Push Fold Charts Poker Strategy

Push Fold Chart Review

Push Fold Charts Poker Strategy For Dummies

All experienced poker players already know that to be successful in online poker, you should use all available online instruments for analyzing your poker gaming. In this post, you will know all the essential info about the push-fold chart poker tool.

The push-fold chart is a perfect tool to be used while participating in Hold’em poker tournaments. The principal goal of this instrument is to assist players in choosing the best game strategy on a short stack. That is why the maximum effect from push-fold charts can be reached while playing poker tournaments because they usually end in the dangerous all-in or fold stage.

As you know, stack in poker indicates the total number of chips a player has at the table and can use to make bets. In Holdem poker tournaments, the stack size is determined by the settings of each tournament, but most often it varies from 1,500 to 3,000 chips. When a player loses his stack, he/she is eliminated from the tournament. Therefore, when talking about a short stack, we mean a player who has less than 100 Big Blinds in a given cash game. Therefore, a short stacker needs to rebuy to stay in the game. And it is a push fold chart that will help to choose the best strategy for short stackers.

Push/fold poker charts can be very useful in tournament strategy – by highlighting when, in certain situations, it is better for you to go all-in or to fold. Not really, or at least not the same. If you try to use push/fold charts for these you’ll lose. Opponent stacks are very important, but charts only take into account your own stack. I’d buy ICMizer or similar software. I have been playing and winning at poker since 2008 and have put together some charts for you. The chart will work well both online and live, in cash games and tournaments. In order to make things simple, I have given you an easy to read, yet comprehensive, range chart that covers virtually every pre-flop decision you could face at the poker table.

Push-fold charts help to solve hand range with the help of math. They are arranged in a simple diagram, which should help you to play on preflop in the most successful way while participating in tournaments. In other words, when you are on a short stack or in push/fold mode, you have only two possible decisions on preflop – to fold or go all-in.

One of the best advantages of push fold charts is that you can use them during the game itself. It will help you to turn into s short stack guru quickly!

How does a push fold chart can help in a poker game?

As we have already mentioned, the main principle of push chart work is based on math. They offer pre-designed ranges for every hand. With the help of push fold charts, you can play all hands in the best way via the GTO strategy. Push fold chart helps you to be ahead of your rival`s range. This ideal mathematical module accounts for your equity when called. Moreover, owing to the push fold chart, you will know in advance which hands to fold or to shove.

Consequently, push fold charts are extremely valuable instruments that help you to identify the exact hands you need to play in any prearranged position with a particular depth of the stack. Therefore, depending on your position and the size of the stack, push-fold charts do the best to provide you with the most winning gaming options in poker tournaments.

How to make use of push fold charts in the best way?

Push fold charts must be used in a short stack game when your gaming options are limited to folding or going all-in.

A push fold chart is limited to the maximum of 10 big blinds.

However, in some situations, you can go all-in up to fifteen or more big blinds. That is why a push fold chart can be extended to deepen a depth of the stack.

Push-fold charts modifications

We have already explained that push fold charts are one of the most important and working instruments to be successful while playing various poker tournaments. However, you should know that push fold charts should be used together with other tools for poker analyses such as FlopZilla or Holdem indicator. It is just a worthy recommendation from experienced poker players. Additionally, push-fold charts never account for such important aspects as еру table difficulty, hourly rate, etc.

Consequently, it is recommended that you should slightly adapt your folding/pushing ranges when you are in a certain situation at the table, which allows you taking advantage of your rivals’ style of playing poker.

There are some situations at the table, when you may have a certain desire to play alternatively. For example, you may feel like folding to a jam when your rival is playing exceptionally straightforwardly. Such an advantageous situation allows you stealing reasonably and not jeopardizing your own stack.

There is no single strategy allowing winning in all poker games. So, short stackers can modify push fold charts when they have ten or more big blinds. Depending on a particular situation at the table, you can expand or narrow your range by shoving, raising, or folding.

Alongside this, experienced players keep on reminding that you should practice much to get the necessary experience to modify push fold charts in the best way to take full advantage of your edge. Never expect that you will always win just after you have downloaded a push fold chart.

Therefore, to master push fold charts, you need to take into consideration the following aspects:

  • Analyze field difficulty

There are situations when you play in a so-called soft field. Thus, you may have a great desire of pushing with a narrower range, while waiting for the most favorable handicap. On the other hand, if your rivals over-fold, it is high time for you to go all-in wider and steal the big blinds.

  • Consider the given size of your stack

In a certain situation when behind you there are plenty of big stacks, which may force you to shove, you may desire to go all-in with a narrower range. In different circumstances, when you have many short stacks behind you, it is recommended that you should keep calm, control your anger, and go all-in somewhat wider.

Therefore, you should better use the mentioned aspects in a poker tournament to choose the most favorable push-fold strategy on a short stack.

Conclusion

Poker Strategy Push Fold Charts

Now you know the main principle of the push fold chart work and how it can help you while participating in poker tournaments. It is an ideal instrument for all poker players who desire to improve poker skills and, therefore, pocket good money.

