What is a short stack in poker?
A short stack is roughly 20 big blinds or less — the depth where implied odds disappear, preflop decisions dominate, and correct strategy shifts toward the push/fold regime.
Why it matters
Stack depth is the hidden variable behind every chart. At 100bb, suited connectors and small pairs print money from implied odds; at 15bb those hands lose their entire reason to exist — there's no stack left to win when they hit. Short-stack poker is high-card poker plus fold equity.
The good news: it's the most learnable state in the game. Deep-stacked play has endless postflop trees; short-stacked play compresses to chart-perfect preflop decisions, which is why studying it has the fastest payoff per hour of any tournament skill.
The numbers
- The transition is visible in the shove percentages: at 20bb early position shoves just 5% of hands, but at 5bb it's 21% — and the 5bb button shoves 40%.
- At 5 big blinds the correct small-blind play is to shove any two cards — fold equity plus blind pressure makes even 72o a profitable jam.
Figures come from the same preflop charts and research data the rest of the site uses (charts last updated July 5, 2026); they change when that data does.
Simplified Nash open-shove ranges for 5–20bb from every position, written out as text.
Common questions
How many big blinds is short-stacked?
Common convention: under ~20bb is short, under ~10bb is critically short. The strategically meaningful line is where open-shoving becomes your default — around 15bb from most seats.
What hands go up in value short-stacked?
Offsuit broadways and any ace — hands that win unimproved showdowns and block calling hands. Suited connectors and small pairs fall hardest: their value came from implied odds that no longer exist.
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