A Simple Starting-Hand Guide by Position
A memorizable open-raising chart for every 6-max seat, why the same hand flips from fold to raise as you approach the button, and a simple 3-bet-or-fold rule for facing raises.
Assumptions: All examples use a 6-max online cash game at $0.50/$1 with 100 big blind stacks and no rake unless a different setup is stated.
A starting hand doesn't have a fixed value. A♦T♣ is a money-loser from under the gun and a clear raise from the cutoff — same two cards, different seat, opposite decision. This lesson gives you the complete set of opening charts for 6-max and, more importantly, the logic that generates them, so the charts feel obvious instead of arbitrary.
Why the same hand changes value seat by seat
Three things improve as the action folds around toward the button:
Fewer players left to wake up with a monster. Open from under the gun and five players are still to act; each one is a fresh chance someone holds a hand that dominates yours. Open from the button and only the two blinds remain. The fewer the opponents, the weaker a hand can be and still expect to be best.
Better position after the flop. Raise from the button and you act last on every postflop street — you see what everyone does before deciding, every time. Raise from UTG and you'll usually act first, guessing. Position is worth so much that it converts outright folds into profitable raises by itself.
More pots won without a fight. A button raise needs to get through only two players, who hold junk most of the time. A healthy share of your late-position profit is simply the blinds folding — profit that requires no cards at all.
Put those together and you get the gradient every chart in poker follows: tightest up front, widest on the button. Now here are the site's charts, seat by seat.
A note on how to read them: each chart lists hand labels in the standard grid notation — "K9s" is king-nine suited, "K9o" king-nine offsuit, bare "99" a pocket pair. The chart answers exactly one question: when every player before you has folded, do you raise this hand or fold it? No limping option exists, deliberately — the next lesson explains why. If the hand is on the chart, you raise it; if it isn't, you fold it; and when someone has already raised in front of you, the chart no longer applies and you drop to the much tighter facing-a-raise rules at the end of this lesson.
UTG: about 17% of hands
Forty-two labels, about 17% of all combos. The skeleton: every pocket pair, every suited ace, suited broadways down to KTs/QTs/JTs plus K9s, the best suited connectors (T9s through 54s), and only four offsuit hands — AKo, AQo, AJo, KQo. With five players behind, offsuit hands that flop kicker problems are simply not worth it. If you want a beginner simplification, trimming the weakest pieces (the tiny pairs and small suited connectors) from your UTG range costs almost nothing — those hands are the chart's bottom edge, profitable only when you play them well postflop.
HJ: about 20%
One seat later, the range grows to 48 labels (20%). What got added tells you what position buys: K8s, Q9s, J9s, T8s — more medium suited hands — and two new offsuit hands, ATo and KJo. Nothing dramatic; the gradient moves in small steps until the button.
CO: about 26%
Sixty labels, about 26%. Suited kings now run down to K5s, suited gappers like 97s and 86s appear, and the offsuit section finally grows real membership: A9o, KTo, QJo, QTo. Two players plus the blinds remain — hands that needed protection from five opponents only need to dodge three.
BTN: about 42% — the widest seat in poker
Eighty-nine labels, about 42%. Every suited king and queen, every offsuit ace, K9o, J9o, T9o, suited junk like 74s and 53s. This looks insanely loose next to the UTG chart — until you remember what the button buys: only two opponents, guaranteed last action on every street, and constant blind-steal profit. The button is where tight players go to get paid for their discipline everywhere else.
SB: about 36%, and raise or fold
Seventy-eight labels, about 36% — wide because only one player is left, but narrower than the button because that player gets to act after you for the whole hand. Your default from the small blind when everyone folds: raise or fold, never limp-complete. Completing for half a bet feels cheap, but it builds pots you'll play out of position with a capped, faceless range. Raise the chart, fold the rest, keep your life simple.
The big blind has no opening chart — if everyone folds to the BB, the hand is over. The BB's job is defending against raises, which we touch below and the track covers properly later.
What position is really paying for
It's worth pausing on why the button can profitably play 42% while UTG manages 17%, because "position is power" stays a slogan until you see the mechanics.
Acting last is information you get for free on every street. When the big blind checks to you on the flop, you choose between betting your good hands and checking back your weak ones — with full knowledge of what they did first. When you're out of position, every check you make hands your opponent that same choice at your expense. Over a full hand that asymmetry decides who controls the pot size: in position you can keep the pot small with a marginal hand or inflate it with a strong one, almost at will. Out of position you're frequently guessing, and guessing costs money even when you guess well.
That's also why the small blind — despite facing only one opponent — opens fewer hands than the button: it's the only seat that opens into guaranteed bad position. And it's why the gradient is steeper than beginners expect at the front: UTG isn't tight because five opponents are individually scary, but because being out of position against whichever of the five continues makes every marginal hand a little worse, and marginal hands live and die on "a little."
Three test hands along the gradient
A♦T♣ — fold UTG, raise from the HJ onward. ATo misses the UTG chart and appears in every later one. The reason is domination: an UTG raise gets called or re-raised by hands like AJ, AQ, AK, and big pairs, and against a tight continuing range of that shape ATo holds only about 29% equity. Against A♥Q♠ specifically it's about 27% — and ace-ten loves to flop the same ace as ace-queen. From the cutoff or button, with fewer and weaker opponents, the same hand is a comfortable raise that mostly wins blinds or gets called by worse.
