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Under the gun is the seat immediately to the left of the big blind, and it speaks first before the flop. The name is borrowed imagery and it is accurate: you have to put chips in with every other player still to act, and any one of them can raise you. At a nine-handed table that is eight separate chances to be punished for a hand you have already committed to. Nothing else about the seat matters as much as that number, and it is why UTG plays the tightest range at the table. Tap UTG on the map below to see where it sits, how many players are still behind it, and what happens to both when the table gets shorter.
Where UTG sits at a nine-handed, six-max or short-handed table
How many players still act behind you, seat by seat
An opening range specific enough to use at tonight's game
Table positions
Preflop action starts left of the big blind and moves clockwise. The button moves one seat after every hand.
Players behind you
8
Position group
Early
The abbreviation never changes and the seat always does. UTG at a six-handed table has four players behind it — fewer than the lojack has in a full ring game — so it opens wider than a full-ring UTG, not tighter. Playing every table size with one range is the most common way a good player loses money in a game that shrinks as the night goes on.
Table size
9-handed
Which seat is UTG
Left of the big blind
Players still to act
8
Rough opening range
15%
Closest full-ring seat
—
Table size
8-handed
Which seat is UTG
Left of the big blind
Players still to act
7
Rough opening range
16%
Closest full-ring seat
UTG+1
Table size
6-handed
Which seat is UTG
Left of the big blind
Players still to act
5
Rough opening range
20%
Closest full-ring seat
Lojack
Table size
5-handed
Which seat is UTG
Left of the big blind
Players still to act
4
Rough opening range
23%
Closest full-ring seat
Hijack
Table size
4-handed
Which seat is UTG
Left of the big blind
Players still to act
3
Rough opening range
28%
Closest full-ring seat
Cutoff
Table size
3-handed
Which seat is UTG
The button
Players still to act
2
Rough opening range
45%
Closest full-ring seat
Button
Nine-handed, no straddle, everyone deep. Roughly fifteen percent of hands — about one deal in seven — and the other six go in the muck. The column that decides each row is the last one: every hand here has to be worth playing after somebody behind you raises.
Hand class
Big pairs
Examples
AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT
Open from UTG?
Always
Why
Ahead of nearly everything that calls, and happy to get raised.
Hand class
Small and middle pairs
Examples
99 down to 55
Open from UTG?
Usually
Why
They flop a set about one time in eight and cost nothing the rest of the time.
Hand class
Big broadway
Examples
AK, AQ, AJs, KQs
Open from UTG?
Yes
Why
Strong enough to continue against a re-raise, and they dominate the hands that call.
Hand class
Suited aces
Examples
AJs, ATs, A5s
Open from UTG?
The top half
Why
AJs and ATs open. A5s is a coin-flip decision that depends on how often the blinds defend.
Hand class
Suited connectors
Examples
JTs, T9s, 98s
Open from UTG?
The high ones only
Why
They need several callers to pay them off, and out of position they rarely get them.
Hand class
Offsuit aces
Examples
AJo, ATo, A9o
Open from UTG?
AJo at most
Why
The classic UTG leak: it looks like an ace and plays like a kicker problem.
Hand class
Everything else
Examples
KJo, QTo, J9s, 76s
Open from UTG?
Fold
Why
Fine from the cutoff, unprofitable with eight players still to speak.
Find the button, count two seats clockwise to reach the big blind, then one more. That seat is under the gun. It is the first player to make a real decision on every hand, because the blinds were posted rather than chosen. The seats after it are called UTG+1 and UTG+2 at a full table, and together the three of them are early position — the part of the table where you act first and learn last.
Every hand you open under the gun has to get past eight players before the flop is even dealt. Each of them can raise, and the ones who do are usually holding something better than the marginal hand that tempted you. That is not a small tax. A hand like ATo wins money on the button because three players fold behind it and the two blinds are playing badly; the same hand under the gun runs into AJ, AQ and AK far more often than it beats them. The range is tight not because early position is unlucky but because arithmetic removes the hands that need weak opposition to be profitable.
If you only change one thing about how you play this seat, stop opening offsuit aces below AJo. Ax offsuit is the single most over-opened class of hand in home games, and under the gun it is the worst version of the problem: when it hits an ace it is usually behind a better ace, and when it misses it has nothing. Everything else on the list can survive being simplified. This one cannot, because the hands that call you are exactly the hands that beat it.
One or two players folding ahead of you does not change much. There are still six or seven left to act, and the hands they can wake up with are the same. Play UTG+1 and UTG+2 almost identically to UTG — a percentage point or two wider, not a new range. The seat where the maths genuinely changes is the lojack, three seats before the button, which is the first spot where attacking the blinds is a realistic plan rather than a hope.
Shorten the table and the early cluster disappears first: UTG+1 and UTG+2 are the seats that get removed, not the cutoff or the button. So six-handed UTG has five players behind it instead of eight, which puts it roughly where the lojack sits in a full ring game. Open around a fifth of your hands from it rather than a seventh. Home games drift down from nine players to six as people leave, and most groups keep playing their nine-handed ranges at a six-handed table — then wonder why the game went quiet.
A straddle is a blind raise posted before the deal, usually double the big blind, from the seat that would otherwise be under the gun. It buys that player the last word before the flop, which means the seat to their left is now first to act and is, functionally, the new under the gun. Two things follow. The real UTG is now a straddler with position for one round of betting, and everybody else is playing for twice the price with the same cards. If your game straddles every hand, tighten the seats after it rather than loosening them to chase the bigger pot.
Opening under the gun does not stop costing you when the flop comes. Whoever called has position on you for the turn and the river as well, so you check into them, they see what you do first, and they get to decide how much the pot is worth with more information than you have. Plan the hand accordingly: bet flops that genuinely favour the range you opened with — high cards, paired boards — and give up cheaply on the ones that do not, instead of firing a second barrel into somebody who has been happy to call twice.
A cardroom has a dealer who announces the action. A kitchen table has a plastic disc somebody forgot to move and an argument about whose turn it was. Move the button clockwise before the next deal starts, say out loud who is under the gun for the first few hands of the night, and the rest sorts itself out. A room on PokerChip.live tracks seat order and stacks for you, so the button and the blinds advance on their own and nobody has to remember whether they already posted.
FAQ
01
It is the seat immediately to the left of the big blind, which acts first before the flop. The name comes from the pressure of having to decide with every other player still to speak behind you.
02
Still the seat left of the big blind, but it now has five players behind it instead of eight. That makes it roughly equivalent to the lojack at a nine-handed table, and it should open about 20% of hands rather than 15%.
03
About one in seven at a full table — pairs, big broadway, the strongest suited aces and a few high suited connectors. If you are opening a quarter of your hands from this seat you are losing money on the difference.
04
You can, and it is usually a mistake. Limping invites the whole table in behind you at a cheap price, in a hand where you will act first on every street. Raise or fold; the hands that are too weak to raise are too weak to play out of position.
05
No, it is the next seat along, but the difference is small enough that you should play them almost identically. Seven players behind you is not meaningfully safer than eight.
06
The straddler posts a blind raise from the UTG seat and gets to act last before the flop, so the player to their left becomes first to act. That seat is now effectively under the gun, and the price of every hand has doubled.
07
It is the worst seat you choose to enter a pot from, but the small blind is the worst seat overall: it posts money, acts first after the flop, and gets a worse price to continue than the big blind does.
08
The phrase means being under immediate pressure to act, and the seat is the literal case of it at a poker table — you decide first, with the least information available to anyone in the hand.
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