Poker Positions Chart: Every Seat at a Glance

A poker positions chart lays out every seat in order, shows how many players act after each one, and pairs it with a rough opening range. The pattern is simple and worth burning into memory: the closer you sit to the button, the wider you play, because fewer opponents act behind you.

The full seat order

Going clockwise from the dealer button, the seats in a full-ring (9-handed) game are:

Button → Small Blind → Big Blind → Under the Gun → UTG+1 → Middle Position → Hijack → Cutoff → Button

The button is both the end and the beginning of the loop because it’s the pivot everything is measured against. In 6-max, you drop the extra early and middle seats but keep the same logic.

The master positions chart

This is the reference. “Players behind” counts opponents who still act after you pre-flop when it folds to you; the range is a rough “it folds to me” open:

Seat	Group	Players behind (9-handed)	Rough open range
Under the gun (UTG)	Early	8	~10%
UTG+1	Early	7	~12%
Middle position (MP)	Middle	6	~15%
Hijack (HJ)	Late	4	~20%
Cutoff (CO)	Late	3	~27%
Button (BTN)	Late	2	~45%
Small blind (SB)	Blind	1	3-bet or fold
Big blind (BB)	Blind	0	defend wide vs. steals

The blinds break the neat pattern because they act first after the flop — so even though few players act behind them pre-flop, they’re played tight and reactively. For the reasoning behind each seat, see positions explained.

How to read the chart

Two numbers tell the whole story:

• Players behind — the fewer opponents left to act, the less can go wrong, so you open wider.
• Open range — the share of 169 possible starting hands you’d raise first-in.

Notice the jump from cutoff (~27%) to button (~45%). That single seat nearly doubles your range because the button is guaranteed to act last post-flop. It’s the clearest illustration on the chart of why last action is so valuable.

A quick starting-hand chart by group

You don’t need to memorize exact hand grids, but a grouped reference helps:

Range tier	Seats that open it	Includes
Premium only	UTG, UTG+1	Big pairs, AK, AQ, strong suited broadways
Solid +	MP, HJ	Above plus more pairs, suited aces, KQ/KJ
Wide	CO	Above plus suited connectors, better offsuit broadways
Very wide	BTN	Above plus small suited gappers, weak offsuit aces

Tighten every tier when there’s already a raise in front of you — these are first-in opening ranges, not calling ranges. Build precise grids in preflop ranges.

Worked example: reading a spot off the chart

It folds to you in the cutoff with K♦ T♠. Check the chart: the cutoff opens ~27%, and KTo sits comfortably inside a wide-but-not-loose range. Only three players act behind you and two are stuck in the blinds. Raise.

Now move the same K♦ T♠ to under the gun. The chart says UTG opens ~10% — premiums only — and KTo doesn’t make that cut with eight players left to act. Fold. Same two cards, opposite decision, and you resolved it in seconds using nothing but the chart.

Adjusting the chart when there’s a raise ahead

The ranges above are first-in opening ranges — what you raise when everyone before you has folded. The moment a player raises in front of you, the chart flips into a different mode:

• Fold most of your opening range. A hand you’d happily open, like KJo from the cutoff, is often a fold against an under-the-gun raiser because their range is much stronger.
• Continue with a tighter, polarized set. Call or 3-bet your strongest hands and a few bluffs; drop the marginal middle.
• Use position on the raiser. If you’re on the button and the raiser is in middle position, you can continue a bit wider because you’ll have position all hand.

So read the chart in two layers: the base opening range, then a tighter overlay whenever someone has already put in a raise.

Why the numbers climb toward the button

Look down the “rough open range” column and the growth isn’t linear — it accelerates. UTG to middle position adds only a few percent per seat, but cutoff to button nearly doubles. That’s because each seat closer to the button removes a player who could act after you, and the last two removals (the cutoff’s players, then the cutoff itself) are the most valuable. The final seat, the button, buys guaranteed last action on every post-flop street, which is worth far more than any single earlier seat. The chart’s steepening curve is really a picture of how quickly position compounds.

6-max vs. full ring in one glance

Position	Exists in 6-max?	Note
UTG / UTG+1	UTG only	6-max’s UTG is looser than full-ring UTG
Middle position	Sometimes labeled	Fewer middle seats
Hijack, Cutoff, Button	Yes	Behave identically
Blinds	Yes	Identical

The seat names and the widen-toward-the-button trend are the same. 6-max simply removes the tightest early seats, so the whole table plays a bit more aggressively.

Put it together

A positions chart is your fastest path to correct pre-flop decisions: find your seat, check how many players act behind you, and open the matching range. Pair this reference with how to play poker positions and the best-to-worst ranking to turn the chart into real chips at the positions hub.