In chapter 6 of Small Stakes Hold’em, the authors provide a practical “default system” for what to do with each starting hand in common preflop situations, while stressing that the real goal is to learn solid habits quickly and then focus most of your improvement on postflop play.
How to Use the Recommendations
They present the charts as training wheels: strong default plays for typical small-stakes conditions, not unbreakable rules. You should deviate only when you can point to a concrete reason your game is different (for example, unusually passive opponents, an unusually tough player in the pot, or an extreme preflop raising frequency). They caution against “personal comfort” deviations like limping strong hands because you dislike risk; their recommended raises are based on expectation, not style.
They also note that many close preflop spots have very small EV differences. Don’t burn lots of time debating tiny edges—spend that energy learning to play well after the flop, because most extra profit comes from exploiting postflop mistakes.
The Baseline Assumptions
The system assumes a typical ten-handed small-stakes game where many players play too many hands and continue too far, and where a moderate portion of pots are raised preflop. Because table looseness matters a lot, they split guidance into two “game types”:
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Tight-ish games: roughly 3–5 players seeing the flop
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Loose games: roughly 6–8 players seeing the flop
If your game is in-between, you interpolate. If the table is usually one type but a particular hand plays out like the other (e.g., suddenly short-handed), you switch to the appropriate guideline for that hand.
The Four Core Preflop Principles
They insist that if you remember only a few rules, remember these:
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Play much tighter in early position and wider in late position.
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Raise with your better hands.
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Stick mainly to the strongest offsuit hands.
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Tighten up sharply when facing a raise.
Recommendations by Situation
Unraised Pots: Position Drives What You Play
Across both game types, their defaults widen as you get closer to the button. Early position plays a narrower set (strong pairs, strong suited hands, and strong big-card hands). Middle adds more hands, and late position adds the most—especially when you can raise first-in to win the blinds or build a pot with an edge.
They emphasize that raising is a major part of the strategy in unraised pots, particularly with stronger hands that win more than their fair share.
Facing a Raise: Tighten Dramatically
A major theme is how rarely you should cold-call raises. Since a raise often signals strength and creates domination risk, most playable hands versus a raise should be hands you are comfortable reraising with (premium pairs and the strongest big suited/big offsuit hands). Flat-calling is reserved for a small set of hands and specific conditions—usually when the pot is already likely to become multiway and you have a hand that can win big (like pocket pairs aiming to flop sets, or certain strong suited hands).
They give a reality check: if you find yourself cold-calling multiple times per session, you are almost certainly doing it too often, either because you’re playing too many hands against raises (very costly) or because you’re failing to reraise your strong hands.
Facing a Raise and a Reraise: Extremely Tight
When the pot is raised and reraised before you act, they recommend playing only a very narrow range, centered on premium pairs and the very strongest suited big-card holdings, with small loosening only if raises are extremely loose. The key message: speculative hands cannot usually pay three bets profitably, even in wild games, and dominated hands become disasters in these big pots.
They also distinguish this from cases where you already limped and then face one extra bet back to you: calling one more bet is often automatic because the pot is larger and you already invested. But if it becomes two bets back (raise + reraise), you should tighten sharply and avoid easily dominated hands even when the pot is big.
Notes and Adjustments the Authors Emphasize
Why Pocket Pairs Get Played So Often
Many readers are surprised by how many pocket pairs the system includes, even early and sometimes against raises. The authors argue small-stakes games often provide ideal conditions for “set value”: lots of callers and opponents who pay off too far postflop. In tighter or highly 3-bet-heavy games, you should scale this back (playing higher pairs earlier, and folding more small pairs to raises).
Aggressive Value Raising with Big Suited Hands
They advocate frequent raising with strong suited big-card hands because these hands:
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have an immediate equity edge when money goes in preflop, and
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still connect with flops often enough that raising doesn’t “trap” you into too many bad postflop spots.
They discuss a trade-off: raising builds a pot when you’re ahead, but can reduce your postflop flexibility because the pot becomes large enough that you may be forced to continue in more marginal situations. Big suited hands are recommended raises partly because they suffer less from this downside—they retain playability across many flops.
Why Middle Position Doesn’t Change Much in Very Loose Games
In very loose games, they keep early- and middle-position recommendations similar. Their reasoning is that the usual early-position danger (getting raised and stuck out of position in a small pot) is less severe when raises still tend to go multiway. They also point out that early position can sometimes enable postflop check-raises more effectively in loose games than middle position can.
First-In from Middle or Late Position: Raise More, But Don’t Over-Steal
When you’re first to enter from late position, they generally prefer raising to try to win the blinds. However, they warn that small-stakes blind steals should be tighter than in bigger games because:
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blinds defend more loosely, and
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the rake is proportionally larger, which shrinks the profit margin in small pots.
So: raise first-in more often, but don’t use very weak hands as steal attempts.
Blind Play Depends on Blind Size
Because you already have money in, the small blind often offers better “price,” so they recommend defending fairly wide in the common structure where the small blind is half the big blind. But if the small blind is smaller relative to the big blind (like one-third), you shouldn’t defend nearly as loosely—play closer to a button range.
If You’re Unsure: Assume the Game Is Loose
In the closing “afterthought,” they advise that when you first sit down and don’t yet know the table texture, it’s usually better at small stakes to start with the loose-game guidelines. Their logic is that failing to take profitable opportunities in the many loose small-stakes games costs more than occasionally playing an extra marginal hand in the rarer tighter lineups.
Final Message
Use the charts to build a simple, solid preflop framework, but don’t obsess over tiny preflop edges. Learn competent preflop habits, then put most of your effort into postflop execution. Over time, you can revisit preflop and refine—but the four principles (tight early, raise good hands, avoid weak offsuit holdings, tighten a lot vs. raises) should remain your default spine.