Short stack poker strategy: how to play 10, 15 and 20bb in tournaments

Most tournament players spend a big part of every event with 20 big blinds or less. It is a different game with fewer options, and those options are easier to learn than deep-stacked poker.

The numbers here are solver ranges, not rules of thumb. They all come from the preflop charts in Poker Academy: chipEV, 9-handed, 1bb big-blind ante, 2bb opens. I show the charts as they look in the app, so you can open the same spots yourself.

What counts as a short stack?

In a tournament, count your stack in big blinds, not chips. A 2,000-chip stack at 100/200 is 10bb. This article covers 10 to 20bb, where one preflop decision often decides the whole hand.

Cash games work differently. Stacks there are usually 100bb, and a player sitting with 40bb or less is already short. The ranges below are for tournaments with antes. Without an ante, or under ICM pressure near the money, they get tighter.

The big picture: what each stack plays

Here is what the solver does when the action folds to you, at every position and three stack depths. Read a row from left to right: as the stack gets shorter the raises turn into all-ins, and that starts in late position.

• At 20bb every position from EP to CO only min-raises. Nobody open-jams except a few hands on the button and in the small blind.
• At 15bb the first two positions still only raise. All-ins show up from MP on and grow to 19.7% of hands on the button.
• At 10bb all-in is the main play everywhere, from 10.8% of hands in EP to 33.5% on the button.

Notice what barely moves: how many hands you play from each seat. EP plays 13.9% of hands at 15bb and 15.6% at 20bb. The stack mostly changes how you enter the pot, and barely changes how often.

20bb: min-raise and fold

At 20bb the solver plays a normal, tight opening range and raises to 2bb. From EP that is 15.6% of hands: every pair down to 77, all suited aces from A4s up, suited kings to K8s, AJo, ATo, KQo and suited broadways and connectors like JTs and T9s, with 98s part of the time.

A 20bb all-in risks your whole stack to win 2.5bb of blinds and ante, and the calls come mostly from hands that beat you or flip with you. A 2bb raise wins the same 2.5bb when everyone folds, and it lets you fold when someone jams over the top.

15bb: where the all-ins start

15bb is the depth where most players go wrong, in both directions. From early position the solver still doesn’t jam at all: the EP range is 13.9% of hands and every one of them is a 2bb raise.

Eight players still act behind you. Risking 15bb to win 2.5bb only works if they fold very often, and from EP they don’t fold often enough. So the early seats keep raising small.

The button is a different picture: 18.3% raise and 19.7% jam. Look at which hands jam.

• Raise 2bb: the best hands (AA, KK, QQ, AKs, AKo) and hands that play well after the flop, such as suited kings, suited queens and connectors.
• All-in: the middle of the range. Small pairs 22 to 66, every offsuit ace from A2o to AQo, A2s to A5s, KQo, KJo and QJo.
• Fold: the bottom.

This surprises a lot of players. The jamming range is the part of your range that hates facing a jam after a small raise. With 55 or A7o you want the pot now, while the blinds still fold. With AA you are happy to let them jam.

10bb: jam or fold, almost

At 10bb a 2bb raise is a fifth of your stack. If someone jams, you are usually getting the price to call. So the solver mostly skips the small raise and moves all-in. On the button it jams 33.5% of hands.

The small raise that is left has a job. From EP the solver still min-raises 4.7% of hands, and that part holds AA, KK and QQ with a few suited aces. Jamming every hand you play would make your strongest hands easy to fold against.

The small blind: limp a lot

The small blind is the one seat where the solver limps, and it limps more than half of all hands. At 15bb the split is 52.3% limp, 21.1% all-in, 10.4% raise to 2.5bb and only 16.3% fold.

The price explains why it folds so little. With the big-blind ante in the middle, completing costs half a big blind for a 3bb pot:

That price is not the equity you need to win at showdown, because the big blind can still raise, but it is why almost any two cards are worth a look. The limp range also holds strong hands: AKs, AQs, JJ, 88 and 77 limp too, so the big blind cannot raise every limp for free. Small pairs and offsuit aces again go all-in.

Defending the big blind

Short stacks in the big blind have to defend wide. Against a 2bb button raise at 15bb the solver folds only 23.9% of hands. It calls 59.6% and jams 16.5%. The app shows the price right on the table:

A button jam is a different price. You call 14bb more, and the solver calls with 24.5% of hands: every pair, every suited ace, most offsuit aces, and the best broadways.

You need 44.4% equity against the jamming range. Hands like KTo and QJo make it. Suited connectors like 87s mostly don’t.

Why the opens are 2bb

All the charts above use 2bb opens, so they don’t prove that a bigger open is worse. The pot odds show why short stacks prefer small raises anyway. Say you open at 15bb and the big blind jams 15bb:

After a 4.5bb open you need only 33.3% equity to call, so you end up calling with hands you did not want to play for your stack. After a 2bb open you need 41.3% and can fold the weak part of your range for 2bb instead of 4.5bb. Treat this as maths, not solver output.

Common short-stack mistakes

• Open-jamming from early position at 15bb. The solver raises small there, and jams start from middle position.
• Jamming only premium hands. At 15bb the all-in range is the middle of your range, and AA and KK are better as raises.
• Folding the small blind too much. With a big-blind ante, the solver plays more than 80% of hands from the small blind at 15bb.
• Over-folding the big blind. Against a 2bb button open at 15bb, the solver defends 76% of hands.
• Waiting too long. Below 10bb, your all-in wins less fold equity every orbit. Don’t fold the hands the chart jams just to wait for a better one.

Study it the way you’ll play it

The ranges change with stack depth, ante format and table size, so look up the spot you actually play instead of learning one chart by heart. In the app you can switch the stack from 20bb to 15bb to 10bb on the same position and watch the orange raises turn red. Then play the spots in the trainer, where every decision gets a grade.

Cheers! 🙂