• We never seat more than 9 at a table, except for the final table, we start that with 10. We have over 34 members but not everyone makes it each month so we try to limit it to 27 players although.
• Poker tables range from 4 to 11 players, with 8 being one of the most common configurations. The actual physical size will vary from around 50 inches for more compact round tables up to 70 to 80 inches.

• Poker Seat Names
• 8 Seat Poker Table

In your poker tournament there will be times that players need to be moved from one table to another. Such times arrive when players bust out of the tournament and the tables don’t have the same number of players seating at them. If table A has two, or more players more than table B, a random player has to move from table A to table. Round poker tables designed for 3 to 5 people are a convenient way to spruce up your regular game, while larger tables designed for 6 or more players make for an exciting change of pace.

We’ve scoured the poker world for some of the most respected professional players on the circuit to answer some of the burning questions about exactly how to run the perfect poker tournament.

Winamax Pro Adrian Mateos, Unibet Poker Ambassador Dara O’Kearney, 888Poker’s Dominik Nitsche, PokerStars Team Pro Igor Kurganov, and Niall Farrell all contributed to this article.

We've tried to cover all our bases because we’re asking the important questions the poker world needs answers.

Just how many players should be sitting around a standard table?

Our first question is one that has provoked opinion since players first gathered round crude oval benches on the Mississippi riverboats (probably). Just how many players should be sitting around a standard poker table, and why?

Every one of the five poker players we asked was certain that 10-handed poker is not the way to go.

O'Kearney: 'You’re getting fewer hands per hour, the blinds are going round way slower, and it’s cramped as well. It’s horrible.'

O'Kearney: 10-handed is terrible, it’s so boring and slow. It’s not just a matter of one extra player at the table. When you have ten people to act instead of nine, each hand is going to take longer. You’re getting fewer hands per hour, the blinds are going round way slower, and it’s cramped as well. It’s horrible.

Farrell: 10-handed live poker is not great, everyone is squeezed in around the table. Everyone has to play so tight, and there are fewer hands to play. Everyone knows the whole point of poker is to play hands. It’s just a poor experience for everyone.

Mateos: I feel like 10-handed poker should be banned. It’s so boring; you have to play really tight. You want to play hands and have fun. 10-handed poker is so bad for poker.

Kurganov: I guess the optimal amount of players per table should also depend on the buy-ins, and what types of players are in there. It would be not nice in an event with a lot of qualifiers, for example, to make it 6-max. Those players, in general, have a style that fits a 9-handed or even 10-handed game better.

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O’Kearney: I’ve played 11-handed in Las Vegas once, and that was the absolute worst. It was a really horrible experience. You end up having to fold so much. Ten-handed, your ranges have to be so much tighter.

Farrell: 'Some recreational players find 6-handed intimidating, and that’s understandable.'

Farrel: It’s brutal, just from a comfort point of view. It’s ten people, it should be fun. If you’re just crushed in with nine other people, and you don’t get to see flops, it’s going to be pretty off-putting for people who want to come and play to have fun.

Nitsche: Eight is good for large fields. Once you get to 10, there is not really enough space at the tables.

If 10-handed poker is beyond acceptable, then should players push for 6-Max? Most see that as a step too far, especially for recreational players, the most important demographic in the game.

Kurganov: I think in terms of Main Events and most tournaments where you have people who qualified, 9-handed seems pretty fair, because it ends up being 8-handed for a while, and 7-handed would be a bit rough on them, which would be the case if you started out 8-handed. 10-handed is a bit too boring; I think 8 or 9 for Main Events and qualifying events.

Farrell: I think the perfect number of people at a table, and probably because I’ve been spoilt by higher buy-in stuff, is 8-handed. For live poker, that’s perfect. Some recreational players find 6-handed intimidating, and that’s understandable.

Kurganov: In terms of high buy-in events, I think those are the spots where people do come to play and most of the time buy-in directly and never qualify. I think anything from 5 through 8-handed is the optimal number because people value their experience, they value other things about their experience and want to be involved in a bunch of hands. Given they pay a bunch of money for it, I think they should get that opportunity to do it properly. If you get someone who wants to play a lot of hands at a 9-handed table, you’re not giving them really a chance to do well.

Mateos: 'more than 9-handed, in my opinion, should be banned.'

Is the standard seating arrangement to be eight-handed poker, then? It fits neatly between the hand-frequency of a 6-Max game and the 10-handed pack-em-in approach.

Farrell: I’d generally be looking for an 8-handed standard. When we normally have 9-handed, that goes to 10-handed because they’re huge, I’d like to see it only going 9-handed if it’s situational. I know operators want to fit more players in for less staff, but there has to be a limit. The number of times I’ve heard from organizers that they can’t fit everyone in and there are fucking empty tables in the room... Sometimes it's just that they didn’t want to employ more staff.

Mateos: The best way to play is between 6-handed and 8-handed, and I think there’s room for both. 8-handed should be the standard, and in some extreme cases with not much room or many tables you could play 9-handed for a bit, but more than 9-handed, in my opinion, should be banned. Recreational players don’t like to play short-handed, but you need to find the equilibrium.

VERDICT: Balance, in life as in poker, is everything. Players seem to agree that 10-handed is a nightmare, but that 8-handed or 9-handed at a push is the best solution for a full-ring game.

In our next article in this series, we’ll be talking about which tournament format is preferable; freezeouts, single re-entry, or unlimited rebuy. You won’t want to miss it!

• Tags

  Igor KurganovNiall FarrellDara O'KearneyAdrian MateosDominik NitscheThe Perfect Poker Tournament10-handed8-handed

• Related Players

  Dominik NitscheIgor KurganovNiall FarrellAdrian Mateos

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 favorable 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.

Poker Seat Names

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 positional 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

8 Seat Poker Table

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.

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.

Position abbreviations explained (UTG, MP, BTN etc.)

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.

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.

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.

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