Preflop Ranges: Building Your Opening Strategy

The One Leak That Costs You the Most Money

Here is a truth most poker players resist: your preflop decisions determine roughly 70% of your win rate. Not your river bluff-catching. Not your turn barrels. The hands you choose to play, from which positions, at which frequencies, that is where the real money lives.

The late-position end of these ranges is where most of the money is, and how to steal blinds breaks it down seat by seat.

New to range thinking? Start with what a range is and how position works, then use the free poker range calculator to build and compare the ranges discussed below.

I have coached hundreds of students at NL200+, and the pattern is always the same. They show me a database where they lose 8bb/100 from UTG and win 45bb/100 from the button. Their Range construction is inverted: opening 22% from UTG when the solve says 18.7%, and only 32% from the button when the solve says 43.3%.

If that sounds familiar, this article will fix it. We are building your opening strategy from the ground up using solver-derived ranges you can apply in your next session.

Why Position Dictates Everything

Position is not just "nice to have", it is the single most powerful variable in poker. When you act last on every postflop street, you get to see your opponent's action before committing chips. You control the pot size. You realize more of your equity because you can take free cards when you want them and extract value when you have the goods.

This is why solver-approved Raise First In (RFI) ranges expand dramatically as you move from early to late position. The math is straightforward: acting last is worth roughly 15-20bb/100 of pure positional advantage. That edge lets you profitably play hands that would be losing propositions from earlier seats.

For a detailed breakdown of how preflop fundamentals connect to overall GTO strategy, read our guide on GTO Poker Fundamentals: What Every Player Should Know.

Your Position-by-Position RFI Blueprint (6-Max, 100bb)

The ranges below are decoded from a solved 6-max cash game at 100 big blinds in GTO Ranges+, not estimated. Open sizing is 2.5bb from every seat except the small blind, which uses 3bb. Your own game will differ with rake and pool, so read the shape rather than memorising the decimals.

Source: GTO Ranges+, 6-max cash, 100bb, 2.5bb open. Both grids are decoded from the solve, so all 169 hand classes carry their real frequency.

Under the Gun: 18.7% of hands

Five players behind you, so the range has to survive 3-bets and play out of position when it gets called. Forty-five hand classes open at least half the time. The structure:

• Every pocket pair. 44 and up are pure opens, 33 opens 97% and 22 opens 79%, so the bottom two are frequent rather than automatic.
• Broadway, generously. AKo, AQo, AJo and KQo are all pure opens here, not late-position additions.
• Suited aces all the way down to A3s, with A2s left behind as a fold until the hijack.
• Suited connectors and one-gappers: JTs, T9s, J9s and 65s are pure, while 87s (89%), 76s (94%) and 54s (82%) open most of the time.

What actually stays out is the offsuit filler that looks playable and dominates poorly: KTo opens 11% and QJo 12%. Those are the hands that make second-best pairs and get punished by 3-bets.

Hijack: 22.9% of hands

One fewer player behind buys you eight new hand classes, and they are smaller than most people expect: A2s, KJo, K8s, K7s, K6s, QJo, J8s and 97s. That is the whole addition.

This is where many players first leak. The button feels close, so they add offsuit broadways and weak suited kings a full seat early. The solve adds one suited ace, one offsuit broadway, three suited kings and two connectors, and nothing else.

Cutoff: 29.4% of hands

Fifteen more classes enter: A9o, A8o, KTo, K5s, K4s, K3s, QTo, Q8s, Q7s, JTo, T7s, 86s, 75s, 64s and 53s. Notice the pattern. The offsuit broadways that were folds under the gun (KTo, QTo, JTo) become opens here, and the suited kings run down to K3s.

From the cutoff you have two players to get through before you are guaranteed position on the blinds, which is what makes this class of hand profitable rather than marginal.

Button: 43.3% of hands

Twenty-six more classes, and the range finally reaches the shapes people associate with button play: suited kings and queens down to K2s and Q2s, suited connectors and gappers down to 43s, and the offsuit broadways T9o, J9o and Q9o.

One correction worth making, because it is a common overreach: the offsuit aces do not run all the way down. A9o through A5o are pure opens, A4o is in, A3o opens 18% and A2o is a pure fold even on the button. If you are opening every offsuit ace from here, you are past the equilibrium, not at it.

Small blind: 33.1% raise, 20.5% limp

Here is where the common advice and this solve part company. The familiar rule is that the small blind should raise or fold with no limps, on the logic that you are permanently out of position and should not build pots passively. This solve does not do that. It raises 33.1% to 3bb, completes 20.5%, and folds the rest.

The limp is not a leak in the solution, it is a second strategy that exists because the small blind is closing the action against only one opponent for half a big blind. If you want to copy the equilibrium here rather than the rule of thumb, you need a limping range as well as a raising range, which is a genuinely harder strategy to execute than raise-or-fold. If you are not going to build both, raise-or-fold remains the safer simplification. Just know it is a simplification.

The 3bb sizing from the small blind, larger than the 2.5bb used everywhere else, is real and worth copying. You are out of position for the rest of the hand, so you charge more to see a flop.

Adjusting Ranges by Table Dynamics

Solver ranges assume competent opponents playing close to equilibrium. Real tables are messier, and that is where the money is. Here is how to adjust:

When Players Behind You 3-Bet Too Much

Tighten your opening range by 3-5% and weight it toward hands that play well against 3-bets (high-card hands that can call or 4-bet, like AQo, JJ, TT). Remove the bottom of your suited connector range, which folds to 3-bets and wastes a raise.

When Players Behind You Are Passive

Widen your opening range by 5-8%. If nobody is 3-betting you, marginal hands like K8o from the cutoff or Q7s from the hijack become profitable opens because you see more flops uncontested and in position. For a deep dive on 3-bet and 4-bet dynamics, check out 3-Bet and 4-Bet Ranges That Print Money in 2026.

When the Big Blind Defends Too Wide

This is actually good news. Open wider with hands that make strong top pairs (Ax, Kx broadways) because you will get paid off postflop. Reduce bluff-heavy suited connectors that need fold equity preflop to be profitable.

When the Big Blind Defends Too Tight

Open nearly any two cards from the button and cutoff. If the BB is folding 60%+ to opens, you profit from the steal alone regardless of your cards.

Common Range Construction Mistakes

The three most common leaks I see in student databases:

• Using the same range everywhere: If your UTG and CO ranges look similar, something is badly wrong. Your CO range should be nearly twice the size of your UTG range.
• Overvaluing offsuit hands: KTo and KTs are different hands entirely. The suited version makes flushes, has better equity realization, and plays profitably from two extra positions. Check Preflop+ hand grids to see exactly where each offsuit hand drops out.
• Ignoring rake: At lower stakes, rake eats into marginal opens. Hands that are barely profitable at zero rake become losers at 5bb/100 rake. Tighten by 2-3% at micro and small stakes.

Put It Into Practice

Reading about ranges is step one. Internalizing them is what actually moves your win rate. Here is your action plan:

• Week 1-2: Open Preflop+ and drill opening ranges from each position using the quiz mode. Aim for 90%+ accuracy before moving on.
• Week 3-4: Layer in 3-bet and cold-call ranges. The Preflop Strategy Masterclass walks through this progression step by step.
• Week 5+: Start tracking your positional stats in your database. Compare your actual opening percentages to the solver baselines above and fix any deviations.

Ready to make your preflop game airtight? Download Preflop+ on the App Store and start drilling solver-perfect ranges today. Your postflop game will thank you.