Button Preflop Range

Playing the button

On the button you will act last on every post-flop street, and only two players — both of whom have already put money in involuntarily — remain to act. The solver opens somewhere around half of all hands.

That number surprises people, and it is worth being precise about what it means. It does not mean those hands are good. It means that with guaranteed position, plus two opponents who will fold a meaningful share of the time, a hand as weak as K5o shows a small profit. Small, not large.

The button is where most of a winning player’s win rate comes from. If you are going to study one seat properly, study this one — and study the parts of the tree that come after the open, because a wide opening range only pays if you can navigate the flops it produces.

The other seats

Position changes the correct range more than any other single factor. Compare:

• Under the gun — opens 16.6% of hands
• Middle position (hijack) — opens 21.5% of hands
• Cutoff — opens 29.6% of hands
• Small blind — opens 40.6% of hands

Once you know which hands to open, the next question is how they perform when called. The equity calculator will run any of these ranges against a specific hand or another range — paste the range notation from above straight into it.