Poker opening ranges by position

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An opening range is the set of starting hands you raise with from one seat when nobody has entered the pot yet, and it changes seat by seat because the number of players left to act changes. Below is one chart for every position at the table, from under the gun through the big blind, each with the hands, the share of hands it plays and a printable download. If you want the concept first, how poker ranges work covers it.

One PDF holds all seven charts, one position to a page, at a size that survives a printer. Each chart below also downloads on its own.

Under the gun (UTG) opening range

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Five players still get to act behind you, and that is the whole reason this is the tightest chart in the set at 14.3% of hands. Every hand you raise here has to survive five chances of running into something better. Most players get the bottom left corner backwards: they raise A9s and fold A5s, while this chart does the opposite. Those small suited aces make nut flushes and wheel straights, and they hold an ace that blocks the hands most likely to play back at you. If the seat name is new, UTG has the entry.

Middle position (MP) opening range

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This is the middle-position chart from a 9-handed table, 14.8% of hands, and it sits between the early seats and the hijack in width. Small pairs come back into the range here and the offsuit broadways start at ATo and KJo. If you play 6-max rather than full ring, read this chart as the step between under the gun and the hijack rather than as a seat you sit in. Do not open it like the cutoff just because the front of the table folded.

Hijack (HJ) opening range

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18.9% of hands, and the additions are the ones you would guess: every suited ace, suited kings down to K9s and the two offsuit broadways that were close calls under the gun. One seat later means one fewer player to get through, and that is all the extra room buys. Three players are still behind you and two of them will act after you for the rest of the hand, so playing the hijack like a late seat costs money.

Cutoff (CO) opening range

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25.5% of hands. Only three players are left and two of them are posting blinds they would rather keep, so this is where stealing becomes a real part of the plan. Suited connectors earn their place here: 54s, 65s and 76s flop the kind of hands nobody puts you on when you took the betting lead. Folding QTs and A8o in the cutoff is the leak to watch, and it comes from learning to fold in the early seats and never stopping.

Button (BTN) opening range

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43.3% of hands, the widest chart in the set, and position rather than card strength is the reason. You act after both blinds on every street that follows, and only two players stand between you and the pot. The offsuit region under the diagonal opens up here for the first time: A2o, K8o, Q9o and J9o are raises on the button that were quick folds three seats earlier. Folding too much is the expensive habit in this seat. A folded button is a pot nobody contested.

Small blind (SB) opening range

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Only the big blind is left, so you get to attack one player, and 33.0% of hands is the chart for it. The catch is that you play every later street out of position, which is why this is tighter than the button and why the usual raise from the small blind is 3 big blinds rather than 2.5. Worth knowing before you print it: poker writers disagree about this seat. Some teach the raise-or-fold chart you see here and others teach a strategy that limps the weaker playable hands. Raise-or-fold is the simpler habit to build.

Big blind (BB) defending range

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The big blind closes the action before the flop, so it never faces the folded-to-you spot the other six charts cover. Its question is whether to defend against a raise, and this chart answers the most common version. The button raised and everyone else folded. You are getting a better price than any other seat because you already have a big blind in the pot, which is why this chart defends 52.3% of hands.

Scope matters more here than anywhere else on the page. This chart is built for a button open. Against a raise from an early seat, most of the bottom of it is a fold, because the range raising into you is much stronger and the weak offsuit hands stop paying their way.

How to read a range chart

Every chart on this page is the same 13 by 13 grid, and once you can read one you can read all of them. Your two cards live in exactly one box. Pocket pairs run down the diagonal from AA in the top left to 22 in the bottom right. Everything above the diagonal is suited, so AKs sits one box to the right of AA. Everything below it is offsuit, so AKo sits one box underneath. The percentage printed under each chart is not the share of boxes coloured in. It is the share of actual card combinations, and the two differ: each pair is 6 combinations, each suited hand 4 and each offsuit hand 12. A chart can look half full and still play a quarter of your hands.

Adjusting your opening ranges

Every chart here assumes an unopened pot, a table of roughly average players and a raise of about 2.5 big blinds. Change any of those and the chart moves with it.

Tighten when something in front of you breaks the assumption: a limper, a short stack behind you looking for a spot, or a table where three people call every raise. Loosen once antes are posted, because there is more dead money to win when everyone folds, and loosen against players who fold to every raise.

When somebody raises before you, these charts stop applying and the decision becomes three-way. Hands that play well as the aggressor go into your 3-bet range, hands that play well after the flop without wanting a bigger pot yet are calls, and the rest fold. The preflop charts PDF covers that spot with its own grid.

Opening ranges FAQ

What percentage of hands should you open from each position?

The seven charts on this page run from 14.3% of hands under the gun to 43.3% on the button, with the big blind defending 52.3% against a button raise. Every figure is computed from the same range string that draws the chart above it, so the table and the grid cannot disagree.

What is the difference between a range chart and a preflop chart?

A range chart shows one seat's hands as a grid, which is what you want when the question is what to raise from the cutoff. A preflop chart is the wider library: the same opening grids plus what to do when somebody raises in front of you. This page is the first. That one is the second.

Should you always follow the chart?

No, and no chart writer thinks you should. A chart answers one question well: what to do with this hand, from this seat, when the pot is unopened. Everything else before the flop is judgment, and the adjustments above are worth more than any extra chart you could memorise.

Where do these ranges come from?

They are simplified from published poker writing on position and starting-hand selection, then rounded into charts you can use in real time. Six of the seven are the same strings the preflop library publishes. The big blind defending chart is built for a button open around 100 big blinds. Two good sources will disagree about K9s under the gun, and no chart is exactly right for every game.