What Is the Hijack in Poker?

The hijack is the seat two to the right of the button, directly in front of the cutoff, and it is the point in the orbit where opening ranges start to widen. Only three players act behind you instead of four or five, so you can profitably open hands under the gun has to muck. In 6-max it is the second seat to act preflop; at a nine-handed table it is the sixth.

Where the name comes from

The cutoff earned its name by cutting off the button's steal: raise from the seat in front and the best position at the table never gets to open. The hijack does the same thing one seat earlier, taking the steal off the cutoff before the cutoff can attempt it.

The label stuck because the motive is genuine: nobody wants to play a pot against the two seats that always act last, so you raise first and make them come in on your terms.

What you open from it

Fewer players behind means fewer hands left to wake up with something better, and that is the whole justification for widening. Rough baselines for a 100bb 6-max game:

Those extra few percent are the hands position rescues: suited broadways like K♠J♠, middle suited connectors such as 87s, and small pairs that want a cheap flop and an easy fold. Offsuit junk stays in the muck, because K9o is beaten by most of what calls you.

The hijack is a stealing seat with two better stealing seats behind it. Open wide enough to pressure the blinds, tight enough to survive being pressured yourself.

Playing the seat well

You raise to 2.5bb with A♥J♥ at $1/$2, risking $5 to win the $3 already out there, and the button three-bets. That is the hijack's defining problem: you will play the rest of the hand out of position against the widest range at the table. A♥J♥ is a call rather than a four-bet, and folding it every time turns your open into free money for the seats behind you.

The common leak is treating the hijack like the button. Two seats of difference is worth roughly double the opening range, so the bottom of a button range — Q8s, J9o, K9o — quietly loses money from here.

Tighten further when the table earns it. If the cutoff and button three-bet relentlessly, your weakest opens go first: they need to win pots uncontested and are not being allowed to. The solver-built preflop charts give you a hijack range for 6-max, 9-max and tournament stacks, so the baseline you deviate from is solved rather than guessed.