Push/Fold at a 9-Max Table: Ranges by Seat, 5BB to 20BB

Published 2026-10-13

A 9-max push/fold chart gives you one range per seat: under the gun, middle position, cutoff, button and small blind. The further you sit from the blinds, the tighter the range — at 10BB the chart pushes 9% of hands from under the gun and 33% from the button. This guide walks through every seat across the full 5BB to 20BB stack range, shows where 9-max differs from 6-max, and links each number to the chart it came from.

What are the push/fold ranges at a 9-max table?

The table below lists the share of all starting hands that the Nash chart shoves from each 9-max seat, at every stack depth the app covers. Read down a column to see how position changes the range at a fixed stack, and read across a row to see how the same seat tightens as the stack grows. Each seat name links to its 10BB chart, and each stack header links to the chart hub for that depth.

Two things stand out. First, every row falls from left to right: the small blind goes from 72% at 5BB to 40% at 20BB, and under the gun goes from 18% to 5%. Second, every column rises from top to bottom, so the order of the seats from tightest to widest is the same at every stack: under the gun, middle position, cutoff, button, small blind.

How is 9-max push/fold different from 6-max?

The only thing that changes between table sizes is how many players are left to act behind you. The cutoff, button and small blind have the same number of opponents behind them in both formats, so those three charts are the same in 6-max and 9-max. What 9-max adds is a longer queue of early seats: under the gun has eight players behind it instead of five, and there is an extra middle-position seat that has no 6-max equivalent.

The result is a tighter under-the-gun range. At 10BB it is 9% in 9-max against 13% in 6-max, and at 20BB it is 5% against 7%. At 5BB the gap is 5 percentage points (18% against 23%). For the 6-max side of the comparison, see push/fold by position.

What does the 9-max chart push from under the gun at 10BB?

Under the gun at 10BB is the tightest spot on the table, at 9% of hands. Most of the range is pairs and strong aces, and a few hands are genuine mixes rather than clear shoves or folds: ATs and AJo. For those hands the chart says to shove only part of the time. Ace-ten suited is shoved 57% of the time and ace-jack offsuit 60%. The full grid is on the 9-max UTG 10BB chart.

The same hands are easier at shorter stacks. At 8BB ace-jack offsuit is a 100% shove from under the gun and pocket fives are a 100% shove, while at 10BB pocket fives drop to 30%. That step between 8BB and 10BB is where many early-position decisions in 9-max live. You can look up any single hand on its own page, such as AJo, to see its frequency in every seat and stack.

How does the middle-position seat work in 9-max?

Middle position only exists at a full ring table, and it sits between under the gun and the cutoff: 11% of hands at 10BB, compared with 9% under the gun and 24% in the cutoff. The jump from middle position to the cutoff (13 points) is much larger than the jump from under the gun to middle position (2 points), so treating middle position as "almost the cutoff" would be a costly mistake. Its marginal hand at 10BB is KTs, so most of the grid is a clear shove or a clear fold. At 15BB the seat is down to 8%, as the 9-max MP 15BB chart shows.

How fast do 9-max ranges shrink as the stack grows?

Under the gun loses 9 points of range between 5BB and 10BB, and a further 4 points between 10BB and 20BB. The button loses 7 and then 13. The small blind, which starts from the widest range, gives up the most in absolute terms: 14 points from 5BB to 10BB and 18 from 10BB to 20BB.

In practice a single "shove range" for a table is the wrong mental model. A stack of 8BB under the gun and a stack of 8BB on the button are different problems, and so are 8BB and 15BB in the same seat. The 9-max button 8BB chart pushes 35% of hands, while under the gun at that stack pushes 11%. For stacks beyond 10BB, the 12BB, 15BB and 20BB guide explains where push/fold stops being the right tool.

Why are the button and small blind so wide?

With few players left to act, a shove only has to get past one or two hands. The button, with just the two blinds behind it, pushes 33% at 10BB, and the small blind, with only the big blind behind it, pushes 58%. Even at 20BB the button is still at 20% and the small blind at 40%, wider than under the gun at 5BB (18%). That is why these two seats deserve most of your study time: they are the ones where a short stack gets to shove most often, and where folding too much costs the most. Compare them directly on the 9-max button 10BB chart and the 9-max small blind 10BB chart.

How do I use a 9-max chart at the table?

Work out two numbers before you act: how many big blinds you have, and how many players are left to act behind you. Then open the chart for that seat and stack depth. The stack is easy to read off the chip count; the seat is the harder part, because it changes every orbit and again every time a player busts.

A short routine helps. Learn the width of the button and the small blind first, since those are the seats where you will shove most often, and then work back toward the early seats. The chart hub for each stack, such as the 10BB hub or the 5BB hub, puts the seats side by side so you can compare them. To turn this into reflexes instead of lookups, the drill-based memorization guide lays out a study order.

Do the 9-max charts account for ICM?

No. These are chip-EV Nash charts: they treat every chip as equally valuable. That is a sound baseline, but on a bubble or at a final table, tournament payouts change the price of risking your stack. Treat the numbers above as the starting point, and read ICM vs chip-EV push/fold before deciding how far to deviate. For background on where the ranges come from, see Nash push/fold charts explained, and for the basics of when a short stack should be shoving at all, see push or fold?

FAQ

How wide should I push from under the gun at a 9-max table?

At 10BB, the 9-max chart pushes 9% of hands from under the gun, and it narrows to 5% at 20BB. At 5BB the same seat is up at 18%. Eight players are left to act behind you, so this is the tightest seat in the game at every stack depth.

Is 9-max push/fold the same as 6-max?

Only for the seats that have the same number of players behind them. The cutoff, button and small blind charts are identical in the two table sizes; the 9-max table adds a middle-position seat and makes under the gun tighter. For example, under the gun at 10BB pushes 9% in 9-max against 13% in 6-max.

What do I do when my 9-max table becomes short-handed?

Look up your seat by how many players act behind you, not by the label the table started with. The cutoff, button and small blind charts are the same in 6-max and 9-max, so they apply unchanged as the table shrinks. The charts are chip-EV, so near a pay jump read the ICM guide before trusting them blindly.

Get push/fold answers in your Discord. Add the Discord bot