It's level 11. You have 12 big blinds. UTG has folded. UTG+1 has folded. It's on you, hijacking position, holding K-9 offsuit. The cash-game answer is to fold and wait for a better spot. The tournament answer is to shove. Not because K-9 is a good hand — it isn't — but because the structure is telling you that doing nothing is worse than going all-in.
Once your stack drops below about 25 big blinds, "raise small, see a flop, play poker" stops being a viable strategy. The math collapses to two choices: jam the whole stack in preflop, or fold. The push/fold framework — sometimes called Nash ranges — tells you which to do, and when. This post explains the framework and gives you usable starting ranges. The math behind it is real but doesn't need a PhD; the practical takeaways are short.
Why short stacks force this choice
When your stack is 12 BB and you open-raise to 2.5 BB, you've put 20% of your chips in the middle with the worst hand to act post-flop (out of position, in a pot half your remaining stack). One c-bet on the flop and you're pot-committed. So the open-raise was never really an open-raise — it was a deferred shove with extra steps and worse information.
Better to just shove. You take fold equity (people fold a lot to all-ins), you avoid playing post-flop out of position with a fragile stack, and you put maximum pressure on the blinds.
The cutoff at which "raise and see a flop" stops working is somewhere between 20 and 25 big blinds for most tournament formats. Below that, push/fold dominates. Some pros stretch the open-raise threshold further down by using minraises, but they're really just compressing the stages — the strategic logic is the same.
The Nash framework, in one paragraph
Nash equilibrium push/fold charts come from a game-theoretic calculation: given a stack size and position, what's the precise range each player should shove (or call) such that no one can profitably deviate? The result is a set of charts — one for shoving, one for calling — that look like preflop hand grids with green/red shading.
Nash charts have two limitations to understand. First, they assume the opponent is also playing Nash, which most recreational players aren't. Second, they ignore the prize structure (ICM). A pure-chip-EV Nash shove can be very wrong on a bubble or near a pay jump. We'll cover both adjustments below. But Nash is the right starting point — it's the baseline you deviate FROM, not the answer to ignore.
Starter shoving ranges
These ranges assume normal MTT structure, no significant ICM pressure, and reasonably tight opponents. They're conservative — slightly tighter than pure Nash to keep you out of trouble while you're learning the framework.
| Stack (BB) | UTG | Hijack/Cutoff | Button | SB (open-shove vs BB) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | TT+, AK | 99+, AQ+, KQs | 88+, AT+, KJs+, QJs | 77+, AT+, KQ, suited connectors 87s+ |
| 12 | 99+, AJ+ | 77+, AT+, KQ, suited connectors | 55+, A8+, KT+, QJ, suited connectors | 44+, A5+, KT+, QJ, most suited connectors |
| 10 | 88+, AT+ | 55+, A8+, KT+, QJ | 22+, A2+, K9+, QT+, JT+, suited gappers | 22+, A2+, K8+, Q9+, J9+, T9, suited connectors |
| 7 | 66+, A9+, KJ+ | 22+, A2+, K9+, QT+, JT+, T9s+, 98s | 22+, A2+, K2+, Q2+, J5+, T7+, suited any-ace | any pocket pair, any ace, K2+, Q5+, J7+, T8+, 87+ |
A few things to notice. Position matters enormously — your button shoving range with 10 BB is way wider than your UTG shoving range with the same stack, because there are fewer players left to wake up with a hand. Suited connectors and small pairs show up in the wider ranges not because they want to fight A-K, but because they get folds often AND have decent equity when called.
Calling shoves
Calling all-ins is tighter than shoving them. The intuition: when you shove, you win the pot uncontested every time everyone folds. When you call, you have to win the showdown. So your equity bar is higher.
Rough calling ranges against a typical opponent's shove:
- vs a UTG shove (tightest range): JJ+, AK. Maybe TT and AQs if you have stack to spare.
- vs a CO/BTN shove (medium range): 77+, AJ+, KQs.
- vs a SB shove into you (widest opponent range): 33+, A8+, KJ+, QJs.
If you only remember one rule about calling shoves: you need slightly better equity than the price the pot is offering, because you also have to factor in the death of your tournament when you lose. A 50/50 call for half your stack might be -EV when you account for the ICM cost of busting.
Recreational vs solid players
Nash assumes a perfect opponent. In real games most opponents either play too tight (most recreationals) or too aggressive (some pros).
Versus a tight player: widen your stealing range (they fold too much) but tighten your calling range (when they shove, they really have it). If a player who's folded eight orbits in a row suddenly shoves, fold A-Q. It's almost certainly Q-Q+ or A-K.
Versus a loose-aggressive player: tighten your stealing range slightly (they don't fold to single raises as often) but widen your calling range significantly when they shove (they're often shoving with way less than Nash recommends).
The most common mistake: too tight
If you're new to push/fold ranges, you're almost certainly playing too tight. Three reasons:
One, you're trained by cash games to wait for premium hands. In a 12 BB tournament spot, waiting for AA or KK is mathematically certain to bust you — you'll blind out before they come.
Two, you're emotionally attached to your remaining stack. Folding feels safe. It isn't. The blinds rise, your stack stays the same in chips but shrinks in BBs, and your fold equity disappears.
Three, you assume opponents call lighter than they do. They don't. Most recreational players have a calling range that's much tighter than Nash assumes, which means your shoves get through more often than the math says. Widening your shove range is almost always +EV in soft tournaments.
The single biggest fix for most amateur tournament players is to shove the right hands at the right stack depth instead of folding to a smaller stack a level later. Track your tournament hands by stack depth in PokerCharts and look at where you're folding spots that should have been shoves. The pattern shows up quickly.