Like in any sport, you want to give yourself thebest possible chance of doing well. The better your two-card starting hand, the more likely you are to win thepot.

If the three players after you raise, you will essentially have tothrow the hand away-along with the bet you made because you playedmarginal cards in early position. The worst scenario you can find yourself in is being the first to bet with aweak hand. Good poker players look for reasons not to play a hand. If three people before you decide to raise the pot,you have to look at your cards pretty closely to determine if they have enoughstarting value to play. If everyoneacting before you folds their hands, in most cases your cards are more valuableregardless of what they are. Generally speaking, the later your position at the table, the more leverageyou have when deciding whether to bet on your hand because you can firstevaluate what the majority of other players have chosen to do. When you are in early position, only play handswhere you would be prepared to call multiple raises, because you have to assumethat with the rest of the table left to act, you might be raised one or moretimes. The impact of table position on your betting strategy is simple the lateryou are to act on your cards, the more information you have to decide whetheryour cards are worth playing. Middle position is the next two (orperhaps three) seats going clockwise around the table, and lateposition is the last three seats to act (including the dealer position).Your table position changes as the dealer button moves around the table witheach hand.

Early position is commonly viewed as the first threeseats to the left of the button (dealer position), which include the small blindand big blind bet positions. Table position is most often divided into three categories: early, middle,and late position. Other times, you have tosimultaneously weigh a lot of information in order to make a good decision. Sometimes, youhave a great hand and the decisions are easy. As new cards aredealt, you have to constantly re-evaluate your decision to stay in the hand anddecide if it is financially worth the risk to continue playing. As previously discussed, poker is a game of decisions.

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