UTG+1 with 12 big blinds: shove or min-raise

Pokwise study strategy · tournament with antes · 9-handed table · folded to you

With 12 BB, UTG+1 acts right after UTG — the situation barely improves, so the range stays short and built around pairs and strong aces. At this depth your stack still allows a small raise: the strongest hands come in with a min-raise — they want to get called and are happy to face a shove — while the middle of the range goes straight all-in, because those hands play badly against a re-shove and win a lot when everyone folds.

Playing 6-max? UTG+1 only exists at full-ring tables (8–9 players). At a 6-max table the first seat to act is the equivalent of the LJ — use the LJ chart with 12 BB.

The borderline hands (where everyone goes wrong)

This is exactly where the money changes hands: everyone plays the obvious hands the same way — what sets a player who studies apart shows up at the edges of the range.

Charts by hand, position and stack · a quiz that explains every answer · no card required

See also

UTG+1 at other stack sizes: 3 BB · 4 BB · 5 BB · 6 BB · 7 BB · 8 BB · 10 BB · 15 BB
Other positions with 12 BB: UTG · MP · LJ · HJ · CO · BTN · SB
Deep stack (40 BB+): UTG+1 opening range
↩ All push/fold charts · 🖨️ Printable version · 🧮 Hand-by-hand calculator · 💰 ICM calculator