Guides / How to Read a Push/Fold Chart
How to Read a Push/Fold Chart
Published Updated How these ranges are solved
Every chart on this site is the same 169-cell grid: one cell for every distinct starting hand in hold'em. Once you know how the grid is arranged and what a cell's color means, every chart for every position, depth, and table size reads the same way.
The 13×13 grid
Hold'em has 13 ranks, so the grid is 13 columns by 13 rows. The diagonal running from the top-left (AA) to the bottom-right (22) is every pocket pair. Above the diagonal is every suited combo - AKs sits right next to AA, the closest suited hand to the top pair. Below the diagonal is the same two ranks offsuit - AKo is the mirror image of AKs across the pair diagonal. So AKs and AKo are always the same distance from AA, just on opposite sides of it.
Shove, fold, and everything between
Violet means shove, near-black means fold. Most cells are one or the other at full frequency - a hand the solver shoves 100% of the time, or folds 100% of the time. But some hands are genuinely mixed: the solver shoves them some fraction of the time and folds the rest, because at that exact frequency neither action is strictly better. Those cells get a hard-edge split fill instead of a blended color - if a hand shoves 34% of the time, 34% of the cell is filled violet and the rest stays fold-colored, with a clean line between them rather than a muddy in-between shade. Hover (or tap, if you're using a screen reader) any cell for the exact percentage.
A worked example
Below is the button's actual solved opening range at 10bb effective. Find Q5s - five columns to the right of the pair diagonal, in the suited half above it. It shoves 34% of the time and folds the other 66%, so roughly a third of that cell is filled violet. That's not a rounding artifact: it's the solver telling you this hand is genuinely on the knife's edge at this exact stack depth, close enough that mixing between shove and fold beats committing fully to either one.
Most hands you'll look up won't be this close. The mixed cells are the exception, clustered right at the edge of a range - everything solidly inside or outside the shoving range is a clean, full-frequency color.
Now that you can read a chart, browse the full library or drill it hand-by-hand and find out how your instincts compare to the solve.
Common questions
- Why are some cells on a push/fold chart only partly filled in?
- Those hands are mixed - the solver shoves them some fraction of the time and folds the rest, neither action is strictly better. This means that at equilibrium, the EV of both actions is the same (i.e. 0). These are the hands to think about when considering tells or tendencies that your opponents have. Mixed cells cluster right at the edge of a range; anything solidly inside or outside it is one clean color.
- How is a 13×13 poker hand chart arranged?
- Thirteen ranks give thirteen rows and columns. The diagonal from top-left (AA) to bottom-right (22) is every pocket pair, everything above it is the suited version of those two ranks, and everything below is the offsuit version. AKs and AKo are therefore mirror images across the pair diagonal - the same distance from AA, on opposite sides of it.
- What do the colors on a push/fold chart mean?
- Violet means shove, black means fold. Most cells are one or the other at full frequency. The partly filled ones are hands the solver mixes (These hands are Indifferent, with both actions being worth 0 EV). Hovering or tapping any cell gives the exact percentage rather than making you estimate it from the fill.