I don’t play a ton of MTTs and when I do I’m probably not a winning player at the stakes I play $15 online.

I made the top 100 in a 1000 person tourny today and I was down around 15 BB. Usually I don’t start playing push/fold until I’m under 10BB but I’m wondering if I should start sooner.


Also when I’m in that 10-15BB range if I am not shoving can I use the push fold chart as a guide for my raising range?

This is all situational.

Many things come into play such as stack sizes, who opened. Hand i have.

From what i have learnt is on the button unopened we can chip ev shove 22-55 at around 20bb along with some a4-a7o and some unsuited brodways qj/kjo.

vs opens i have learnt hands like TT-AK like to get all in quite frequently in chip ev even as much as 30bb .

Pocket pairs are pretty good shoving hands vs opens at around 20-30bb from OOP vs most positions.

Situational circumstances can change things. Like are we on the bubble. Is this a satellite, i may completely change from opening to shoving if villain is forced to fold so much due to icm. May also shove vs a really aggressive opponent on the bubble due to him being so wide and us not wanting to get shoved on and forced to fold

There is many more instances where shoving all in vs opens and flats even as much as 40-50bb is GTO approved.

Conceptually I think the evs would look something like this.

Vs good players, I think the chip evs of shoving (a) and minraise (b) intersect around 15bb on the button, and closer to 10bb in early positions.

Vs loose donks I shift towards a higher minimum stack for min raising. On the button I might shove as much as 18bb vs very loose blinds, but with a range tailored to perform well at showdown.

Vs nits I lower the minimum stack for min raising. If theyre only 3 betting or shoving 3% of the time, I prefer to small ball them with a wide button min raise range with as little as 10 bb on the button.

Injecting bubble stuff complicates the model, but I think its a good starting point to fine tune as bubble dictates.

Actually both curves probably trend upwards and to the right, but minraise certainly takes a higher value at larger stacks. But the graph isnt important.

Much more important is recognizing the relationship between(strength of range required to shove here) and (stack size). Plainly, shoving 11bb in cutoff is a wider range than 14bb. Larger investment = stronger range. Without additional information or bubble stuff, I believe this holds true.

I should have been clear in my initial post. I typically use a push fold chart for decision making https://pokercoaching.com/push-fold-charts/#12_5-ante. It's my understanding that these charts are not exploitable. And as a rec I am not good enough to know how to adjust those ranges based on who is left in the hand.

I think the noticeable important trends to notice on those ranges, before a word on multiway exploitability, are the exceptions to the (larger investment = stronger range) rule. From the button through middle position, there is a peculiar tightening around 4bb, because fold equity has become sparse, thus increasing elimination frequency. At 3bb to 2bb, the range widens quickly and significantly because you cant avoid the risk any longer.

Theres also a peculiarity in the early positions at 3bb you might notice.

On exploitability:

Your opponents do judge you and adapt. They're not robots, or not all.

If your opponents think youre a donk and call u with wide ranges, I think those ranges will have unprofitable combos at the bottom, both in chip ev and $ev.

If they think you err on the tight side, these ranges are probably really good.

Its good to be aware of this stuff in early/middle game, but end game situations are where big profit is made because of pay jumps. A 14bb mistake in early game, when everyone else has 200bb, well its not going to affect your long term winrate much. A 14bb mistake on a final table? This can make the difference between an ok cash and a huge win.

Early/middle game will set u up with table image just by playing good, and these stages will give u feel for how your opponents react to your play. So when u make it to short stack end game spots, this stuff becomes very important.

I start to look at shoving a large portion of my range around 15BB, though I still have some standard opens. Under 10, it's pretty much all pushing.

I will push more than 15BB from the button or small blind, and maybe very rarely from the cutoff, if I have a good hot and cold hand that flops poorly and if the blinds are particularly aggressive about 3-betting. (I don't want to raise/call A8o vs. a player who's gonna jam JTs if I can make them fold by jamming. You gotta win flips to win tournaments, but winning pots without showdown and without needless variance is still preferable.)

This of course is for situations that are not skewed by ICM-intensive spots.

In heads up in the SB I start push folding around 5-6 BB deep.

In multiway BvB in SB I start push-folding around 10 BB deep.

Multiway on the button I still have some open limps down to about 8-10 BB deep and below that I push fold.

It all depends on the opponents and ICM too and some hands I shove a lot deeper (e.g 22 or A9o etc. hands that play badly postflop).

Not sure what's GTO, just how I tend to play.