Push/Fold at 12BB, 15BB and 20BB: Where the Shove Range Ends

Published 2026-10-06

Between 10BB and 20BB the Nash shove range shrinks at every seat — in 6-max the button goes from 33% of hands at 10BB to 26% at 15BB and 20% at 20BB, and under the gun goes from 13% to 7%. The deeper you are, the more your shoves become premium hands, plus a handful of hands that sit right on the margin.

How wide is the push range at 12BB, 15BB and 20BB?

The table below follows each 6-max seat from 10BB to 20BB. Every cell links to the full chart for that seat and stack, so you can see exactly which hands make up the percentage. The pattern is the same everywhere: reading left to right, every seat gets tighter as the stack gets deeper, and the seats that were widest at short stacks are still widest at 20BB.

The button loses 13 points of range between 10BB and 20BB, and the small blind loses 18. Under the gun has less to lose because it started tight — it gives up only 6 points — but in relative terms its range shrinks at least as much as the button's. For the same comparison at every stack from 5BB to 20BB, open the 15BB chart hub or the 20BB chart hub.

What does a 9-max table change at 15BB and 20BB?

Table size only matters for the seats with extra players behind them. At 15BB the 9-max under the gun shoves 7% of hands against 9% in 6-max, and at 20BB the gap is 5% against 7%. The 9-max cutoff, button and small blind match their 6-max counterparts — the cutoff is 17% at 15BB in both — because the same number of players is left to act behind them. The extra seat in 9-max is the middle position, which sits between under the gun and the cutoff.

The middle position at 15BB is 8% — see the 9-max middle position 15BB chart for the exact hands. If you play mostly full-ring tournaments, the 9-max under-the-gun 15BB chart covers the tightest seat at the table.

Which hands stop being shoves as the stack gets deeper?

A percentage hides which hands leave the range. The table shows the share of the time each hand is a shove at three stack sizes, for the 6-max under the gun and the button. A hand at 100% is a pure shove; a hand at 0% is a fold; anything in between is a mixed spot where the solver is indifferent and you can do either.

Pairs and suited aces survive longest: A5s is a shove 100% of the time from the button even at 20BB, and 22 is a shove 99% of the time. Weak offsuit hands are the first to go — K9o is a shove 6% of the time from the button at 10BB but only 2% at 15BB, and A2o falls from 56% to 1% over the same step. Suited connectors like 76s hold on a little longer (73% at 15BB) and then fade to 0% at 20BB. Under the gun, nearly everything outside the premium range is a fold by 15BB.

If you want to see how deep any single hand stays a shove from every seat, the push/fold by hand index has a page per hand.

Which hands are marginal at 15BB?

Some hands are not clear shoves or clear folds — the solver mixes between the two. At 15BB in 6-max, the cutoff's marginal hands are 98s, KJo, T8s, Q9s, and KTo, and the button's are K6s, 86s, T7s, and 65s. Under the gun the marginal hands are AJo and 55. These are the hands where the cost of getting it slightly wrong is smallest, so they are the right place to apply a read on the players behind you. If the blinds are loose callers, drop the marginal hands from your shoves; if they are tight, add them.

Everything outside that marginal band is a clear decision, which is why memorizing the clear shoves first is the fastest route to good play. The guide to memorizing push/fold charts lays out a drill order that starts with those anchor hands.

How do you use the chart at 15BB in a real hand?

Find your seat, find your stack, and look up the hand. Take the button with 15BB and K9o. The chart says it is a shove 2% of the time, which means it is a fold, and that is a useful reminder that a hand that looked fine at 10BB (6% there) has dropped out of the range after a five-big-blind step. Now take the same seat with A5o: it is one of the button's marginal hands at 15BB, so the chart is close to indifferent and your read on the blinds decides it.

Now the small blind with 15BB and 76s. The small blind is the widest seat at the table, and 76s is a shove 97% of the time there, a clear push that would be marginal or worse from earlier seats. The same hand under the gun is a shove 0% of the time. The hand did not change; the number of players left to act did, and that is the whole reason charts are split by seat. If you are unsure of your effective stack, remember that it is the smaller of your stack and the largest stack you can lose it to, which is usually one of the players still to act.

What mistakes do players make between 12BB and 20BB?

• Using the 10BB range at 15BB. The button's range is 33% at 10BB and 26% at 15BB, so carrying a 10BB range over to 15BB means shoving hands that have already dropped out.
• Treating 12BB as 10BB. The step is smaller, but the button still goes from 33% to 30%, and the small blind from 58% to 52%.
• Shoving the same range from every seat. At 20BB the small blind shoves 40% of hands and under the gun only 7%, so a single range for the whole table is wrong in both directions.
• Forgetting the table size. A 9-max under-the-gun player at 20BB shoves 5%, not the 7% a 6-max chart shows, so look up the chart for the table you are actually playing.

The fix for all of them is the same: look up the exact seat and stack rather than a rule of thumb. The free trainer drills this by dealing you a seat, a stack and a hand and checking your answer against the chart, which is a faster way to build the habit than reading grids.

At what stack should you stop using push/fold charts?

Push/fold charts assume your only options are all-in or fold. That is a good model at 10BB and below, where a standard raise commits most of your stack anyway. At 15BB it is still a useful baseline, and the push or fold guide explains why 15BB is a sensible point to start thinking about it. By 20BB a shove is one of several reasonable plays, and the chart is best read as an upper bound on how wide a shove can go rather than a rule that you must shove. If you are deeper than the 20BB chart, you are outside what this tool covers.

Do these ranges account for ICM or antes?

The ranges on RangeMyHand are chip-EV Nash ranges, so they treat every chip as worth the same and do not include ICM adjustments. Near a pay jump, a bust-out costs more than the chips alone suggest, and you should tighten the marginal hands accordingly — the ICM versus chip-EV guide explains when and why. If your game has a big blind ante, there is a separate set of charts, starting from the big-blind-ante chart hub, and for how the seat-by-seat shape holds up at shorter stacks, see push/fold by position.

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