What hands should you open under the gun in 6-max?

Around 15 to 18% of hands: every pocket pair, AJs and better, ATs, the suited broadways down to QTs and JTs, the suited connectors down to 87s, and only AQo and AKo offsuit. Add AJo and KQo in soft games where the players behind you rarely 3-bet. Everything else waits for a later seat.

Why is the under-the-gun range so tight?

Five players act behind you, so the chance that one of them wakes up with a strong hand is much higher than in late position. You will also be out of position for the whole hand against anyone except the blinds. Tightening is a defence against both problems at once.

Should you open small pocket pairs like 22 under the gun?

Yes, but marginally. You flop a set about one time in eight, so a small pair needs deep stacks and opponents who pay you off when you hit. At 40 big blinds or less the implied odds are gone and folding 22 to 55 under the gun is fine.

How wide should you open under the gun in a 9-max game?

Considerably tighter, closer to 10 to 13% of hands. Seven players act behind you instead of five, so drop the weaker suited connectors, the weakest suited aces, and any offsuit broadway below AQo.

What size should you open under the gun?

About 2.5 big blinds online in 6-max and 3 big blinds or more in live games where the blinds call far too often. Use one size for your whole range so you never give away the strength of your hand by sizing differently.

UTG Opening Ranges Explained for 6-Max Poker

Under the gun in 6-max you open roughly 15 to 18% of hands: every pocket pair, the strong suited aces and broadways, a few suited connectors, and almost nothing offsuit below AQo. Five players still act behind you, and any one of them can 3-bet or squeeze. That crowd behind you, not the raw strength of your cards, is what makes this the tightest opening range at the table.

Why the first seat is the tightest

Opening under the gun costs you twice. Before the flop, five opponents get to look at your raise and decide whether to punish it. After the flop, you are out of position against everyone except the blinds.

The pressure compounds with each seat behind you. Against a single opponent, a hand like KJo is a comfortable raise. Against five, the chance that at least one of them holds something happy to 3-bet is much higher, and you have no information about any of them yet.

Picture what a 3-bet does to a marginal open. You raise to 2.5bb, the CO makes it 8bb, and you are now choosing between folding away your 2.5 and playing a 17bb pot out of position with a hand that was barely worth raising. Both branches are bad, so the fix is upstream: do not open the hand.

If the seat names are still new, start with what under the gun means — the seat immediately left of the big blind, first to act before the flop.

Open under the gun only if you are happy playing the hand out of position against a caller and still comfortable when someone 3-bets you.

What you actually open

A solid UTG range is about 16% of hands, built from four blocks:

Every pocket pair. 22 through AA. The small ones are the thinnest hands in the range and the first to go when stacks get short.
Suited aces and broadways. ATs and better, KQs down to KTs, QJs, QTs, JTs. Suitedness is doing a lot of work here — the offsuit versions of most of these are folds.
Suited connectors down to 87s. T9s, 98s and 87s make straights and flushes that pay off the strong hands that call an early raise.
Almost nothing offsuit. AQo and AKo always. AJo and KQo only in games where the players behind you rarely 3-bet.

Everything else waits for a later seat. AJo, KJo, QJo, ATo, K9s and 76s are all perfectly good hands from the CO and all losers from here.

For the exact hand grid, including the hands solvers raise only some of the time, work from the under-the-gun chart rather than from memory.

How UTG compares with the rest of the table

The same 16 hands out of 100 that you fold under the gun become clear raises three seats later. Nothing about the cards changed — only the number of people who can act after you.

Seat	Players behind	Rough opening frequency
UTG	5	15-18%
HJ	4	19-22%
CO	3	26-30%
BTN	2	40-45%

That is close to a threefold widening across four seats, and it is the single biggest source of edge available to a preflop-only adjustment. If you open the same range everywhere, you are either far too loose under the gun or leaving a fortune on the button. The detail on the other end of that spread is in how wide the button opens.

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The hands that get people into trouble

Offsuit broadways are where most early-position money leaks. AJo, ATo, KQo and KJo all look strong and all suffer the same problem: when they get action, they are usually dominated.

Open AJo under the gun and the hands that continue against you are AQ, AK, JJ and better pairs. You are a big favourite against the hands that fold and a big underdog against the hands that play. That is the definition of a hand you should not be raising first in.

Weak suited aces are the other trap. A5s and A4s earn their place because they block AA and AK and make the nut flush and the wheel. A8s and A7s do neither well, so they sit out.

Small pairs and suited connectors

These are the marginal band, and they survive in the range for a specific reason: they flop huge or fold cheaply.

A pocket pair flops a set about one time in eight, so 22 needs two things to be profitable. Stacks deep enough that a set wins more than the pot, and opponents willing to pay when it arrives. Take either away and the hand stops making money.

Suited connectors work the same way. 87s wins a small pot occasionally and a stack when it makes a straight against an overpair that cannot fold. Against a table of nits who only continue with premiums, both groups lose their value and should be trimmed first.

Adjusting for the game you are in

9-max. Seven players behind means tightening to roughly 10 to 13%. Cut 87s and 98s, cut the weakest suited aces, and keep the offsuit portion to AQo and AKo.

Live and loose. Fewer 3-bets but many more callers. Suited hands go up in value because multiway pots reward hands that flop nutted; offsuit broadways go down because you will rarely get heads-up.

Short stacks. At 40bb or less, the implied odds that justify 22 and 87s disappear. Shift the range towards high-card strength: keep AQo, drop the speculative hands.

Sizing and facing a 3-bet

Use one size for your whole opening range — about 2.5bb online, 3bb or more live — so nobody can read your hand from the amount you raise. There is more nuance in choosing an open raise size.

When the 3-bet comes, your defence is narrower than it feels. Continue with the pairs that flop well and the hands that make the nuts: JJ+ and AK are 4-bets, TT, AQs and the strong suited broadways call, and the offsuit broadways go in the muck. Small pairs and suited connectors mostly fold, because calling a 3-bet out of position with 15bb behind removes the exact upside you opened them for.

Drilling it until it is automatic

Reading a range once teaches you nothing. You learn it by making the decision hundreds of times and being told immediately when you are wrong.

Work through the solver preflop opening charts seat by seat, then drill the borderline hands until the answer arrives before you have to think. Get the first seat right and the rest of the orbit becomes far easier, because you are never playing a hand you should have folded three streets ago.