What is the advantage to having a range like this versus a purely shove or fold range at 16bbs in MTT?
This is the MTT GTO opening range when you have 16BBs in the CO (darker colors representing shove and lighter representing min-raise).
I was studying some spots after a tourney and I was trying to understand why this range was constructed this way where you shove with some weaker hands like 22-66 or A2s-A6s but min raise with stronger hands like 77+ or A7s+.
My understanding is that you might be trying to maximize fold equity with your weaker hands while still having outs that give you equity if you're called and dominated whereas the other hands have too much playability to just shove pre-flop at this stack depth.
Let me know if my understanding is correct here. I typically start doing shove-fold at 10 BBS or lower but would like to get a better theoretical understanding of GTO play at the 10 BBS to 20BBs stack depth.
Posted Aug 29, 2026, 2:57 AM UTC