Posizione Cut Off Poker

The cutoff is the nickname for the player in the seat to the right of the dealer button position in a game of poker. It is the second-best position in a hand of poker. It's also known as the cutoff seat or cutoff position and may be abbreviated as CO.

1. Posizione Cut Off Poker Tips
2. Posizione Cut Off Poker Odds
3. Posizione Cut Off Poker Card Game
4. Posizione Cut Off Poker Tournaments

Origins of the Poker Nickname Cutoff

There are a couple of explanations for why this position is called the cutoff. One is that in a friendly game where the button position is also the dealer, the player to the right of the dealer would cut the cards after the shuffle. This isn't the case when playing in a casino or poker room and there is a dedicated dealer, and the players do not cut the deck after the shuffle.

Duet earned that distinction in February when he won the Louisiana Poker Tour’s Championship Tournament. The local took home the title after beating seven other players (including his wife Gayle who finished third place) in the elite, eight-player field, which is comprised of the top point scorers from that charitable organization’s 2011 poker season, which spanned close to 30 tournaments. These two players are arguably two of the best online poker players in the world. And if you look at the stats taken from all the hands they played you'll see an almost shocking theme. If you compare money won or lost out of position to money won or lost in position, each player's results are a mirror image.

Another theory is that the name stems from the position being a good one to cutoff the three players after him when placing bets after the deal. The player in the cutoff position can raise and intimidate the players in the button, small blind, and big blind positions to fold.

Advantages of the Cutoff Position in Poker

In Texas Hold'em poker, the order of seats is small blind, big blind, under the gun, cutoff, and button, with the dealer, positioned to take action after the button position. If there are more than five players, the others are positioned between the under the gun position and the cutoff position. The button position moves with each hand so that each player will have a new position for each hand.

On the deal, the players are given their two pocket cards and starting with the under the gun position, they have the chance to fold their hand, call, or raise. The cutoff position has the advantage of knowing how the players before him are playing their hands and only three players after him. If the other players have all folded, it's a good position from which to call or raise to intimidate the button, small blind, and big blind into folding so you can steal the blinds. If the cutoff has a strong hand and other players have called, it is a good position for raising.

After the flop, if the cutoff hasn't folded, he is either the last player to play the hand or the second-to-last if the button player hasn't folded. This is a strong position as the player gains knowledge from how the players before him are betting their hands.

The cutoff player is in a better position to play marginally-strong hands than the players in positions that play earlier in the sequence. In this position, you can play a looser game. However, you aren't the only person at the table who understands that, and the other players will expect more aggressive and looser play from the players in the button and cutoff positions. You will have to use good tactics and read whether or not the players in the blind positions are likely to defend them.

How are you supposed to know where you're going if you don't know where you are?

Position is greatly undervalued by every beginner poker player. Your table position is often the difference between winning a hand and losing one.

Before playing a hand in Texas Hold'em you should always be aware of your position relative to the dealer button. Take a look at your position before you take a look at your cards.

• The seats nearest to the are called early position or EP for short.
• The seats nearest to the right of the button are called late position or LP for short.
• The seats in between these will be called middle position or MP.

Poker table position diagram.

• The seats in Red are early position
• The seats in Blue are middle position
• The seats in Green are late position

Early position.

Early Position is least favourable because you'll be one of the first to act after the flop. You want to avoid playing weak cards from these positions. You're relying on your cards to help you win the pot, as being first to act throughout the hand gives you less opportunities to outplay your opponents.

Don't get yourself in to trouble from EP.

Middle position.

Middle Position is better than Early Position, but it's not as awesome as Late Position. You can afford to play a few more hands from MP than you would from EP, as you do not have as many people left who can call and act after you from the flop onwards.

However, if all of the players from Early Position fold, this will still mean that you will be the first to act on each round. When it comes to poker strategy, it's not so much about your seat at the table as it is about who you've got acting before you and who you've got acting after you.

Late position.

Late Position. is highly advantageous.

There is a high chance that you will be last (or one of the last) to act on each round. This is so powerful it means you can be far more flexible with the range of hands you play. Just remember, just because you have position it doesn't mean you can get away with playing absolute junk all of the time.

'Being in position', 'having position' and 'positional advantage' all mean the same thing. Although it probably makes more sense to think of a positonal advantage as an informational advantage.

The button.

