The Named Positions at 6-Max and Full Ring
Every seat at a poker table has a name — UTG, HJ, CO, BTN, SB, BB and the full-ring extras — and those names move with the button every hand. Learn the map, the groups, and the shorthand used in every lesson from here on.
Assumptions: Unless a hand states otherwise, examples assume a 6-max online cash game at $0.50/$1 with 100 big blind stacks and no rake.
Poker players almost never say "the guy in seat 4." They say "the cutoff opened" or "the hijack flatted." Position names are the coordinate system of the game: every chart you'll ever study, every hand history you'll ever discuss, and every later lesson on this site refers to seats by these names. Spend twenty minutes nailing the map now and you'll never have to translate again.
One anchor: the button
Everything is measured from the button — the disc that marks the nominal dealer. Two facts drive the whole naming system:
- The button moves one seat clockwise after every hand.
- Position names are defined by distance from the button, not by physical chairs.
That means you don't have a fixed position. The chair you're sitting in is the button on one hand, the small blind on the next, the big blind after that. When someone says "I was under the gun," they're describing where they sat relative to the button for that one hand. Get used to thinking in relative terms immediately — it's why a single strategy chart works for every seat you'll ever occupy.
The six seats at 6-max
Start clockwise from the seat to the button's immediate left:
- SB — small blind. One seat left of the button. Posts the $0.50 forced bet before the deal.
- BB — big blind. Two seats left of the button. Posts the $1 forced bet.
- UTG — under the gun. Three seats left of the button, first to act preflop. The name is literal: with five players waiting behind you and zero information, you're under pressure from the opening bell.
- HJ — hijack. Two seats to the right of the button (equivalently, four seats left of it). Named because it can "hijack" the steal attempts the late seats would otherwise make.
- CO — cutoff. One seat right of the button. It can "cut off" the button by raising first.
- BTN — button. The dealer seat itself. Acts last on every postflop street — the best seat in poker.
Preflop, action starts with UTG and goes clockwise: UTG → HJ → CO → BTN → SB → BB. Postflop, the blinds act first: SB → BB → UTG → HJ → CO → BTN. Notice the button is last to act after the flop no matter what — that's the property that makes it valuable, and the next lesson is entirely about why.
A counting trick that works at any table size: count seats to the right of the button going backwards. One off the button is the CO, two off is the HJ. Count to the left and you hit SB, then BB, then UTG. If you can find the button, you can name every seat in two seconds.
Grouping the seats: early, middle, late, blinds
Individual names matter, but the groups matter more, because strategy advice is usually given by group:
- Early position (EP): UTG at 6-max. First to act, least information, tightest requirements.
- Middle position (MP): HJ at 6-max. A bit more breathing room.
- Late position (LP): CO and BTN. The profitable seats — most hands played, most pots stolen.
- The blinds: SB and BB. They've already paid, they act last preflop, and they're stuck acting first on every street after the flop. Special rules apply to both, which get their own lessons later.
When a lesson says "you can play more hands in late position," it means CO and BTN specifically. When it says "early position," at a 6-max table it means UTG, and at a full-ring table it means the three seats you're about to meet.
Worked example: finding yourself at 6-max
You sit down at a $0.50/$1 6-max table. The button is on the player two seats to your left. You're dealt A♦T♦. What seat are you in?
Count from the button going right (counter-clockwise): one off the button is the CO — that's the player directly to your left. Two off the button is you: the hijack.
- 1.
Is A♦T♦ a hand you want here? Yes — ATs appears in this site's standard hijack opening range, and against a single random hand it wins about 65% of the time. But notice what the position name is doing for you: "HJ with ATs" is a complete, chartable situation. "Seat 5 with ATs" tells you nothing, because seat 5's job changes every hand. One hand later the button moves one seat clockwise, the CO becomes the button, and you become the cutoff — same chair, new name, new (slightly wider) set of hands you're allowed to play.
Full ring: nine seats, three new names
Live cash games and many online games run 9-handed, called full ring. The button, blinds, CO, and HJ keep their names and their jobs. The three extra players are inserted between the big blind and the hijack, on the early side of the table:
- UTG — still the first seat left of the BB, still first to act preflop.
- UTG+1 — one seat after UTG.
- UTG+2 — two seats after UTG.
- LJ — lojack — the seat after UTG+2 and before the HJ. (You'll also hear it called MP or "middle position"; this site uses LJ.)
