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The Importance of Position in Heads Up Sit and Go Tournaments

This is part of an ongoing series of basic strategy for heads up Sit and Go tournaments. For more articles, click here.

While it may appear trite to some, position is vital in all forms of poker. However, in no other form of poker can position be deemed as important as in heads up play.

I recall a story in the early 2000’s where an over-confident Sam Farha gave a young online pro the button every hand. Sam Farha of course got murdered. Why is something so minute, such as position, so important? In short, position is everything.

If you had the choice of forcing your opponent into a decision or being forced into a decision which would you prefer? What about if you had the choice of acting first and revealing information about your hand strength or acting second and being able to adjust to what your opponent does, dictating the flow and weighing the pro’s and con’s of applying pressure or taking a free card? Below we break down the importance of position on every street in heads up SNG play.

Button Importance – Preflop

Preflop is the only time you will be forced to act first. However, in this instance, it is a good thing. More often than not you and your opponent will both have a bad starting hand. But because you are first to act, you can feign strength and apply initial pressure and aggression preflop.

Button Importance – Flop Play

Should your opponent decide to defend, you can continue the pressure and aggression on the flop with a continuation bet. Why is a continuation bet so good? Because you are continuing the story. You opened preflop and are following this up with another bet, only this time you are acting second. This means your opponent now has to act first, after you have already shown aggression. Your opponent will, one way or another, reveal strength or weakness regarding his hand.

Button Importance – Turn Play

This pattern of importance continues on the turn. Your range can expand based on the board texture and your decision to “barrel” the turn. That is to raise preflop, continuation bet the flop, and fire again on the turn. This can put your opponent into a very difficult situation. The whole time you maintain control, apply aggression and dictate the flow of the hand.

Button Importance – River Play

Again, your position is important, this time on the river. River plays allow you to decide whether to value bet, bluff, read a bluff, or check down. If you were out of position here, that is to say the big blind or not on the button, you would have to act first. If you check unsure of your opponents hand strength and miss out on value that is not optimal. If you check and get bluffed out of the pot that is again bad.

All in all, the point I am illustrating is simple but critical: Being out of position is tougher because you are first to act, have to give away information regarding your hand strength, and lack the benefit of seeing how your opponent reacts on various board textures in various situations.

Read more articles from our HU SNG Basics series.

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