Tournament Preflop System for Your Stack Depth: Position, Range Shapes, and Sizings

Run your tournament preflop by effective stack depth: deeper stacks make position more valuable, so you tighten early and widen late, while shallower stacks mean smaller sizes and more all-ins for you. You get the position-vs-depth relationship, the five linear polarized capped uncapped condensed range shapes, and open sizes from 80+ big blinds down to below 9, plus play against limpers.

Author: PokerSlate AI-assisted editorial desk · Editor: PokerSlate separate AI editorial review

Published: Oct 13, 2026
Updated: Oct 13, 2026
Reviewed: Oct 13, 2026

The question and the answer: check effective stacks first, position second

The first input to a tournament preflop decision is effective stack depth, and the second is position. Jonathan Little's tournament preflop system in this lesson compresses to four rules: always play the effective stack; the deeper the stacks, the more position is worth — tighten up front, loosen up late; the shallower the stacks, the less position matters — smaller raise sizes, more all-ins; and use one size for your whole range instead of sizing up and down by hand strength.

He uses his own bracelet run to explain why you must practice every stack depth: during the winning run he once dropped to about twelve big blinds and ground his way back with short-stack play and back-to-back doubles. Many strong deep-stack cash players fade late in tournaments precisely because they never practiced short stacks; conversely, online players who grew up short often play the deep early stages badly. In tournaments you will face both deep and shallow spots, so no part of the game can be missing.

Deep vs. short: position is worth different amounts

Having position has two core benefits: you can control the size of the pot, and acting last gives you information. On the button facing an MP open, you can fold, call, or three-bet; out of position, you typically prefer raising over flatting due to difficulty realizing equity and controlling pot size postflop, though calling is not absolutely forbidden. And because the opponent acts first, every action leaks information about their range to you.

The deeper the stacks, the more both points matter for you. At five big blinds, once an all-in gets called it is over and position has almost nothing to work with; with deep stacks, every street, flop, turn, river, requires a decision, so the gap between in and out of position is magnified into every chip in the pot. That is why your deep-stack EP ranges must tighten: you will play most postflop pots out of position. Your late-position ranges widen, and in position you are happier to flat three-bets because you can realize equity better. As stacks get shorter it reverses: position counts for less, late position no longer opens as wide, and early position relatively loosens.

A common mindset mistake sits here: dropping to ten big blinds and panicking to double up fast. The advice is the opposite — grind the short stack correctly, and a couple of doubles in a row can bring you right back, instead of busting faster with sloppy play.

Five range shapes: learn to describe them before learning strategy

The same fifteen percent of hands can be built in completely different ways. The lesson asks you to master five shapes first, because they are the shared language for discussing preflop strategy.

A linear range is the most common shape: simply the strongest group of hands. The example is a 17.8% open range running from pocket pairs and premium hands down to marginal hands like 76s, J9s, and QJo. Opening linear before anyone can call keeps the range unsplit — opponents cannot tell whether you hold the nuts or a marginal hand.

A polarized range is the strongest hands plus hands not good enough to call. The example, in position against an open, three-bets the strongest hands for value while bluffing with low suited aces, small suited kings, suited gappers, 65s, and high cards like T8o, KJo, and QJo. Against a four-bet, continue only with the strongest hands and fold the rest. Opponents never know whether you hold the nuts or a bluff you will fold — that is how polarization simplifies later decisions.

A capped range contains no premium hands. The classic case is a big-blind flat, or a small-blind limp the big blind does not raise: since the strongest hands would usually raise, failing to raise tells you the premiums are usually gone. If that passive line contains no traps, you usually treat the range as capped.

An uncapped range may still contain the nuts. The three-bet range above, for example, holds both premium hands and plenty of bluffs, so opponents can never rule out the nuts.

A condensed range is medium hands that want to see a flop: no premiums, no trash. The classic case is the button flatting an EP open with lots of strong suited hands, suited connectors, small and medium pairs, and strong high cards, happy to see the flop.

Open and re-raise sizes by stack depth

The master rule of this sizing system: deeper stacks mean bigger sizes, shallower stacks mean smaller ones, because you are closer to an all-in. And always play the effective stack: if you have 100 big blinds but everyone behind you has 20, play 20. With mixed stacks focus on the button and big blind, since they are most likely to contest the pot — but use common sense: when the rest of the table has 80 big blinds, you cannot shove 80 just because the button has 10.

At 80+ big blinds, open to 2.5 big blinds before anyone can call. Against an open, three-bet to about 3.5x the open in position and 4.5x out of position: bigger out of position because you want more folds, and if called you keep the stack-to-pot ratio low to blunt the opponent's positional edge. Against a three-bet, four-bet to about 2.5x in position and about 3x out of position.

