Help with 6M - 10M In Chips

Greeting everyone, Hoping you can help me out. My tournaments usually go ok as far as knowing what to do, until I hit that point when the blinds are rising and the chips are dwindling and before I know it, I’m in that dreaded 6M - 10M (or 9BB - 15BB).


Harrington calls this the “orange zone”, and it’s the Achilles heel of my game. His “red zone” is easy enough, any decent hand and an unopened pot and it’s an open shove or else you’re folding. But in the “orange zone” are you open shoving or folding as well, just with better hands? Or can you just make an open raise and still play some poker?


Thanks for any help you can give me!

Just google push fold charts. Floattheturn.com has one that goes up to 15 BBs.
At 15 BB you can open and fold to a 3 bet, but if you have hands that will do that, you have to be confident in your postflop play and you want to balance your range pre by including bluffs in your open/fold range.
All in all it’s much simpler to play a push fold strategy as that gives you the most fold equity and you kinda want to double up ASAP.

I think a fact often overlooked is tournament speed. In turbo tournaments your 10BB is quickly going to disappear as the blinds increase, meaning chipping up is far more important. In regular speed however, this 10BB should hold some value for a while meaning you can pick your spot more carefully. In saying this, if you are too selective you won't get any calls because people see you as super tight.

Mateo said:

I think a fact often overlooked is tournament speed. In turbo tournaments your 10BB is quickly going to disappear as the blinds increase, meaning chipping up is far more important. In regular speed however, this 10BB should hold some value for a while meaning you can pick your spot more carefully. In saying this, if you are too selective you won't get any calls because people see you as super tight.

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So for the most part, in your typical casino tourneys which usually have 20min levels, it would be better to open shove with this chip stack? And if the tournament has longer levels, you can afford to be more selective and open raise rather than shove?

DuffMcGruff said:

Just google push fold charts. Floattheturn.com has one that goes up to 15 BBs.
At 15 BB you can open and fold to a 3 bet, but if you have hands that will do that, you have to be confident in your postflop play and you want to balance your range pre by including bluffs in your open/fold range.
All in all it’s much simpler to play a push fold strategy as that gives you the most fold equity and you kinda want to double up ASAP.

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My post-flop game isn’t nearly as strong as my pre-flop, so in my case open shoving with this chip stack would be much more effective than an open raise? With the right hands that is.

sammy22 said:

So for the most part, in your typical casino tourneys which usually have 20min levels, it would be better to open shove with this chip stack? And if the tournament has longer levels, you can afford to be more selective and open raise rather than shove?

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Sorry I wasn't clear. I just mean the faster speed the tourney the wider your shoving range should be. With a 10bb stack, you should pretty much just be open shoving over open raising in any case.

Mateo said:

Sorry I wasn't clear. I just mean the faster speed the tourney the wider your shoving range should be. With a 10bb stack, you should pretty much just be open shoving over open raising in any case.

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Thanks so much for the advice....I really appreciate it!

Mateo said:

Sorry I wasn't clear. I just mean the faster speed the tourney the wider your shoving range should be. With a 10bb stack, you should pretty much just be open shoving over open raising in any case.

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Exactly. In most cases this is going to be your best bet. Even if you are confident in your post flop play, it will usually be a higher ev line to just shove.

You can find what are you seeking for when you are reading Harrington books.

I recommend to read those books, not looking the forum there is too much information and not well presented.

Ambur said:

You can find what are you seeking for when you are reading Harrington books.

I recommend to read those books, not looking the forum there is too much information and not well presented.

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Harrington is great for beginners, but has been outdated for quite some time now. If you really want to improve your game, look into GTO training material. I recommend Upswing for online, and Mathew Janda books for reading.

DuffMcGruff said:

Harrington is great for beginners, but has been outdated for quite some time now. If you really want to improve your game, look into GTO training material. I recommend Upswing for online, and Mathew Janda books for reading.

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This is optimal strategy which you referencing (GTO), but if your goal is to maximize your winnings you have to gain the skill how good players will think when they have reached that point when stack is relatively small. And not mentioned that you have to adjust according the dynamics and situation where you are in plus exploit villains errors. This will increase your ability over long period of time.

And you are saying Harrington books are outdated, well, when this happened?

But Mathew Janda books i have not read yet, but seems good books two.

Ambur said:

And you are saying Harrington books are outdated, well, when this happened?

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Over 10 years ago.