Position (Again!)

You left out, “wearing your lucky hat”.

1 Like

Here’s some data. This is win rates (in bb/100) from different seats, 6-handed cash:

Small Blind -46
Big Blind. -55
UTG. 8
UTG+1 -3
UTG+2 0
Button 29

The WWSF% (won when saw flop) is 40% when OOP, and 50% when IP.

These numbers may not hold here, but usually position matters more than any skill edge you’re likely to have.

1 Like

I should note it does depend somewhat on how you play. Here are my numbers:
Small Blind: 0
Big Blind: -76
UTG: -11
UTG+1: 9
UTG+2: 21
Button: 46

I was actually break even from the small blind, because people weren’t defending their big blind enough, but burning money from the big blind because I was defending mine way too much.

My WWSF% was identical though both IP and OOP, which suggests you’re always wining 20% fewer hands when OOP, largely independent of how you play

1 Like

I appreciate your thoughtful responses, lihiue. I am unfamiliar with one or two of your technical acronyms (my failure): WWSF and OOP are two examples. While I am likely to Google these terms, some of the other readers here might not. Any chance of spelling these out for the newbies among us–including me? :slight_smile:

1 Like

I would appreciate that. I’m of the older crowd here :joy:

2 Likes

WWSF is a bit obscure and means % Won When Saw Flop, a useful statistic for evaluating hands.

OOP is a very common poker abbreviation meaning Out Of Position.

2 Likes

Right. WWSF is one of the stats you can actually calculate on replay too. If you look under Stats, you can divide Pots Won by Flops Seen. That won’t be entirely accurate as you can win the pot without seeing the flop, but you don’t want to read too much into your actual WWSF percentage anyway.
So for the data I have, when someone sees the flop and they are out of position (OOP) and have to act first, the win 40 out of every hundred hands. When they are in position (IP) and get to act last, they win 50 out of every hundred hands, which is a proportional difference of 20%.
The real benefit of being IP though is that you have a lot more control over the size of the pot. Notice that you win way more chips on the button than hands. When you’re out of position and flop a monster hand, you can’t comfortably start piling in chips because you have no idea if anyone will call. Also, when you do get to the river with a strong hand that gets downgraded (eg say the flush comes in), there’s no good way to play that OOP.
I didn’t feel like position mattered much until I could actually collect data from hands I played. I think that’s because in terms of absolute number of pots won, most of those will be from OOP, because most hands you have to play from OOP. You win way more chips in position though, and can get away from losing big hands much easier too.

2 Likes