Position...."out of" and "in"

[Girazze]

I'm seeing a lot of different folks talking about "position" and I'm kinda confused now as to when you are "in" and "out of" position. I always thought it was being one of the last positions to bet.

[uuDevil]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm seeing a lot of different folks talking about "position" and I'm kinda confused now as to when you are "in" and "out of" position. I always thought it was being one of the last positions to bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but it is relative. If you are in middle position you are "in" postion relative to the player who is under the gun (UTG, first to act) but "out of" position relative to the button (dealer).

This is why it is an advantage to be on the button. Except for the first round, you are always last to act and so have position on all the other players.

[stir]

...as a further example, any time you are last to act in a betting round, you have position. On some hands you may be in early mid position, but if all others playing the hand (at that point) are to your right, you are "in" position.

[jdl22]

In general being in position is being last (or close to it) to act relative to what is going on. Normally, but not always this is the button. Being out of position is simply the opposite.

2 examples:
You have 78s UTG in a NL game. In a typical game fold this because you are out of position. If you were on the button with no raise in front you would be in position.

NL again and you are on the button with some decent but not great starting hand. Couple limpers then the CO (1 position before the button) makes a decent sized raise. You would happily call this raise if it were heads up but you are out of position so it's best to muck. If you were in position (just to the right of the raiser) then you would call. In this case your absolute position is the best (button) but your relative position is awful because you are going to be first to act after the pfr and could easily get trapped in between the raiser and someone in EP or the blinds. Hence you are out of position for the hand. If you were to the right of the raiser you would be last to act after the flop when he bets so you can trap others for bets if needed. So you would be in position in this case even though the absolute position is worse.