Poker charts

Push/fold charts: 5 and 10 big blind shove ranges by position

Short stack, tournament, folded to you: the charts below say which hands go all in from which seat at 10 big blinds and at 5, and a third says which hands can call one. All three are on the page as tables and all three download as printable images. No email, no account.

Get the charts, free

The PDF holds all three charts at print size, split across pages so the hands stay readable on paper. The images are the same charts if you would rather keep them on your phone.

Download all three charts (PDF)

10bb shove chart (PNG) | 5bb shove chart (PNG) | Calling chart (PNG)

The 10 big blind push/fold chart

Read your seat, find your hand, and if it is colored in, the chip goes in. Everything here assumes the pot is unopened when the action reaches you, the table is 9-handed, there are no antes, and you are counting chips rather than prize money.

The spread is the point. Under the gun shoves about 18% of hands with eight players left to get through. The small blind shoves about 69%, because only one player is left and the blinds are already worth more than half your stack. If you take one habit from this page, take that one: at 10 big blinds, folding the button and the small blind is a bigger leak than any hand you might shove too light.

The 5 big blind push/fold chart

Half the stack, and every range on the chart gets wider, which is the part most players have backwards. Down at five big blinds the instinct is to wait for a hand worth dying with. The blinds do not wait: posting both of them costs nearly a third of what you have left every orbit, so folding costs you more than shoving a mediocre hand does. Same conditions as the chart above, folded to you, 9-handed, no antes, counting chips.

Hold the two charts next to each other and you can see how far each seat moves. Under the gun goes from about 18% of hands to about 24%. The button goes from 44% to 54%. The small blind reaches 83%, and at that width the shortcut beats the chart: it folds 22 hands out of 169, and not one of them holds a card higher than a nine. From the small blind at five big blinds, a ten or anything above it is a shove.

Calling a shove: why your range is tighter

Here is the asymmetry nobody explains up front, and it is the reason most short-stack money is lost. When you shove, you can win the pot two ways: everyone folds, or you win a showdown. When you call a shove, the first way is gone. Your hand has to be good enough on its own against the range that just went all in, so the range you can call with is far tighter than the range you can shove with.

Put the two charts side by side and the gap is stark. Under the gun shoves about 18% of hands. The seat directly behind can call with about 8%, and it is calling a range that already knows it will get looked up. The big blind calls widest of anyone, around 19%, only because it is getting a price nobody else at the table gets. AJo is a call in one seat and a fold in another for exactly that reason.

How to use push/fold charts

What these charts assume

Every chart is built for a set of conditions, and these are the ones behind this pair. The action folds to you. The table is 9-handed. There are no antes in the pot. And the numbers count chips, not prize money, which is the assumption that matters most and the one covered next.

Antes change the arithmetic in your favor. With antes posted there is more dead money to win when everyone folds, which improves the reward side of the shove and makes every range on the chart wider than it looks here. Treat the chart as the floor once antes start, not the ceiling.

When to deviate: ICM, bubbles, and pay jumps

These charts count chips. A tournament pays money, and chips convert to money unevenly: the chips you lose busting out cost you more than the chips you win are worth. That conversion has a name, ICM, and it bites hardest right before the money and around big pay jumps.

The practical version. Near the bubble, calling ranges get much tighter than the chart, because busting when you could have folded into the money is the most expensive mistake available. Shoving ranges tighten too when there is a shorter stack than you who might bust first, and they stay wide when you are the one covered by nobody. Big stacks get to press: everyone else is calling tight, so a chip leader can shove hands this chart would fold. If you want the full tournament picture around these decisions, the tournament strategy guide is the longer read.

When does push/fold start?

Around 12 big blinds is the cleanest line the poker literature draws. Below it, all in or fold is close enough to optimal that the simplification costs you almost nothing. Between about 10 and 15 big blinds you are in a mixed zone where small raises and even limps from the small blind start to appear alongside shoves. Above 15, open raising is the better default from most seats, and the pure shove chart stops being your main tool.

That is why this page ships 5 and 10 and stops. Both sit inside the zone where all in or fold is the whole strategy, so a chart can hold the whole answer. At 20 the answer is a preflop range and a plan for the flop, which is what the preflop chart library is for.

Push/fold FAQ

What is a push/fold chart based on?

Charts like these come out of equilibrium solutions for the short-stack game, the kind of solution where both players are playing as well as possible against each other and neither can improve by changing. Nash push/fold is the name you will see for it, and push/fold has its own entry if you want the plain definition. The practical reading: the chart is what works against a competent opponent, before you adjust for the one you actually have.

Do push/fold charts work in cash games?

Not really, and the reason is structural. In a cash game you can top up to a full stack between hands, so if you find yourself at 10 big blinds the better move is usually to rebuy rather than to start shoving. Short stacks are a tournament condition, not a strategy you choose. The one honest exception is a game where you cannot reload, and then the charts here are a reasonable guide with the caveat that cash tables are often 6-handed rather than 9-handed, so the early seats fall away.

Should you ever limp or min-raise under 10 big blinds?

There are spots where it is right, mostly from the small blind, and strong tournament players do use them. They are also the hardest version of short-stack play to execute, because a limp keeps you in the hand with a decision to make and a shove does not. Learn the shove chart first. It is most of the value and none of the risk of getting the follow-up wrong.

Why is there no 15 big blind chart here?

Because at 15 big blinds the honest answer is not a shove chart. The solver work splits the button roughly in half at that depth, shoving about one hand in five and min-raising a similar amount, and a chart with two colors cannot say "raise small with this one" without lying about what it is. Fifteen is where a third action comes back into the game. Use the 10 big blind chart as your anchor, tighten as chips arrive, and once you are near 20 you are opening rather than shoving in most seats, which is the preflop chart library again.

Are these charts GTO?

They come from equilibrium work rather than from anyone's opinion, and they carry every assumption listed above. What the label does and does not promise is worth understanding before you lean on any chart, which is the subject of GTO poker charts.