A push fold chart will undoubtedly help to boost equity in any short stacked game.

Push Fold Charts Poker Strategy Games

We recommend that you should download push fold charts now and try to use them while playing poker. Therefore, as your stack size changes during the game, you will always have the best decision in every unique situation.


Nash equilibrium is one of the most ubiquitous terms in game theory. It's used everywhere from meetings in small companies through poker strategy materials to the movie 'A Beautiful Mind'. The term gets its name from John Forbes Nash, Jr. a brilliant scientist responsible for many breakthroughs in economics, mathematics and game theory. Basic understanding of the Nash equilibrium can be invaluable in any non-cooperative game involving two or more players and poker certainly falls under that definition.

Game Theory

Push fold charts poker strategy gamesPush fold charts poker strategy tactics

Push Fold Charts Poker Strategy Tactics

Let's start with a brief explanation of the game theory. According to the official definition, game theory is 'the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers'. It's the study of human behaviour in strategic settings that has wide applications in economics, psychology, computer science, poker etc. Now that we know what game theory is let's take a step back and figure out what constitutes a 'game'. To have a game you need at least two players, some incentives to play the game (clearly defined outcomes for the players) and rules.

Nash Equilibrium

Another official definition tells us that 'In game theory, the Nash equilibrium is a solution concept of a non-cooperative game involving two or more players, in which each player is assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players, and no player has anything to gain by changing only their own strategy.' In the poker context, it basically means that there's no point in playing anything but the game theory optimal strategy if we know our opponent is also playing a game theory optimal strategy since we can't exploit the GTO strategy.

Real Life Example

To further simplify the idea of Nash equilibrium, let's look at a classic example of prisoner's dilemma. In the hypothetical situation, two people are questioned separately about a crime they both committed. If they both confess to committing the crime they will spend 8 years in prison. If they both decide to keep quiet they will get locked up for a year on some minor charges. If the first player decides to confess (giving up his 'friend' in the process) and the second one lies, the first one will walk free and the first one will spend 10 years in prison (and vice versa).




As a poker player, you can easily determine the best strategy in this situation. It makes the most sense to confess since both risk and reward of that play are higher for you than the alternative regardless of the other player's choice. In this particular example confessing is the Nash equilibrium since if we knew that the other player will confess we can't punish him for that play by changing our strategy, we can only punish ourselves. Of course, lying would be better for the group but poker is not exactly a group activity and that's outside of the scope of this article.

Nash Equilibrium HU Poker Chart

Poker is a very, very complicated game. Much more so than the hypothetical situation described above. That's why we still haven't figured out the game theory optimal strategy even for less complicated formats like HU Limit Hold'em (though we're somewhat close in this particular case) and judging from how fast processing power of computers increase from year to year, this won't happen anytime soon for the more complicated formats like 6-max or 9-max Holdem/PLO. However, if we greatly simplified the game and assumed that players in a HU game can only go all-in or fold in the SB position and call or fold in the BB position we can determine the nash equilibrium for that situation:



Here's how to use the chart. The numbers in both tables represent a number of big blinds you need to have to make a play (either push when you're in the small blind position or call when you're in the big blind) and color coding represents suited hands, offsuit hands and pocket pairs to make the tables easier to read.
Just like in the hypothetical prisoner's dilemma if we knew that our opponent is following the Nash equilibrium strategy, we can't punish him for that choice and therefore, all we can do is to also follow the strategy. In reality, it's much more complicated than that. Players can, limp and use different raise sizes, they will also rarely if ever use the Nash equilibrium as their push or fold strategy and even if they do so, they will most likely start doing that closer to 8-10bb than 20bb stack size.

Imagine a player who's on extreme tilt near the end of your head's up match and decides to push every hand. We can call that player with a much wider range than Nash equilibrium would suggest. Conversely, if an extremely nitty recreational player is only willing to push premium pocket pairs no matter the stack size we also shouldn't stick with blindly following the Nash equilibrium table and instead punish his narrow hand selection with frequent small raises.

What is Nash Equilibrium Good for Then When it Comes to Playing Poker?

It's valuable in a couple of ways. It can serve as a baseline for our strategy. As the number of meaningful choices we can make in the game decreases (in the context of poker game this will happen as the stack to pot ratio decreases) it makes more sense to actually follow the equilibrium. While even in today's games we can still exploit players in HU even with stacks as low as 8-10 BB's it's actually not a bad rule of thumb to start using the Nash equilibrium table as our stack reaches that point, especially when we're just starting out or we're playing against a tough competition.

Nash equilibrium also highlights that exploitative poker is still the king since the equilibrium is certainly not the highest EV strategy even in this greatly simplified scenario of sub 20bb game where players can only push or fold.
That's a very important realization in the world in which players spell doom for poker every other week. While the part that game theory plays in poker will only get bigger as the game progresses and we shouldn't be ignorant when it comes to it, the good old fashioned exploitable strategies are still the way to go in almost every form of poker.

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