# Short-Stack Push-Fold in Hold'em > 10bb is shove-or-fold. 15bb is not. Antes, 9-max shape, and why Nash is an idea you use — not a religion you print on a card protector. Canonical: https://unmatchedpoker.com/strategy/short-stack-push-fold Publisher: Unmatched Poker — https://unmatchedpoker.com/ Last reviewed: August 31, 2026 Note: Educational Hold'em magazine. Not a poker room, not financial advice, not a signup funnel. 18+/21+. --- Strategy · Short stacks # Push-fold, without pretending you solved it At 10 big blinds the tree collapses toward two nodes: shove, or give the hand up. At 15 the tree grows min-raises, flops, and ways to look busy while you donate. Nash is the idea that two players can shove and call in a way that neither wants to change. It is not a laminated destiny, and nobody here is going to claim they solved your Sunday field. Last reviewed August 31, 2026 Hold'em · 9-max · Antes Push-fold is what happens when the stack behind a raise is so small that raising and then folding is a tax you stop paying. You pick hands that are happy going in, and you put them in. The calling station in the big blind still has a calling range. The nits still overfold. ICM still taxes the mid-stack who wants to look you up with Ace-Jack. The chart is the floor. The table is the job. We are going to talk 9-max shape, because that is what most [MTT](/formats/mtts) tables still are when the field is not four-handed and exhausted. The seats: [Nine-max table positions from UTG to the blinds] Under the gun at a nine-handed table is not "early position" in the cash-game sense. It is a crime scene. You have eight people left to wake up with a stack, including a big blind who is getting a price. The button is a different sport. If your shove range is the same in both seats, you did not learn push-fold. You learned a single column and applied it with a stamp. For a compact, interactive version of the shapes below, use the [push-fold primer](/tools/push-fold-primer). This page is the why, the antes, and the moment at 15bb when you should stop pretending the tree has only two actions. ## Nash as an idea, not a personality The Nash shove/call ranges you have seen — the old heads-up or simplified full-ring grids — are equilibrium strategies for a toy: one shover, one caller, stacks known, no future ICM, often no antes or a crude ante. They are useful because they stop you from open-folding Ace-five suited from the small blind at 8bb "because I don't like the kicker." They are not useful as a moral system. Two facts can sit together. One: if both you and the big blind play a Nash mix, neither of you can exploit the other by shoving wider or calling tighter. Two: the big blind is not playing a Nash mix. They are playing a human who min-cashes, or a human who calls off Ace-eight offsuit because "I had an Ace." Your job is to know the equilibrium well enough to notice the deviation. If you do not know it, every adjustment is just a mood. We are not printing a 169-hand grid and calling it solved. Antes differ. ICM differs. Someone left to act with 40bb is not the same as someone left to act with 11bb. Take the shape, then move. ## Antes change the price, which changes the range No-ante 10bb shove from the button: you risk 10 to pick up 1.5. Fold equity is doing a lot of work. With a big-blind ante of 1bb (common modern MTT), the dead money is 2.5 before you move, plus whatever the small blind does. You are risking 10 to win more, and the big blind is calling a smaller percentage of their stack to take it down. Both shove ranges and calling ranges get wider. If you studied an old no-ante chart and then sat in a tournament with a BB ante, you are playing too tight, which is a silent leak — the graph just looks like you "never get it in good." Classic 9-max with a 0.1bb ante from every seat is the other common tree: 0.9bb dead before blinds even post. Same idea. More dead money, wider shoves, wider calls. When the ante jumps and your range does not, you are donating orbits to the people who noticed. What the big blind actually needs 9-max, blinds 1/2, BB ante 2 (so the posted BB+ante is 4, SB is 1). Button shoves 20 chips (10bb). Folds to the big blind. Pot if BB folds: the shover picks up SB 1 + BB 2 + ante 2 = 5 chips. If BB calls, they put in 18 more (they already have 2 posted) and the pot becomes 20 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 25, plus the 18 = 43, and they are competing for it. Call 18 to win a pot that will be 43. 18 / 43 ≈ 42%. In a cEV vacuum the BB needs about 42% equity. Versus a wide button shove, Ace-ten offsuit has it. Versus a tight under-the-gun shove, Ace-ten offsuit often does not. Same hand, different seat for the shover. If you call UTG shoves with the same range you call button shoves, you spewed. If you fold button shoves as if they were UTG shoves, you got walked. Add ICM — stone bubble, you are a mid-stack, shover is shorter — and that 42% requirement can become 50%+ in $EV. The [ladder article](/strategy/icm-and-tournament-ladder) is the other half of this call. Push-fold without ICM is a cash-game toy wearing a tournament badge. ## 10bb, 9-max: the actual shove-or-fold band At 10bb, raising to 2.2 and folding to a shove is how you light 20% of your tournament behind a hand you already decided was worth playing. Some mixed strategies still exist — especially in the small blind versus a waiting big blind — but the default is binary. Shape, not a chart you tattoo: Seat 10bb shove shape (ante on) Still a fold UTG / UTG+1 77+, AQs+, AKo. A few 66/AJs mixes depending on ante and ICM. Most suited connectors, KQo, ATo. You have seven seats left. Behave. HJ / CO Pairs, ATo+, suited Broadway, Axs down into the fives, KJs+, QJs, JTs. CO adds more A8s/KTs/98s. Offsuit junk, low gappers. 