Poker Range Charts by Position: Preflop Guide (2026)

Poker Hand Ranges: Preflop Charts by Position (2026)

You raise to 2.5 big blinds from the cutoff with K♠Q♠. The button calls, everyone else folds, and the flop comes Q♦7♥3♣. You bet, the button raises. Now what? If your first instinct is "does he have a set?", you're already off track. The winning question in 2026 is not what one hand your opponent holds. It's which hands he would play this exact way, and how your top pair fares against that entire group.

That group is a range. Learning to think in ranges is the dividing line between a player who guesses and a player who calculates. A single hand is a snapshot; a range is the whole photo album, every hand your opponent could hold given how the action went. Once you see the table this way, preflop charts stop being a wall of colored squares and start being a map of who plays what, from where.

This guide covers what a range is, the four ways ranges are written down, complete opening charts for every seat at the table, and how calling, 3-betting, and blockers reshape those charts. Every grid below is built from real combo math. When you want to stop reading and start clicking, you can build and visualize any range in our poker range builder.

TL;DR: Ranges and Preflop Charts at a Glance

A range is every hand a player can hold in a spot, shown as highlighted cells on a 13×13 grid. Preflop, the core skill is knowing how many hands to open from each seat: tight from early position, wide from the button. Everything else, calling, 3-betting, bluffing, is built on top of that base.

The Key Numbers You Need

Memorize these and most of the topic falls into place. There are 169 starting hands but 1,326 real combinations, and your opening frequency should climb steadily as you move closer to the button.

The one habit that separates winning players: before you act, picture the highlighted block for your seat, and picture your opponent's block for theirs. Two ranges, one decision. The rest of this guide is how to draw and read those blocks fast.

If you would rather watch the shapes before reading the math, this walkthrough covers opening ranges by position.

What Is a Poker Range?

A range is the complete set of hands a player would take a given line with. Not a guess at one holding, the full list, weighted by how likely each one is. When a tight player opens under the gun, their range is a small, strong cluster. When a maniac opens the button, it's nearly half the deck. Naming the range rather than the hand is the whole game.

Range Thinking vs. Guessing a Single Hand

Beginners play hand versus hand. They put their opponent on ace-king, get married to that read, and pay off when they're wrong. Strong players never lock onto one hand. They hold the entire range in mind and update it street by street. Say a tight regular raises early. Their range is roughly the top 12% of hands. When the flop comes 9♦6♦2♣ and they keep betting, hands like ace-king that missed tend to slow down, so their betting range narrows toward overpairs and sets. You don't need to know their exact cards. You need to know which cards survive their own line.

This is why a marginal hand can be a great call against one range and a snap fold against another. Your two cards didn't change. The range you're up against did. Assign the range first, then decide, and your calls and folds stop being feelings and start being math. To pressure-test a read, run your hand against a full range in the equity calculator and see exactly how you fare.

The Four Ways a Range Is Shown

The same range can be written four different ways, and fluent players read all of them at a glance. A chart, a percentage, a combo count, and a text strand are just four dialects for the same idea. Learn to translate between them and no range notation will slow you down.

The 13×13 Hand Matrix

The grid is the universal picture of a range. Thirteen rows and thirteen columns, one cell per starting-hand type. Pocket pairs run down the diagonal from aces in the top-left to deuces in the bottom-right. Suited hands sit above the diagonal, in the upper-right triangle. Offsuit hands fill the lower-left. Highlighted cells are the hands in the range; blank cells are folds. The grid below highlights only the pocket pairs so you can see the diagonal spine every chart is built around.

Percentage Form: a 15% Range

Ranges are often quoted as a percentage of all hands. A 15% range is the strongest 15% of starting hands, roughly the top-left corner of the grid. This is the fastest way to compare two ranges in conversation: a 12% early open is clearly tighter than a 50% button open, without listing a single hand. Solvers and training sites speak in percentages constantly, so the number alone should trigger a mental picture of how large that highlighted block is.

Range Strands: 22+, ATs+, AQo+

A strand is the text version of the grid, and it's how ranges get typed into tools and forums. The plus sign means "this and everything better." So 22+ is every pair from deuces to aces. ATs+ is every suited ace from ace-ten through ace-king. AQo+ is ace-queen and ace-king offsuit. A dash gives a span, so ATs-AJs is just ace-ten and ace-jack suited. String a few of these together and you've described a full range in one line, for example: 22+, ATs+, KJs+, AQo+.

Combos: How the Math Works

Percentages and strands hide something important: not every hand is equally likely. A specific offsuit hand shows up three times as often as its suited version, and this matters enormously when you're counting how much of a range is value versus bluff. The unit that captures it is the combo, a single unique two-card holding.

