Tournament Strategy: Stack Sizes and Push-Fold Play

In a cash game you can always play 100 big blinds deep. In a tournament you can’t: the blinds keep rising, and your stack shrinks in big-blind terms even when you don’t lose a hand. That makes stack size the single most important factor in tournament strategy. The same hand can be a fold at 60bb, a raise at 30bb and an all-in at 10bb. This lesson shows you how to adjust at every depth.

Key takeaways

• Measure your stack in big blinds — that's what decides your options.
• Deep (40bb+): play much like a cash game.
• Medium (20–40bb): smaller opens, more 3-bet shoves, fewer speculative calls.
• Short (10–20bb): open-shove and re-shove become key weapons.
• Very short (under about 10–12bb): push or fold — no more small raises.

Count in big blinds

A stack of 30,000 chips means nothing on its own. With blinds of 250/500 it’s 60bb — plenty of room to play. With blinds of 1,500/3,000 it’s 10bb — time to go all-in or fold. Get into the habit of converting your stack every level. Many players also count the pot with antes included, because modern tournaments use a big blind ante that makes the starting pot about 2.5bb instead of 1.5bb.

Deep stacks: 40bb and up

With 40bb or more, play much like a cash game. You can open-raise and fold to a 3-bet, call with suited connectors and small pairs for their implied odds, and play multiple streets. Two differences from cash:

• Open sizes are smaller (around 2–2.3bb) because the antes already make the pot worth winning.
• Survival matters a bit more. Avoid marginal all-ins early, when the chips you’d win are worth less to you than the ones you’d lose. You’ll understand why in the ICM lesson.

Medium stacks: 20–40bb

• Keep opening around 2bb so you can fold to a shove without losing much.
• 3-bet all-in (re-shove) over late-position opens becomes powerful at 20–30bb: you have enough chips to make the opener fold, and you don’t face a tough decision after the flop.
• Speculative calls lose value. Small pairs and suited connectors need deep stacks to pay off.

Short stacks: 10–20bb

• Open-shoving from late position starts to make sense at about 15bb and below, especially from the small blind and button.
• Re-shoving over opens is a key weapon. Opening and then folding to a shove costs a large share of your stack.
• Calling a shove needs a stronger range than making one — remember the gap concept.

Push-fold: under about 10–12bb

Once you’re this short, a normal raise commits a big chunk of your stack anyway. You’ll usually go all-in or fold preflop. Two reasons:

1. Fold equity. Going all-in makes opponents fold hands that would call a small raise, and your stack is still large enough to make them think.
2. No awkward decisions. You never raise, get re-shoved on, and have to call off your stack with a weak hand.

Push-fold ranges widen dramatically as you get closer to the button and as your stack gets shorter. From the button with 10bb and players folding sensibly behind, mathematically correct shoving ranges contain roughly 40% of hands or more — far wider than most players expect. Hands like any pair, most aces, suited kings and good broadway cards are standard shoves in late position at this depth.

A standard short-stack shove

Tournament · 9 players left · 10bb stacks

Hero (BTN)K8

▶ Replay

1. Preflop

   Pot 2.5bb (with big blind ante)

   • Folds to Hero on the button with 10bb
   • Hero moves all-in
   • Blinds fold — Hero wins 2.5bb, a 25% boost to the stack

◀ BackNext ▶Auto-play

Antes change everything

Antes make the pot bigger before anyone acts, which means:

• Stealing is worth more — there’s more to win.
• You need to defend the big blind wider — you’re getting a better price.
• Short stacks must act sooner — the cost of waiting a full orbit is higher.

Stack size compared with your opponents’

Your options also depend on the effective stack. With 25bb, a shove at a player who covers you risks your tournament; a shove at a player with 8bb risks only a small part of your stack. Big stacks can pressure medium stacks who are afraid to bust, and medium stacks should be wary of calling all-ins from other medium stacks — especially near the money. That’s where ICM takes over, in Level 4.

Quick check

The blinds are 1,000/2,000 and you have 18,000 chips. How deep are you?

18bb9bb36bb180bb

Check answer

18,000 ÷ 2,000 = 9 big blinds. At this depth, push-fold play is standard.

Quick check

Why is a small open-raise with 8bb usually worse than going all-in?

Small raises are against the rulesIt commits much of your stack anyway while giving up fold equity and inviting a re-shoveAll-ins always winThe blinds are too small

Check answer

With 8bb, a raise to 2bb commits a quarter of your stack. Shoving maximises fold equity and avoids tough spots.

You’ve finished Level 3

You can read ranges, c-bet and barrel with a plan, value bet and bluff with purpose, control the pot and manage your bankroll. Take the Level 3 quiz to earn your badge. Level 4 starts with the theory behind all of it: GTO Fundamentals.