Poker positions explained: what UTG, CO, BTN, and the blinds mean
Poker positions such as UTG, HJ, CO, BTN, SB, and BB describe your seat relative to the button, and that seat decides how much information you get and which hands are worth playing. This guide names every seat at a 6-max and full ring table and groups them into early, middle, late, and the blinds.
Sit down at a six or nine handed table and the seats are not created equal. Position, your seat relative to the button, decides how much information you get before you act and which starting hands are actually worth playing.
The blinds: SB and BB
The small blind (SB) and big blind (BB) sit directly left of the button and post forced bets before any cards come out. They act early before the flop, first the small blind then the big blind, which sounds like an advantage. It is not. Once the flop lands, both blinds must act before everyone else for the rest of the hand. A small preflop discount paired with a full hand of acting first is what makes the blinds the hardest seats to play. For the mechanics of why acting first costs so much, see why position matters.
Early position: UTG and the tightest range
Under the gun, or UTG, sits immediately left of the big blind and is the first player to act preflop with live cards. A full ring table with nine seats stretches early position further, adding UTG+1 and often UTG+2 before the action reaches the middle seats. Whatever the table size, early position shares the same problem: nearly everyone else is still to act. Open a marginal hand from UTG and a stronger hand, or a three bet, can be waiting from any of the players left behind you. That is why UTG opens the tightest range at the table, built from big pairs, strong broadways, and the best suited aces.
Middle position: LJ, MP, and HJ
Middle position sits between early position and the cutoff. At a full ring table it splits into the lojack (LJ) and the hijack (HJ), each opening after the seat before it with a slightly wider range. At a 6-max table there is usually only one middle seat, most commonly labeled HJ, sometimes MP, since six players leaves no room for a separate lojack. Fewer opponents are left to act than from UTG, so the range widens to include more suited connectors and offsuit broadways than an early open would.
Late position: CO and BTN
The cutoff (CO) and the button (BTN) are the two best seats at the table. The cutoff acts second to last before the flop and can attack a table that has folded around to it. The button acts last on every postflop street of every hand it plays, which is the single biggest structural edge in the game. That is why a solid button opening range can run to roughly half of all starting hands, hands that would be an easy fold from UTG.
Why later position means a wider range
The pattern across every seat comes down to one number: how many players are still left to act. Fewer opponents behind you means fewer chances that someone wakes up with a hand that beats yours, and that alone lets a wider range show a profit.
| Position | Typical opening range (6-max) |
|---|---|
| UTG | Tight, around 15% of hands |
| HJ | Moderate, around 20 to 25% of hands |
| CO | Wide, around 27 to 30% of hands |
| BTN | Widest, around 45 to 50% of hands |
| SB | Tight open, narrower than the button |
| BB | Does not open. Defends wide against a raise instead |
A position's name is really just a count of how many opponents can still wake up with a better hand. Fewer behind you, wider you can profitably open.
In position or out of position after the flop
Position does not stop mattering once the cards are dealt. Whoever acts last on the flop, turn, and river is in position for that hand, and everyone else is out of position. The button is in position against the entire field every time it plays a pot. The blinds are out of position against almost everyone, which is the real, ongoing cost of the seat rather than a one street inconvenience. The earlier your preflop seat, the more streets you will typically spend out of position, and that is exactly why the ranges above get tighter the earlier you sit. To turn this shape into a seat by seat chart, see preflop ranges by position or drill it directly in the preflop tool.
Bottom line
Poker positions are labels for how many players act after you: UTG in early position, LJ and HJ in the middle, CO and BTN in late position, and SB and BB in the blinds. Early seats need strong hands because so many players are still to act, while the cutoff and button can profitably open far more hands because so few are left behind them. Learn the six 6-max seats first, since full ring positions are the same early, middle, late, and blind shape with a couple of extra early seats bolted on.
Frequently asked questions
- What do UTG, CO, and BTN mean in poker?
- UTG stands for under the gun, the first player to act before the flop and the seat with the tightest opening range. CO stands for cutoff, the seat directly before the button, and BTN stands for button, the seat that acts last after the flop in every hand it plays. These labels describe how many players are left to act, not any special strength in the cards themselves.
- How many positions are there at a 6-max poker table?
- A 6-max table has six seats: UTG, the hijack, the cutoff, the button, the small blind, and the big blind. Full ring tables with nine seats add extra early seats such as UTG+1 and a separate lojack, but the same early, middle, late, and blind grouping still applies.
- Why do earlier positions play tighter ranges?
- A player under the gun still has several opponents left to act behind them, so opening a weak hand risks running into a stronger one, or a three bet, before the flop even happens. The button faces only two players who have already shown they are willing to fold, so it can profitably open a much wider range. The number of players still to act, not the cards themselves, is what changes the correct range at each seat.
- What is the difference between the small blind and the big blind?
- The small blind acts before the big blind before the flop but after everyone else once the flop arrives, and it posts half the size of the big blind forced bet. Both blinds are out of position for the entire postflop part of the hand, which is why they are considered the two toughest seats to play despite getting a discounted price to see a flop.