Cutoff

The Cutoff is a premium position in poker, second only to the Button. With only the Button, the Small Blind, and the Big Blind left to act behind you, the Cutoff combines high steal frequency with strong postflop playability when called by either of the blinds. The seat earns its name from the table layout: the Cutoff sits one seat to the right of the dealer button, and historically it was the spot from which players would "cut off" the button player's natural advantage by raising first.

A concrete example: in our CO opens 100bb range, you raise about 30% of all hands. The range includes every pocket pair from 22 up, all suited aces from A2s to AKs, suited kings down to K8s, the full broadway suite (AKs through JTs, plus the strong offsuit broadways), and suited connectors from 54s up. Compared to the UTG range (about 18%), the Cutoff adds roughly 80 extra combos, mostly in the form of suited connectors, weak suited aces, and offsuit broadways like KJo and QJo that struggle from earlier seats.

The Cutoff matters strategically because of its relationship with the Button. Every time you open from CO, the Button has the option to cold call or 3-bet with full positional advantage on you, which is a meaningful threat that the Hijack and earlier seats do not face from a single player. This is why the CO range is roughly 15 percentage points tighter than the BTN range despite being only one seat away. The math of Button defense pressure is why hands like Q8s and J9s are profitable Button opens but only mixes or folds from the Cutoff.

The Cutoff is also where you should sharpen your steal instincts. With dead money from the ante and only three players behind, your CO open is a profitable steal even with relatively weak hands like A4o or K8o against passive blinds. The flip side is that aggressive opponents on the Button or in the BB will adjust by 3-betting wider against your steals, and your response should be a slightly tighter open plus a wider 4-bet bluff range with hands that block AA and AK.

The common mistake recreational players make at the Cutoff is treating it like a middle position. They open too tight (around 22% to 24%) because they are intimidated by the Button. The result: they leave easy chips on the table that wider openers collect. The opposite mistake is treating the Cutoff like the Button and opening 45% of hands, which gets punished by 3-bets from the Button and BB. The right calibration sits in the 28% to 32% band, leaning slightly tighter against aggressive late-position opponents.

Related concepts that complete the picture include the Button (the seat that constrains your Cutoff range), the Hijack (the previous seat in the early-late ladder), position more broadly, and the open-raise itself. To internalize the right Cutoff width, open the CO opens 100bb range and the BTN opens 100bb range side by side, then test your reflexes in the preflop quiz from the CO seat.