75s is not a CO hero shove at 10bb 9-max. BTN Any pair, most suited aces, suited connectors down to 76s/65s, Broadway offsuit, A8o+, KTo+, QJo. 72o. 93o. The chart that told you "any two from the button" was not talking about 9-max with a thinking BB. SB vs BB Wide: most pairs, most suited hands with a stitch of playability, a lot of Ax/Kx offsuit. Complete trash. The BB is the only caller, not a magician. You still muck 92o. Calling ranges are the other column people skip. Big blind versus UTG 10bb shove is tight: you need a hand that is actually ahead of a strong linear range. Big blind versus button is wide enough that Ace-eight suited is not a medal. If you only learn shove hands and never learn call hands, you will be the person who says "they always have it" after they show Ace-nine from the button. They are supposed to have Ace-nine from the button. ## 12bb: still mostly binary, with a little more room Twelve big blinds is the same sport with a slightly longer runway. UTG adds a bit — 66, AJs, AQo more often — and the cutoff starts treating suited connectors as real shoves rather than wishes. The small blind versus the big blind can consider a min-raise with the very top (QQ+, AK) and a shove with the rest, because those big pairs do not need fold equity as much as they need to avoid a flip against a dominated Ace. Even that mix is optional. If the big blind is a snap-caller, skip the mix and jam the lot. If the big blind is an ICM nerd who is folding too much, min-raise the top and shove the rest, or just shove wider than Nash and take the dead money. What 12bb is not: a license to open 2x with King-Jack offsuit from middle position and then "see what happens." What happens is a 14bb stack behind you wakes up with Ace-Queen and you fold, having paid two blinds for a lecture on why push-fold exists. ## 15bb is leaving pure shove-or-fold This is the line on the page that should change how you play tonight. At 15bb, a min-raise to 2bb leaves 13 behind. That is a real remaining stack. It can fold out the blinds and steal. It can get 3-bet and still have a decision that is not automatic. It can see a flop in position with 76s and actually use the hand. It can also min-raise, panic-fold to a shove, and achieve nothing except a slower bust. Solver-ish shape at 15bb 9-max, chip-EV, ante on: - UTG: small opens with 88+, AQ+, sometimes AK/JJ mixed with jams. Linear jams with small pairs and suited aces that hate a flop versus a caller. You do not autopilot a Nash shove with Ace-five suited just because 10bb wanted it. - Cutoff: opens appear. Jamming 76s is a different hand than opening 76s. Jam when you want to deny a wide big-blind defense and you do not want to play a 13bb flop out of position. Open when the blinds overfold to 2x and you can take it down without putting your tournament in the middle. - Button: mixed. Versus a big blind who overfolds, prefer the raise with the playable stuff and jam the linear value that hates a flop (low pairs, weak Axs). Versus a big blind who snap-calls any two, jam the value and muck the junk. Do not min-raise-fold 15bb with a hand you were willing to play. - Small blind: complete-or-jam trees exist. Completing 15bb with 96s and then folding a flop for a third of your stack is how short stacks donate with extra steps. If you complete, you are betting a flop a lot. If you are not willing to do that, jam or fold pre. The leak at 15bb is treating every hand like 10bb. The other leak is treating every hand like 40bb. You do not have 40bb. You have one raise, maybe one flop bet, and a lot of ways to get it in worse than you would have pre. ## Street by street: 15bb on the button, 87s 9-max MTT, blinds 500/1,000, BB ante 1,000. You have 15,000 on the button. Folds to you. Big blind has 22bb and has been defending wide without five-betting light. Small blind is a 9bb shove-or-die. [Hero's hole cards] Preflop — 15bb BTN, not 10bb At 10bb this is a shove, full stop, in a chip-EV button range with an ante. At 15bb you have a choice. A jam denies the small blind a restack and puts the big blind in a 42%-equity problem with a wide range. A min-raise to 2,000 tries to take the 2,500 sitting there (SB+BB+ante) and keep 13bb behind to play a flop in position if the BB calls. Small blind has 9bb. If you min-raise, they can shove 9 into a pot of 4.5 plus your 2, and you are going to be priced in with 87s more often than you want. That is a reason to just jam: you do not want to play a guessing game with a desperate 9bb stack after you have already announced a hand. If the small blind were 40bb and folding too much, the min-raise becomes more attractive. Cover versus covered, even here. You jam. Small blind folds. Big blind calls 14bb more. Flop — already all in [Ks 9c 2d] You are drawing. They show Ace-ten offsuit, which is a perfectly standard BB call versus a button 15bb jam. You are not "unlucky they found a hand." They found a hand they are supposed to call. Gutshot and two overs if you count the seven as live versus AT. You are behind and you knew