Pairs = 6, Suited = 4, Offsuit = 12

Every hand type breaks into a fixed number of combos. A pocket pair has 6 combinations, since four cards of that rank pair up six ways. A suited hand has 4, one per suit. An offsuit hand has 12. Add the whole grid and you get 1,326 combos across 169 hand types. The table below is worth committing to memory, because combo counting is how you weigh ranges against each other. For the formal derivation, the Wikipedia page on Texas hold'em starting hands lays out the same numbers.

Why AKo Is Three Times More Likely Than AKs

Here's the practical payoff. When you put an opponent on "ace-king," they hold the offsuit version three times as often as the suited one, because offsuit is 12 combos and suited is only 4. So if you're counting how many strong aces are in a range, the offsuit combos dominate. This same logic drives blockers: holding one ace yourself cuts every ace-based combo in your opponent's range. Combo counting turns vague reads into hard numbers. You can construct your own opening range by position and watch the combo total shift as you add hands.

Preflop Opening Ranges by Position (2026 Charts)

Position is the master key to preflop ranges. The later you act, the more hands you can open, because fewer players remain to wake up with a monster and because you'll act last on every street that follows. The charts below are baseline cash-game opening ranges: the hands you raise first-in when it folds to you. Tighten them slightly in a full-ring game, loosen them against passive opponents, but the shape is the foundation.

The chart makes the pattern obvious: opening frequency climbs from a tight early-position range to a wide button, then the small blind opens its own special range.

This master table is the reference version of that chart, with the exact hands for each seat written as a strand.

Under the Gun (UTG): The Tightest Range

First to act, you open only your strongest hands, roughly 12%. Everyone at the table still gets to act behind you, so any hand you open has to survive the worst of it: getting 3-bet, running into better hands, and playing three streets out of position. Big pairs, strong suited aces and broadways, a handful of suited connectors. That's the whole story. The moment you find yourself opening ace-nine offsuit under the gun, you're leaking.

Middle Position and the Lojack

One or two seats later, with a few players folded, you widen to about 16%. Lower suited aces come in, more suited broadways become opens, and small pairs gain value because you're less likely to run into a monster. The jump from UTG to middle position is deliberately small. The cutoff, button, and blinds still act behind you, so discipline still wins.

The Hijack

Two off the button, the range jumps to about 23%. Suited connectors and gappers arrive, weaker suited aces play as blockers and backups, and offsuit broadways down to king-ten and queen-ten become opens. This is where many players open too tight out of habit. The math says go wider: you're only two folds away from having position on the whole hand.

The Cutoff

One seat from the button, around 27%, you're stealing more than value-betting. Any suited ace, most suited kings, connectors down to the low end, a broad offsuit range. All opens. The cutoff and button together are where most of your preflop profit is made, because you open light and play the rest of the hand in position against the blinds.

The Button: The Widest Range

On the button you open close to 50% of all hands. Only the two blinds are left, and you'll have position for the entire hand. Every suited hand worth its salt, offsuit hands down to seven-six, small pairs, every suited ace and king. If that feels reckless, remember that position is worth a fortune, and the blinds are either folding or playing out of position. The button is where the phrase "the button prints money" comes from.

Small Blind and Big Blind: Special Cases

The blinds don't open the same way. From the small blind you're out of position against the big blind for the entire hand, so a raise-first-in range of around 37% is standard, often blended with a few limps in modern strategy. The big blind never opens first-in, since when it folds to the big blind everyone else is already out. Instead the big blind defends, calling or 3-betting against whoever opened, and can defend very wide because it's already getting a discount on the call. That defending job is the next section.

Calling and 3-Bet Ranges

Opening is only half of preflop. When someone else raises, you're responding, and your range splits into three branches: fold, call, or 3-bet. Which hands go where depends on your position and the opener's seat. A range that would open in a vacuum forks into different piles once there's a raise in front of you.

Defending Ranges: BB vs. BTN and BTN vs. UTG

When the button opens 50% and it folds to you in the big blind, you defend wide, because you're closing the action and getting a price. A defending call range here runs above 20% of hands, covering everything with playable equity against a loose opener. Contrast that with the button facing a tight under-the-gun open: now you call only strong, position-friendly hands, because the opener's range is a small, powerful cluster. Same seat, very different job.

3-Bet Ranges and How a Range Forks

A 3-bet is a reraise before the flop, and most solid 3-bet ranges are polarized: strong value hands you want to build a pot with, mixed with bluffs that block your opponent's best continuing hands. The grid below shows a cutoff 3-bet against an early open. Notice the shape: premiums in the top-left corner, plus scattered small suited aces like ace-five and ace-four that work as bluffs because holding an ace makes it more likely your opponent has to fold. That gap between the value block and the bluffs is what "polarized" looks like on a chart. To design one yourself, map out a polarized 3-bet range visually and watch how the two clusters sit apart.

