Push Fold Charts: The Complete Short-Stack Method

The tournament endgame is the most solved moment in poker: at short stacks, optimal strategy literally fits in a chart. It's also where the real money gets decided — and where most players improvise. Good news: push-or-fold is the highest ROI skill in poker per hour of study. Here's how to own it.

Why everything changes under 15 big blinds

Deep-stacked, a 2.2bb open keeps every option alive: you can fold to a 3-bet, play a flop, control the pot. At 10 big blinds those options vanish. Open-fold to a shove and you've torched 20% of your stack for nothing. Call it off and you should have shoved yourself — because shoving adds fold equity: the chance everyone folds and you collect the pot without showing a card.

That's the mathematical core of push-or-fold: at short stacks, jamming is the only action that combines both ways to win (make them fold, or win at showdown). Every in-between line gives one of them up.

How to read a push fold chart

A push chart (usually built on Nash equilibrium) tells you, for each position and stack depth, which hands to jam. At 10 big blinds on the button, you're shoving roughly 40% of hands — every ace, every pair, most connected high-card hands. Under the gun at a 9-handed table, the same depth shoves only ~15%. Position stays the number one factor, even short.

• The shorter your stack, the wider you shove: at 5bb, fold equity is gold and waiting kills you.
• The more players behind, the tighter you get: each one is another chance to run into a monster.
• Antes widen everything: more dead money in the middle means stealing pays more.

What the charts don't show

Chip-EV charts assume chips are worth their face value. That breaks the moment pay jumps exist: on the bubble, ICM tightens both your shoves AND your calls — a correct 20% chip-EV jam can shrink to 12% on a steep bubble. Second blind spot: bounties. In PKOs, covering a short stack widens your calls far beyond the chart, because the bounty pays part of your risk. Third: maniacs. Against a table that calls too much, jam a touch tighter — your fold equity isn't what the model assumed.

The most expensive mistakes