on a decent hand.
If you are the first to enter the pot in late position – i.e. there have been no calls and everyone before you has folded – or there have been only limpers so far, then you can raise with a wide variety of hands including any of the hands we advised you to raise with from early and middle position. You should also be raising with some of the smaller pairs, and hands like K-J and K-10 become fair game along with more suited connectors, such as 7-8. You can also be raising with unsuited connectors like 9-10 and J-10.
The main advantage of being in late position is that you get to take into account how most of the players at the table have already acted and, of course, you must factor the actions of your opponents into your hand selection. If there has been a raise before you, then you should narrow down the above selection of hands before making a re-raise depending on how many callers there have been. If there has been a raise from early position and a number of callers, or even a re-raise, then you need to be even more selective. While you are definitely at an advantage in late position, if there has been a lot of action before you the chances are you are up against at least one very good hand so always take that into account.
Next week is the final article in this particular series, and covers the topic of blind stealing.
