Fewer than half of all hands reach the flop, but preflop, you play every single one. And preflop is the only part of a hand that repeats: 169 starting hands, six seats and a handful of spots in front of you — the same problem will come up a few hundred times this month. Only repeating things can be systematised.
This post is the map for the preflop topic on this site. Each stop covers only the essentials; the detail is in the posts it links to. If the basic rules are still not solid, read what Texas Hold’em is and hand rankings in full first.
Six stops: three questions | position and ranges | six spots | sizing | seven numbers | practice
Three Questions Before You Press a Button
When the action reaches you there are only ever three buttons: fold, call, raise. Before pressing one, answer three questions in order:
| Order | Question | Why it sits here |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Where am I sitting? | It will not change for the rest of the hand, and it sets how strict the answers to the other two have to be |
| 2 | What has happened in front of me, and how many players are left behind? | It decides which spot you are in and how much risk you are taking on |
| 3 | What am I holding? | This one only means anything once the first two are answered |
Most players only look at the third. The same K9s is a raise on the button with everyone folding in front, and a fold under the gun — the hand did not change and the answer reversed, because the answer to question one did.
Position and Ranges
What position does preflop is put a price on every hand: the earlier you act, the higher the bar. The default opening ranges run from 11.2% under the gun to 46.9% on the button, a factor of four.
This stop has its own series. Read it in order:
- Texas Hold’em Basics: Position Names at 6-Max and 9-Handed Tables
- Why Good Players Love the Button: In Position vs Out of Position (IP/OOP)
- Why Beginners Lose at Poker: No Sense of Position and Range
Each of the six seats has a short post of its own (UTG / MP / CO / BTN / SB / BB), listed in the Texas Hold’em position guide. Every position’s range is drawn out square by square in free Texas Hold’em preflop range charts.
Remember just one thing: a chart says which hands are eligible to be considered. It does not say this hand has to be played that way. It cannot see who is behind you, whether your opponent pays off, or how many chips you have left.
Six Spots, Six Answers
Preflop looks endlessly variable, but there are really only six spots you will ever face:
| Spot | Buttons available | Default answer | Deep dive |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Everyone folds, you are first in | raise / fold | Raise or fold. Do not limp | what ATS is |
| 2. Someone opens, you are behind them | 3-bet / call / fold | Ask about the 3-bet first, then the fold, and only then the call | 3-bet, cold call |
| 3. You opened and got 3-bet | 4-bet / call / fold | Usually fold — but folding too often means you opened too wide | fold to 3-bet, 4-bet |
| 4. You are in the big blind facing an open | 3-bet / call / fold | Your price is the best at the table, so you defend widest | the Big Blind (BB) |
| 5. Someone limped in front of you | raise / call / fold | Raise to isolate. Do not limp along | Below |
| 6. Several players are already in | raise / call / fold | Tighten the big cards, loosen small pairs and suited connectors | Below |
Spots 1 to 4 each have a post of their own. For the ones without, here are the essentials:
The 4-betting range in spot 3 does not vary by seat: QQ+, AKs, AKo, A5s. A5s is in there on purpose — holding an ace cuts down how many combinations of AA and AK your opponent can have, and bluffing with it costs you nothing, because it was sitting in the fold pile anyway. The reasoning is in what a 4-bet is.
Spot 5: someone limped in front of you. A limper usually has a wide range, and a passive one. The right action is raise to isolate — push the players behind out and turn it into a heads-up pot where you have the initiative. Limping along means the pot did not grow, nobody got knocked out, and you have no initiative. The same goes for aces — limping to trap is how the most profitable hand in poker becomes one of the least (see how to play pocket aces).
Spot 6: multiway pots. The more players there are, the faster big offsuit hands like AJo and KQo lose value: make top pair and you cannot tell whether you are outkicked. Small pairs and suited connectors get relatively better — huge when they hit, easy to release when they miss. Also, an opener plus one cold caller is the best squeeze spot at the table: neither range can stand a big re-raise.
Sizing: Three Numbers Cover It
| Action | Default size |
|---|---|
| Open | 2.5bb, plus 1bb for each limper in front of you |
| 3-bet | about 3x the open in position, about 4x out of position |
| 4-bet | about 2.2 to 2.5x the 3-bet |
Out of position you raise larger because size buys fold equity — speaking first on every street after the flop is a disadvantage, and it has to be made up by how often the other player folds right now.
There is only one rule that genuinely has to be kept: in a given spot, your sizing does not change with your hand strength. Raising more with aces and less with 76s turns your hand face up for everyone paying attention.
Seven Numbers: The Preflop Health Check
A few thousand hands in, use these seven numbers to check where your preflop leaks:
| Number | What it measures | Target | Deep dive |
|---|---|---|---|
| VPIP | How often you voluntarily put money in preflop — how wide your range is | 18% – 25% | what VPIP is |
| PFR | How much of that came in as a raise — how aggressive it is | Within 12 of VPIP | same post |
| ATS | How often you open from a late seat with nobody in the pot | BTN 43-48% / SB 40-48% / CO 27-30% | what ATS is |
| 3-bet | How often you re-raise facing exactly one raise | 8% – 12% | what a 3-bet is |
| Fold to 3-bet | How often you fold after opening and facing a re-raise | 65% or below | what fold to 3-bet is |
| Cold call | How often you call an open with no money in yet | 5% or below (no floor) | what a cold call is |
| 4-bet | How often you re-raise facing exactly two raises | No target band | what a 4-bet is |
The order to read them in: start with the gap between VPIP and PFR, then go to the four that have target bands. If the gap is more than 12, go straight to your cold call — that is usually where the answer is. 4-bet has no target band on purpose: what it asks you to look at is whether the A5s square in your range has anything in it, not a percentage.
And one more thing: these numbers need enough hands before they count. Every post above has a section on how large a sample its own number needs — when something sits outside its band, read that section first, then decide whether to change how you play.
Turning It Into a Reflex
One: practice. The browser-based preflop trainer is free and needs no download. It drills spot 1: everyone folds to you, one of the five seats at random, and you answer open or fold. The trainer in the RushCraft desktop app also has big blind defence and cold calling drills.
Two: going back over hands you actually played. Export your hand history from PokerCraft first (see downloading your Natural8 hand history); import it into RushCraft and all seven numbers above are already computed, with the ones that have bands also telling you how far outside you are and which hands got you there.
Postflop skill takes a long time to build. Preflop does not. It is the one part of the game you can fix tonight and have working tomorrow.