When to Raise 4x or Check Preflop in Ultimate Texas Hold'em

The preflop decision is the biggest one in Ultimate Texas Hold’em. It’s the only moment you can make the Play bet at 4× your Ante, so getting it right matters more than anything you do on the flop or river.

Rewritten October 5, 2026. The first version of this post described a “Bet 2x” option before the flop. That bet doesn’t exist in UTH: the 2× bet is only available on the flop. This version lists the exact preflop rules the Hold’em Coach coach uses, for all three of its coaching profiles.

Your three options, and the one to ignore

Before the flop you can:

• Bet 4× your Ante,
• Bet 3× your Ante, or
• Check and see the flop for free (you’ve already paid the Ante and Blind).

In practice it’s a two-way choice. If a hand is good enough to raise, it’s good enough to raise the maximum, so the widely published basic strategy never uses 3×. The coach in Hold’em Coach works the same way: you’re allowed to bet 3×, but the coach only ever recommends Bet 4× or Check before the flop.

Basic: the widest chart (71 hands)

Basic is the app’s default profile. It raises 71 of the 169 starting hands, about 38% of all deals counted by card combinations. Bet 4× with:

• Pairs: 3-3 and higher. Pocket 2s check.
• Aces: any ace, suited or offsuit, with any kicker.
• Kings: every suited king (K-2 suited and up), and offsuit K-5 and up.
• Queens: suited Q-6 and up, offsuit Q-8 and up.
• Jacks: suited J-8 and up, and J-T offsuit.
• Tens: T-9 suited and T-8 suited.

Everything else checks. That includes K-4 offsuit and lower, Q-7 offsuit, J-9 offsuit, and every hand nine-high or lower that isn’t a pair, however pretty it looks. 9-8 suited, 8-7 suited and 6-5 suited are all checks.

A memory hook for the staircase: suited K-2, Q-6, J-8, T-8; offsuit K-5, Q-8, J-T. Offsuit hands always need a bigger kicker than suited ones.

Basic is close to the widely published UTH basic strategy (for example, the one at Wizard of Odds). The main preflop difference is that Basic also raises T-9 suited and T-8 suited.

Ace-jack offsuit under Basic. Any ace raises, so the coach says Bet 4×.

Balanced: the middle ground (24 hands)

Balanced raises 24 of 169 hands, about 12.5% of deals. Bet 4× with:

• Pairs: 4-4 and higher.
• Big aces: A-K, A-Q, A-J and A-T, suited or offsuit.
• Big kings: K-Q and K-J, suited or offsuit.
• Q-J suited.

Everything else checks, including A-9 and lower, K-T and lower, Q-J offsuit and pocket 3s.

Disciplined: pairs only (9 hands)

Disciplined raises only pocket 6-6 through A-A, 9 of 169 hands or about 4% of deals. It never raises a non-pair before the flop, not even A-K.

Ten-seven offsuit under Balanced: Check. This hand checks under all three profiles.

Same hand, three answers

The fastest way to understand the profiles is to compare a few hands side by side:

Which profile should you learn?

Start with Basic. It’s the default, it’s the widest, and it’s the closest to the strategy you’ll find in most published charts.

Balanced and Disciplined aren’t “better” charts. They’re tighter, lower-variance training styles: they check many hands that Basic raises, so you put fewer 4× bets on the table and your bankroll swings less, at the cost of passing up some raises the standard chart makes. The coach also plays the later streets more tightly under those profiles (see the full strategy guide).

Switching is a good exercise once Basic feels automatic: play a session under each and notice where the coach’s answer changes. For a side-by-side of all three, see Basic, Balanced and Disciplined compared.

Common preflop mistakes

1. Treating 3× as a compromise. If the hand raises, raise 4×.
2. Checking weak aces under Basic. A-2 offsuit looks thin, but every ace is a 4× bet in the Basic chart.
3. Forgetting the suited kings. K-2 suited through K-4 suited raise under Basic; the offsuit versions check.
4. Raising pretty suited cards. 9-8 suited and lower check under every profile.
5. Playing pocket 2s. Deuces check under all three profiles.
6. Mixing profiles mid-session. Pick one chart and stick to it long enough to learn it.

How to practice until it’s automatic

Reading a chart is step one. Step two is playing hands and getting instant feedback. In Hold’em Coach:

• The coach shows Bet 4× or Check before the flop with a one-line reason, such as “Any ace — bet 4×” or “Too weak — check.”
• Change profile in Settings → Gameplay → Coaching profile, or from the brain pill at the table between hands.
• After each hand the Coach Debrief shows the coach’s line next to yours.
• Coach Report filters your hand history by profile (Basic, Bal, Dscp) and shows your Coach Alignment: how often you followed the coach, and how you did when you didn’t.

Aim for 100 hands with the coach on. By hand 50 the chart starts to feel natural, and that’s also when the app lets you switch the coach off to test yourself.

Use the interactive chart below to check any hand under any profile. Next street: when to Bet 2× on the flop.