K♠9♠ versus K♠9♥ — the suit is worth four seats. Check the charts: K9 suited appears in every single one, UTG included — it flops flush draws, makes a decent top pair, and plays fine in raised pots. K9 offsuit appears exactly once: on the button. Strip the suit and the hand loses its backup plans, surviving only in the seat where two opponents and guaranteed position prop it up. Same ranks; the suit alone carries the hand through four extra seats of the gradient.
2♥2♣ — on the chart everywhere, honest only late. The site chart opens every pocket pair from every seat, and deuces are technically a profitable UTG open if you play well postflop. But understand what you're signing up for: 22 flops a set about 12% of the time and is nearly worthless otherwise, and from early position you'll face re-raises and out-of-position flops with the bottom hand of your range. Playable late, demanding early — if you're going to deviate from the chart anywhere as a beginner, folding the smallest pairs up front is the deviation that costs you least.
When someone raises in front of you
The charts above assume the pot is unopened. When a player has already raised, everything tightens drastically — their range is strong, so "playable" hands become folds and only the top of your range continues. The beginner default from the seats behind a raiser: 3-bet your best hands, fold everything else. Cold-calling builds multiway pots with a capped range; save calling ranges for later lessons (the big blind, which closes the action and has money already invested, is the main exception).
Two site charts show the shape. On the button facing a cutoff raise, you 3-bet this 6.6% range:
And in the big blind facing an UTG raise — the tightest spot in the game — the 3-bet range shrinks to under 4%:
Notice the pattern in both: the premium bucket plus a couple of suited wheel aces. Out of roughly 26% of hands the CO opens, the button re-raises only a quarter of that. Respect for a raise is not weakness — it's range-reading: a player who raised first told you they hold top-20% goods, and you continue only with hands that beat that claim. (The BB does also defend by calling — about 13% more hands like pairs, suited broadways, and suited connectors versus UTG, and much wider versus a button raise — because closing the action at a discount changes the math. The full BB defense lesson comes later in the track.)
Why prefer 3-betting over calling with the hands that do continue? Three reasons, all beginner-friendly. A 3-bet can win the pot immediately — the raiser folds their weakest opens and you collect without a flop. It builds the pot while you hold the stronger range, which is the whole premium-bucket game plan. And it keeps the pot heads-up: a cold-call invites the blinds in behind you at a great price, turning your AQ into one hand in a four-way scramble. The site's button-vs-cutoff chart does include a calling section — pairs and suited hands that profit from set-mining and playability in position, about 10% of hands — but if you want one simple rule while you're learning, 3-bet or fold outside the big blind loses you almost nothing and saves you from the classic beginner swamp of cold-calling everything attractive.
A note on the blinds when you're the raiser: they will defend, especially the big blind, who closes the action and already has $1 invested. Don't be surprised or discouraged when your button opens get called — the BB calling chart versus a button raise is wide by design. Your edge comes postflop, in position, against a range full of weak hands that missed.
Common chart mistakes
- Using the unopened chart after a raise. "ATo is a raise from the cutoff" is true only when the pot is unopened. Facing an UTG raise, ATo is a clean fold from every seat — it's not in any 3-bet chart, and calling with a dominated offsuit ace is exactly the Q8s trap from the last lesson wearing a nicer shirt.
- Promoting hands out of boredom. Two orbits of junk and suddenly K7o "feels playable" from the hijack. The charts don't have a boredom adjustment. Card-dead stretches are where disciplined players collect their edge by losing nothing.
- Treating the charts as suggestions for "creativity." At some point, advanced players do mix in deviations. You will too — after you can play the baseline on autopilot. While you're learning, every off-chart hand you add is a hand the chart's logic says loses money from that seat.
- Forgetting the SB rule. Limp-completing from the small blind with hands like Q9o because "it's only fifty cents" reintroduces every limping problem the next lesson covers, from the worst seat at the table. Raise or fold.
The charts in action
This is the gradient working for you. From the cutoff, the hands that continue against you are wider and weaker — KT, QT, JT, draws — and your ten-kicker ace is the bully instead of the victim. The check-back on the river, declining a thin third barrel with a medium kicker that only worse hands fold to, is the kind of small discipline that keeps the hand clean.
Most button steals end even faster than this one — both blinds fold and you collect $1.50 without seeing a flop. The hands that do call are wide and miss often, so a single continuation bet on a dry flop finishes the job. None of this works from early seats, where the players behind you are too many and their calling ranges too strong.
The deuces hand shows both halves of small-pair economics from the blind: a cheap entry justified by the set-mining math, and a fast, unemotional exit the 88% of the time the set doesn't come.
How to actually memorize this
Don't memorize 169 cells five times. Memorize the UTG core — pairs, suited aces, suited broadways plus the T9s-to-54s connector strip, AK/AQ/AJ/KQ offsuit — and then learn what each later seat adds: HJ adds ATo, KJo, and a few medium suited hands; CO adds suited kings to K5s, gappers, and QJo/QTo/KTo/A9o; the button adds nearly every suited hand and every offsuit ace. Quiz yourself with the gradient question, not the chart question: "how many players are behind me, and is this hand strong enough for that many?" The chart is just that question, pre-answered 169 times.