At 60–80 big blinds, the open drops to about 2.3 big blinds. Against an open, three-bet about 3.2x in position and about 4.2x out of position. Against a three-bet, the in-position four-bet can be small, about 2.4x; out of position stay around 2.7x, since out of position you do not care about getting folds.

Shallower still, the open falls to 2.2–2.25x. Three-bets against an open become 3x in position and 4x out of position; four-bets become 2.1x in position and 2.35x out of position. From here, the three-bet shove becomes standard: at roughly 10x the initial open — about 23 big blinds — you can shove directly, and out of position that ceiling can be even higher.

At 20-25 big blinds, the speaker starts from a 2BB min-open and generally prefers a 4-bet shove. Consider PokerSlate's hypothetical conditional exercise with 20BB effective, ignoring blinds, antes and other dead money: you open to 2BB, your opponent 3-bets to 6BB, you re-raise to 12BB and your opponent shoves for 20BB, so you must call 8BB. Before your call both sides have put in 12+20=32BB, and after your call the total pot is 40BB, so your break-even equity is 8 divided by 32+8=20 percent. Dead money would lower that threshold, but it does not guarantee that any hand has enough equity against a shoving range, so do not count the 40BB as the pre-call pot and add 8 again. The lesson discusses non-all-in re-raises and shoves as different range shapes, so weigh your position, both ranges and ICM when you choose.

At 10-19 big blinds, keep the min-open but shove directly over an open: against a 2x open, with 12 big blinds any 4-6x re-raise is priced in once shoved on, so shove first. At this depth, flatting with AA and KK as a trap starts to work for you, which also lets you see flops slightly wider, you leave opponents unable to tell whether you are trapping or holding a weak hand that wants to hit.

Below 9 big blinds, it is almost all all-ins: shove when nobody has opened, shove over an open, and only rarely min-open. Only from specific spots such as the big blind, button, or small blind are there a few flats against an open.

Against limpers and one size for everything

The charts assume nobody has limped. The small blind may limp when it folds to them; other positions default to no limping. Against limpers, raise to about the size of the pot: three times the last bet plus everything else in the pot. The example against two limpers: three times the last limp (3) plus the first limper's 1, the big blind's 1, a typical ante of 1, and the small blind's 0.5 — 6.5 big blinds total; about 5.5 big blinds against one limper. Shallower you can go slightly smaller, but not down near 3x, because limpers will call every time and realize equity on the flop, and the raise loses its required fold equity.

The final discipline: one size for your whole range. Many recreational players raise big with strong hands and small with weak ones, for example 4.5 big blinds with AK and JJ and smaller with everything else. That splits the range on the first preflop second and makes you far easier to play against. The chart numbers themselves allow small deviations; 2.25x either way is not fatal for you. What is fatal is sizing by hand strength, and raising too big with deep stacks, chasing away the weak hands that would have given you action, leaving only stronger calling ranges and making your own non-premium hands hard to play postflop.

Easy to misuse

• Deep stacks play tight early and loose late; short stacks narrow late position instead. If you change stacks without changing ranges, you are playing the wrong stack depth.
• Do not mix up polarized and condensed: use polarized for bluff fold equity, condensed to see flops. Shoves lean to condensed hands that are strong enough; non-all-in re-raises stay polarized.
• Treat about 35 percent to 40 percent committed as the lessons execution guide flagging awkward small re-raises that leave an embarrassing remainder; whether you shove directly still depends on your exact ranges, pot odds and ICM.
• Capped vs uncapped is your key to reading ranges: if your opponent puts premiums into raises, you can usually treat a passive line without traps as capped; when they can still slow-play premiums you cannot rule out the top.
• Do not raise too small over limpers; keep your preflop fold equity and keep one size instead of sizing by strength.
• The lesson adds AA and KK trap flats in the 10-19BB example; that does not mean trapping is impossible at other depths, weigh your position, remaining stacks and ranges.

Local reading context

For no-limit Holdem tournament preflop, use this stack-depth-based open and re-raise system for your ante tournaments with mixed stacks; deep cash stacks and heads-up play fall outside this sizing table. Treat the range examples and chart numbers as teaching setups where small deviations are allowed, and adjust for your antes, ICM, opponent ranges, and mixed stacks.

Related reading and tools

• Pot Odds Calculator

Original sources and verification

• Jonathan Little - Poker Coaching

  Tournament preflop masterclass: how position value changes with stack depth; definitions and examples of the five range shapes; open and re-raise sizes at 80+, 60–80, shallower, 20–25, 10–19, and below 9 big blinds; effective stacks and single-size discipline; the roughly pot-sized formula against limpers.

  Verified: Oct 13, 2026

This article is adapted from the video: Jonathan Little - Poker Coaching · The Tournament Masterclass: Preflop Strategies ↗