10bb Push/Fold Chart and Strategy: Every 6-Max Position

A 10bb push/fold chart answers one question per seat: what share of hands you can move all in with, first into the pot, when moving all in and folding are the only two moves that make sense. At 6-max that runs from about 22% of hands under the gun to 65% in the small blind. Here are all five, as charts and as hand notation.

The 10bb push/fold chart for every position

These are solved open-shove ranges for every 6-max seat that can open a pot - the big blind never does, so there are five, not six. Tap a chart to open it full size and read it hand by hand.

Earlier positions shove tighter. Under the gun has four players left to act behind it plus the blinds, and gets to 22% of hands. The button has only the blinds, and gets to 40%. The small blind is heads-up against a single opponent and shoves 65% - there is only one player left that might call, meaning the value of fold equity is high. Every seat closer to the button is one fewer opponent who can wake up behind you.

Ten big blinds is the middle of push/fold territory. There isn't enough stack behind an open-raise to fold to a 3-bet without wrecking your own price, so for almost every hand worth playing, "open" and "shove" have collapsed into the same decision. That makes 10bb the depth where a chart is genuinely worth knowing cold - and the depth where the right chart changes most depending on who else is sitting at the table.

Which is why the chart above is a starting point rather than an answer. The two sections below take the button's 40% and show what a money bubble does to it, then what a read on the big blind does.

How a money bubble changes the 10bb shoving range

Chip-EV assumes a chip you win is worth exactly what a chip you lose costs. Tournaments don't pay that way. Prize money is a step function, so every chip you add is worth slightly less than the one before it, and the chips keeping you alive are worth more than the ones merely growing a stack that already covers the table. Busting costs more than doubling gains, and the correct range narrows to reflect that.

Same seat, same stack, same 169 hands - and once real payouts are on the line both ICM charts sit well below the chip-EV baseline, 8 and 7 points down. The hands that go first are the ones whose chip-EV edge was thinnest: offsuit broadways and the weaker suited gappers, which win a small pot often and end your tournament occasionally.

The two ICM charts are the interesting pair. They differ only in who holds the chips - in the middle one hero covers both blinds, in the right-hand one both blinds cover hero - and they land 32% against 33%. That is 1 point, and in the opposite direction to the usual advice. Covering the players you jam into is real, but at 10bb on the button it is a much smaller effect than it is usually given credit for.

What is actually setting each range is hero's place in the payout queue. In the middle chart hero covers the blinds but sits fourth of six, with two shorter stacks that can bust first - there is a real ladder to protect, so that range tightens hardest. In the right-hand chart hero is the shortest stack at the table with nothing below to wait out, which claws a point back. Coverage buys the right to put someone else at risk of busting first. It does not hand back the chip-EV range.

What a read on the big blind does to a 10bb shove

The charts above answer "what is unexploitable?". Against a specific opponent the more useful question is "what is highest-EV?", and the two have different answers. In both charts below every seat except the big blind still plays GTO, so the whole swing is one read on one player.

Against a big blind that folds too often, the button jams 10 points wider. Fold equity is doing more of the work, so hands that were marginal purely on showdown value become clear shoves. Against one that calls too much, the range tightens by only 2 points.

That asymmetry is the part worth internalising. Losing fold equity hurts less than gaining it helps, because your hands keep their raw equity when they are called - a suited ace looked up by a loose big blind is a coinflip, not a disaster. A tight opponent is a much larger licence to widen than a loose opponent is a reason to shut down.

Using a 10bb chart at the table

A 10bb chart is a starting point, not an answer. Learn the chip-EV ranges by position first, because everything else is a deviation from them. Then adjust in two directions: tighter when real money is at stake and there are stacks to ladder past, wider when the player behind you folds more than they should. The two adjustments are independent, and on a bubble against a tight big blind they partly cancel.