Win the pot before the flop by never entering it wrong.
Most losing players bleed chips before a single community card appears — limping, calling too wide, defending trash from the blinds. Preflop is where the cheapest, highest-frequency mistakes live.
The fixes are memorisable: raise or fold (rarely limp), size opens consistently (2–2.5bb), and know your three responses to a raise — fold, call, or 3-bet — as a function of position and who opened.
Get preflop right and every postflop decision starts from a stronger, better-defined range. It's the compounding base of the whole game.
3-bet
A re-raise of an opener. Your polarised strong-and-bluff response that seizes initiative.
Open size
The standard raise (2–2.5bb online). Consistency stops observant players reading your hand from your sizing.
Blind defense
How wide you call or 3-bet from the blinds — wider vs late-position steals, tighter vs early opens.
Limp
Just calling the big blind. Almost always a leak — it caps your range and invites the field.
In the blind-steal experiment, novices bet too often and call too wide; experts bet nearer equilibrium and defend at equilibrium call frequency. Real online experience shapes preflop mixed strategies before anyone says 'GTO'.
If you're always opening the button or always folding the small blind, you're easier to read than an expert with balanced steal/fold frequencies.
Source — Van Essen & Wooders (2014). Blind Stealing. UTS Working Paper.
The PokerStrategy BSS chart is the folk canon: premium pairs raise from anywhere; suited connectors open late but fold early; medium pairs call raises in position but fold to 3-bets out of position. Your trainer ranges are the solver-grade version of the same idea.
Cross-check one seat per session against the chart, then against the trainer grid. Disagreements are where rake, sizing, or solver depth differ.
Source — PokerStrategy.com (2010). Starting Hands Chart — NL BSS.
Blind Stealing: Experience and Expertise in a Mixed-Strategy Poker Experiment
Van Essen & Wooders (2014). Blind Stealing. UTS Working Paper.
Online experts randomise steal/defend frequencies closer to Nash than novices — experience transfers to the lab.
Tabla de manos iniciales (BSS)
PokerStrategy.com (2010). Starting Hands Chart — NL BSS.
Classic position-tier chart: same hand is raise, call, or fold depending on seat and action before you.
It folds to you on the button with 55. Limp, call, or raise?
Raise. Limping surrenders the initiative and the chance to steal the blinds outright. 55 on the button flops a set 12% of the time and plays beautifully in position — open it every time.
The later your position, the wider you open: fewer players left to wake up with a hand, and more of your equity realised in position. Five seats open; the big blind never does.
BB — not an opening seat (§1.6 BB — not an opening seat)
The BB never opens. If the action folds to the SB, it is the SB's decision to open, complete or fold — the BB only ever acts in response. Its strategy space is entirely reactive: defend vs a raise (Part 4) or raise/check vs an SB limp (Part 5).
Four forces decide it: the opener's range strength, your position on them, the squeeze risk behind you, and the rake. In position you earn a calling range; out of position the answer is mostly 3-bet or fold.
| Spot | 3-Bet | Call | Continue | Manual |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MP faces a UTG open | 4% | 4% | 8% | §2.1.a MP vs UTG |
| CO faces a UTG open | 4% | 6% | 10% | §2.1.b CO vs UTG |
| BTN faces a UTG open | 4% | 6% | 10% | §2.1.c BTN vs UTG |
| SB faces a UTG open | 3% | 1% | 4% | §2.1.d SB vs UTG |
| CO faces an MP open | 4% | 5% | 9% | §2.2.a CO vs MP |
| BTN faces an MP open | 4% | 7% | 11% | §2.2.b BTN vs MP |
| SB faces an MP open | 3% | 0% | 4% | §2.2.c SB vs MP |
| BTN faces a CO open | 5% | 9% | 14% | §2.3.a BTN vs CO |
| SB faces a CO open | 4% | 0% | 4% | §2.3.b SB vs CO |
| SB faces a BTN open | 9% | 0% | 9% | §2.4.a SB vs BTN |
You opened, someone re-raised. Out of position to the 3-bettor, lean 4-bet-or-fold; in position — a blind 3-bet you — you can flat a real range. Value 4-bets are KK+ and AK-frequency; the bluffs are suited wheel aces doing blocker work.
| Spot | Position | 4-Bet | Call | Continue | Manual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UTG opened, faces a 3-bet | OOP | 2% | 2% | 5% | §3.1 UTG vs 3-bet |
| MP opened, faces a 3-bet | OOP | 2% | 3% | 5% | §3.2 MP vs 3-bet |
| CO opened, BTN 3-bets (OOP) | OOP | 3% | 2% | 5% | §3.3.a CO vs BTN 3-bet |
| CO opened, a blind 3-bets (IP) | IP | 3% | 6% | 9% | §3.3.b CO vs blind 3-bet |
| BTN opened, a blind 3-bets | IP | 2% | 8% | 11% | §3.4 BTN vs blind 3-bet |
| SB opened, BB 3-bets | OOP | 3% | 3% | 6% | §3.5 SB vs BB 3-bet |
| UTG opened, MP 3-bets | OOP | 2% | 2% | 5% | §3.1 UTG vs MP 3-bet |
| UTG opened, CO 3-bets | OOP | 2% | 2% | 5% | §3.1 UTG vs CO 3-bet |
| UTG opened, BTN 3-bets | OOP | 2% | 2% | 5% | §3.1 UTG vs BTN 3-bet |
| MP opened, CO 3-bets | OOP | 2% | 3% | 5% | §3.2 MP vs CO 3-bet |
| MP opened, BTN 3-bets | OOP | 2% | 3% | 5% | §3.2 MP vs BTN 3-bet |
The BB closes the action with a discount already paid, so it continues far wider than any other seat — from a solid range against UTG to the widest defence in poker against the button. Suited playability is the filter; the 3-bet turns poor realisation into initiative.
| Spot | 3-Bet | Call | Continue | Manual |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BB defends vs UTG | 3% | 13% | 16% | §4.1 BB vs UTG |
| BB defends vs MP | 3% | 15% | 19% | §4.2 BB vs MP |
| BB defends vs CO | 5% | 17% | 21% | §4.3 BB vs CO |
| BB defends vs BTN | 7% | 35% | 42% | §4.4 BB vs BTN |
| BB defends vs SB | 6% | 39% | 45% | §4.5 BB vs SB (BvB) |
The SB is the lowest-win-rate seat: if called, it plays the whole hand out of position. Default (Strategy A): raise 3–3.5bb or fold, never limp. Facing an open: 3-bet or fold — polarized vs early opens, linear vs the BTN and blind-vs-blind.
| Spot | Position | 3-Bet / 4-Bet | Call | Continue | Manual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SB faces a UTG open | vs open | 3% | 1% | 4% | §2.1.d SB vs UTG |
| SB faces an MP open | vs open | 3% | 0% | 4% | §2.2.c SB vs MP |
| SB faces a CO open | vs open | 4% | 0% | 4% | §2.3.b SB vs CO |
| SB faces a BTN open | vs open | 9% | 0% | 9% | §2.4.a SB vs BTN |
| SB opened, BB 3-bets | vs 3-bet | 3% | 3% | 6% | §3.5 SB vs BB 3-bet |
Raise or fold. Consistent sizing. Know your fold/call/3-bet answer before you're in the seat.