The Button is the best seat in the hand because on every betting round (except for before the flop), you will be last to act. This is amazing. This is also why you should look to play as many hands as possible (within reason) from the button. I'm usually looking for a reason not to play my hand when I'm on the BTN

The cut off.

The 'cut-off' is the position just before the button. This is the second best seat in Texas Hold'em because if the button folds, you will be the last to act on each hand. The button and cut-off are very useful positions for stealing the blinds as there are less players to act behind you, which makes it less likely that they are holding a good enough hand to call a raise with.

Posizione Cut Off Poker Tips

How to use table position in poker.

If you have position over another player, it means that you are acting after them on each round.

This means they will give you information before you make your decision.

• They could check - possibly a sign of weakness.
• They could bet - possibly a sign of strength.
• If they bet, the size of their bet could mean something.
• The time it takes for them to make their decision may also give you extra clues.

For example; if you have position over your opponent and they check quickly, this could be a sign of weakness. So you could use this information to bet out and take the pot. It's not always this easy, but getting some kind of information is infinitely better than being the one giving information to your opponent.

Poker table position example.

Lets say you're on the flop with a bunch of players in the pot, and you hold a mediocre hand like middle pair.

If there's a lot of betting and raising before the action gets to you, you can be sure that your hand isn't the best and you can happily fold without losing any chips.

On the other hand, if you are in early position you may bet out with a decent hand, only to find that there are much stronger hands out there that will re-raise you and force you to fold. Therefore you will have lost chips due to a lack of information.

The later you act in a hand, the more information you will have available to you about your opponents.

Positional awareness.

In general, you want to play more hands in position than you do out of position.

This doesn't mean that you force yourself to play any old hand when you have good position. Instead, be more inclined to play a wider range of hands when IP, but don't play this wide range of hands when OOP.

Try not to think of your position as dictating which hands you can and can't play. Instead, think of it as taking advantage of being last to act as often as you can.

Take KJo for example:

• In early position I would be reluctant to play KJo. It's on the low end of the 'good hands', and the fact that I have poor position makes it an unattractive situation. The hand isn't strong enough to counteract my positional disadvantage.
• In late position I would raise this hand almost every time if there were no raisers before me. I may also call raises with this hand if I have position on the raiser. I have an advantageous position combined with a decent starting hand, so the situation is looking good.

As a beginner player it's tricky to get to grips with the hands that are okay to play in LP, but are not good to play in EP. How are you supposed to learn the subtleties of which starting hands to play in which positions?

Trust me, you will pick it up as you go along. It will take time, but the more experience you get under your belt the more you'll get to grips with it. If you're completely new to the game, there's no harm in sticking with the premium hands and entering pots with them irrespective of position – that's okay. Just be prepared to broaden your starting hand requirements based on position as you improve.

Positional awareness graph.

Following on from my last point about playing more hands in position, here's a graph that shows a winning player's VPIP based on their position in 6max cash games.

The graph above shows the seats acting from first to last during the preflop betting round. So…

1. UTG - This is the seat to the left of the big blind. This is the first player to act preflop.
2. MP - This term can to varying positions between early position and late position. In this example it is the seat to the left of the UTG position.
3. CO - The seat just before the button. This is the second best position in the game.
4. BTN - The best seat at the table. This player acts last on every postflop betting round.
5. SB
6. BB

VPIP indicates the percentage of the time a player either raises or calls preflop. So essentially this chart shows the percentage of the time they 'play a hand' from each position.

Posizione Cut Off Poker Odds

Notice how this player is playing a lot more hands in late position than they are in early position. They do not play the same set of hands from all positions. They're not forcing these statistics either – they're just wisely taking in to account their table position and then selecting which starting hands to play with.

If you asked any winning cash game player to show you their VPIP by position, their stats and graphs would follow a similar trend to the one above.

Posizione Cut Off Poker Card Game

You can find out your own VPIP stats (and also those of your opponents) by using the popular Poker Tracker software.

Evaluation.

Table position is easily one of the most underestimated factors in playing a hand by many amateur poker players. Position is so important that often hands can be won or lost based on your position alone, irrespective of the strength of the cards that you and your opponent hold.

The sooner you start paying attention to your position, the sooner you will start making more money.

Further reading.

A useful article to read from here is starting hand selection, as it highlights how you should stick to playing only the strongest hands from early position due to the big disadvantage of having to act first on betting rounds.

Related articles.

• The Importance Of Position (Jack Wilcox)

Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.

Posizione Cut Off Poker Tournaments

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