So the full clockwise order at 9-handed is: BTN → SB → BB → UTG → UTG+1 → UTG+2 → LJ → HJ → CO → back to BTN. Preflop action starts at UTG and runs UTG → UTG+1 → UTG+2 → LJ → HJ → CO → BTN → SB → BB.
The groups stretch to cover the new seats:
- Early position: UTG, UTG+1, UTG+2 — three seats now, all facing six or more opponents behind them.
- Middle position: LJ and HJ.
- Late position: CO and BTN, exactly as before.
- Blinds: SB and BB, exactly as before.
Here's the key insight about full ring: the seats near the button are identical to their 6-max versions. A full-ring CO faces the same three players behind (BTN, SB, BB) as a 6-max CO does. All the extra danger lands on the early seats — a full-ring UTG player has eight opponents left to act instead of five, so full-ring early position plays even tighter than 6-max early position. In fact, a useful mental model is that a 6-max table is just a full-ring table where the first three seats (UTG through UTG+2) have already folded: 6-max UTG is roughly full-ring LJ in spirit.
Worked example: finding UTG+2 in a live game
You're in a live $1/$2 9-handed game. Seats are numbered 1 through 9 clockwise around the table (live rooms number physical chairs, usually starting at the dealer's left). The button is in seat 3. Where is UTG+2?
Walk clockwise from the button: seat 4 is the SB, seat 5 is the BB, seat 6 is UTG, seat 7 is UTG+1, and seat 8 is UTG+2. Continue and you'd find the LJ in seat 9, the HJ in seat 1, and the CO in seat 2.
Two things to take from this example. First, the counting procedure is mechanical — find the button, walk clockwise through SB and BB, then start the UTG ladder. Do it once per hand until it's automatic; live players who lose track of position end up acting out of turn, which a later lesson covers as an etiquette problem. Second, even in seat 8 — physically far around the table — you're still early position, because position is about how many opponents act after you, not where your chair is. From UTG+2 there are six players still holding live hands behind you.
The shorthand you'll see from here on
Every later lesson, chart, and quiz on this site uses these abbreviations without re-explaining them:
- UTG, UTG+1, UTG+2 — the early seats (only UTG exists at 6-max)
- LJ — lojack (full ring only)
- HJ — hijack
- CO — cutoff
- BTN — button
- SB / BB — small blind / big blind
- EP / MP / LP — early, middle, late position as groups
- "Two off the button" — counting seats to the button's right: one off = CO, two off = HJ, three off = LJ (or UTG at 6-max)
- "Open" / "RFI" — to raise first in from a given seat, as in "a CO open"
One naming trap to avoid: some older books call the HJ "MP" and lump LJ/HJ together, and some sites label full-ring seats MP1/MP2/MP3. The names vary; the structure never does. Whatever the labels, there is always a button, two blinds to its left, and a ladder of seats that gets safer — and looser — as it approaches the button from the right.
When the table shrinks: which seats disappear
Tables rarely stay exactly six or nine players all session. Players bust, leave for dinner, get seated elsewhere — and the position map adjusts by a simple convention: seats vanish from the early end first. The button, blinds, CO, and HJ are permanent fixtures; the UTG ladder shrinks and grows.
- A 9-handed game that loses a player becomes 8-handed: drop UTG+2 (the order is BTN, SB, BB, UTG, UTG+1, LJ, HJ, CO).
- At 7-handed, drop UTG+1 as well.
- At 6-handed you're at the standard 6-max map from the top of this lesson.
- At 5-handed, UTG itself disappears — the first player to act preflop is the HJ. At 4-handed, the HJ goes too and the CO opens the action. Three-handed is just BTN, SB, BB.
This convention matters because position advice keys off the name: "UTG opens tight" assumes a full table behind. When your 6-max game drops to four players, the first seat to act is the CO, and it plays like a CO — wider than any UTG ever would — because only three opponents remain. Count seats from the button and the names take care of themselves; count heads at the table and you'll know how much danger each name implies tonight.
Why the names earn their keep
You now have the vocabulary for the single most important strategic fact in Hold'em, which the next lesson proves in detail: the closer you sit to the button, the more hands you can profitably play. A position name isn't trivia — it compresses three crucial facts into one syllable: how many players still act behind you preflop, whether you'll be first or last to act postflop, and therefore how strong a hand you need to enter the pot. When a chart says "open A♦T♦ from the HJ," all of that context is baked in. Learn the map cold, and every piece of strategy that follows will have somewhere to live.