that pre. The jam was about fold equity plus playability versus a calling range that includes 22+, A8o+, KTo+, suited junk they should not have called. They called a good one. That's a cooler, not a leak, if the jam was in range. If you jammed 87s from UTG at 15bb, you spewed, and the King-high flop is just the universe agreeing with the article. Turn / river, for completeness [Ks 9c 2d 6h 8c] You pair the eight. They still have Ace-high that is ahead of one pair of eights? No — eight is best if they have Ace-ten. You win a flip you were supposed to lose. Do not write "always jam 87s" in your notes because the eight came. Results-oriented notes are how 15bb UTG shoves get born. The alternative line — min-raise to 2bb, big blind calls, small blind folds — is a real tree. You then c-bet or give up on this King-high flop with 13bb behind. That can be better versus a BB who overfolds flops and worse versus a BB who check-calls two streets with Ace-high. You cannot know which from one orbit. You can know that min-raise-folding pre to a small-blind shove would have been the actual disaster. If you open, you are calling a 9bb shove with 87s or you should have jammed first. Pick one. ## Leak: the 10bb min-raise, and the UTG hero call Two classics. First: you have 10bb, you raise to 2.2 because "I want to see a flop," and the cutoff shoves 18. You fold. You have paid 2.2 to learn that someone had a hand. Open-folding would have been cheaper. Second: UTG shoves 11bb, you are in the big blind with Ace-ten offsuit, two shorter stacks are drowning, and you snap because the [primer](/tools/push-fold-primer) said AT is a call versus a button. Versus UTG it often is not, and versus ICM it often is not. Seat first, ladder second, chart third. If you reverse that order you will go home with a story about how short-stackers always have it. They have it when they shove from under the gun. From the button they have 87s, which you just read about. ## Deviate: tighter under ICM, wider versus a folding blind On a hard bubble, mid-stack, you shove tighter than chip-EV Nash and you call much tighter. The chip leader can shove wider than Nash because you cannot look them up. Do the opposite of your ego: if you have the lead, apply it; if you have the awkward 18bb, wait for the 6bb stacks to die. Versus a big blind who has fold-to-steal 82 over a real sample, add hands to the button shove at 10–12bb and add min-raises at 15bb. Versus a big blind who has been calling with suited gappers and showing them, subtract the bottom of the shove range and stop turning 76s into a 15bb flip for sport. That is exploitation sitting on a Nash floor, which is the same split as [GTO versus exploitative](/strategy/gto-vs-exploitative) with fewer streets. ## Before the shove: the 18–25bb mess People treat 20bb as "still a raise." Sometimes. An open to 2.2 at 20bb with King-Queen from UTG is fine. An open to 2.2 at 18bb from the small blind with 64s, followed by a fold to a jam, is a self-own. A useful test: if you raise, and a stack behind you shoves exactly the amount that prices you in or out painfully, would you be happy calling? If the answer is "I would hate it," jam or fold. If the answer is "I would snap," a raise is allowed. If the answer is "depends who," you are finally playing poker instead of executing a chart. Antes make this test stricter. Dead money increases fold equity for a jam and increases the cost of a failed steal. 20bb with a BB ante is closer to 16bb no-ante in feel. Adjust or bleed. ## A 10bb UTG fold that people cannot stand You are UTG with Ace-Jack offsuit at 10bb, ante on, nine-handed, no ICM crisis. A lot of old charts shove this. A lot of modern chip-EV 9-max trees mix or fold it, because AJo plays badly versus the ranges that wake up, and you still have the button in two orbits if the table is nits. Shoving is not a crime. Open-folding is not a crime. Min-raising and folding to a shove is a crime. Pick shove or fold, live with the variance, and do not let a single Ace-King showdown convince you that AJo was "obviously good." Versus the calling range of seven seats, AJo is a thin knife. Versus the button, it is a meat hook. Seat is the article. ## How to practice this without drowning Thirty minutes. One stack depth per night. Tonight: 10bb, 9-max, BB ante. Write your shove list for UTG, CO, BTN, SB before you look at a chart. Then compare. The misses are the study. Tomorrow: 15bb, same seats, and you must write raise / jam / fold as three buckets, not two. The day after: take five real hands from your database where you had 8–16bb and grade them against the shape, then against ICM if a bubble was involved. If you cannot name the first action at 10bb from the cutoff with 22, you are not "beyond charts." You are guessing. Learn the shape, then exploit. The primer is [here](/tools/push-fold-primer). The ladder tax is [here](/strategy/icm-and-tournament-ladder). Suited connectors at 15bb on the button are a shove-or-open; UTG they are often a muck — which is the same positional sermon as the [connectors rewrite](/strategy/suited-connectors), with less romance. Short-stack play is not a sideshow. A huge fraction of MTT profit is not busting stupidly at 12bb and not calling stupidly at 18bb. If that feels smaller than a river bluff with a blocker, you are addicted to the cinematic part of the game. The money is in the boring binary. Last reviewed August 31, 2026.