Polarized vs. Linear vs. Condensed Ranges

Not every range is the same shape, and naming the shape tells you how to bet it. Three shapes cover almost everything: polarized, linear, and condensed. Choosing the right one for the spot is what separates players who understand ranges from players who just memorized a chart.

A polarized range wants a big bet, because you either have the nuts and want value or you're bluffing and want folds, and medium hands aren't in there to complicate things. A linear range wants a smaller, value-oriented size, because every hand is decent and none need to bluff. Reading the board and picking the shape is the bridge from preflop charts to real postflop play.

Combos, Blockers, and Equity

Ranges are made of combos, and combos are where the sharpest edges live. Once you can count how many combinations a range holds, you can do two powerful things: use your own cards to shrink an opponent's strong combos, and measure your whole range against theirs. This is the math that turns a chart into a decision.

How Blockers Cut an Opponent's Combos

A blocker is a card in your hand that removes combinations from your opponent's range. The classic case is holding an ace when you're considering a bluff 3-bet. Say your opponent continues against a 3-bet with aces, kings, and ace-king. Normally that value block is 6 combos of aces, 6 of kings, 4 of ace-king suited, and 12 of ace-king offsuit. Now you hold ace-five suited. Your single ace drops their aces from 6 combos to 3, their ace-king suited from 4 to 3, and their offsuit ace-king from 12 to about 9. You've quietly cut their strongest continuing hands nearly in half, which makes your bluff far more likely to work.

That's why small suited aces are premium 3-bet bluffs and random offsuit trash is not. It's not about your hand's raw strength. It's about which of your opponent's combos your cards erase. To feel this in action, see how removing combos shifts equity with different blockers in your hand.

Range vs. Range: Equity and Range Advantage

Equity is how often a hand or a range wins if the cards run out. Range advantage means your entire range has more equity than your opponent's on a specific board. If you raised preflop and the flop comes king-high, your range is full of kings and overpairs while the caller's is not, so you hold the range advantage and can bet often. This is a range-versus-range concept, not a single-hand one, and it's the engine behind most winning aggression. Once you know your equity, price the call with the pot odds calculator, and if you're on a draw you can turn outs into equity fast before deciding. The same price-and-probability thinking runs through pot odds and implied odds, and in tournaments it collides with ICM in poker, where chip equity warps every marginal decision near a pay jump.

Reading and Memorizing Ranges

Charts are the starting point, not the finish line. The real skill is taking a static preflop range and narrowing it as the hand develops, reading opponents who deviate from the charts, and holding all of it in your head without a printout. These habits turn range theory into table results.

Narrowing an Opponent's Range and Reading HUD Stats

A range isn't frozen. It shrinks street by street as your opponent takes actions that only some of their hands would take. A preflop caller who checks the flop, calls a turn bet, then leads the river has narrowed themselves toward a specific band of hands, and each action prunes the ones that would have played differently. Online, tracking stats speed this up. VPIP tells you how often a player enters pots, PFR how often they raise first-in, and RFI is that opening frequency by seat. A player with a 40% VPIP has a far wider, weaker range than a 15% nit, and you adjust your responses accordingly. Our HUD stats guide breaks down what each number means, and PFR and what it reveals about an opponent goes deeper on the preflop read.

How to Memorize Ranges Fast

Don't try to memorize 169 hands per seat. Learn the perimeter instead: the loosest hand you open from each position, then fill inward toward the premiums. Anchor to a couple of reference points, a roughly 12% early range and a 50% button, and interpolate the seats in between. The shapes repeat, so once the button's outline lives in your head, the cutoff is just a slightly smaller version. Drilling with a tool beats staring at a printout, so construct opening ranges by position until the outlines are automatic, and pair it with sound bankroll management so variance never forces you off your ranges.

GTO vs. Exploitative Ranges: Which to Use When

The charts in this guide are close to GTO, meaning they're balanced enough that no opponent can exploit them. That's the right default, especially against strong or unknown players. But GTO is a starting point, not a straitjacket. Against a specific weak opponent, you deviate to exploit them: open wider against blinds that never fight back, cut your bluffs against a player who never folds, 3-bet for pure value against someone who calls too much. The workflow is straightforward. Learn the balanced ranges first so you have a sound baseline, then bend them toward whatever mistake the table in front of you keeps making. For exact equity behind those adjustments, run any hand against a full range and let the numbers settle it. For a deeper library of balanced charts, Upswing's preflop charts and SplitSuit's range-reading guide are both solid outside references.