Sklansky-Chubukov Rankings

What a Sklansky-Chubukov Number Is

David Sklansky and Victor Chubukov built these rankings around a deliberately hostile question: if your opponent could see both of your cards and played perfectly against them, how deep could your stack be and still make shoving all in from the small blind the right decision?

The number beside each hand is that answer, measured in big blinds. A9o carries 47.3, so shoving A9o at 47 big blinds still shows a profit against an opponent holding your hand face up. Past that depth the shove stops paying, because a fully informed caller folds when he is behind and calls when he is ahead.

The worst-case framing is what makes the chart useful. A real opponent cannot see your cards, so a real opponent defends less accurately than the caller the model assumes. Within the model, a shove at or under a hand's number does not need a read to justify it.

The published table stops at 50 big blinds, and 19 hands reach that ceiling: every pair down to sixes, ATo and better offsuit, A9s and better suited, and KQo. For those hands the table is reporting that it found no depth inside its range where the shove became a mistake, not that 50 is a real boundary.

How It Relates to Nash Push/Fold Charts

Nash charts answer a different question. They solve a two-player game in which neither side sees the other's cards, and they return the shoving range and the calling range that are simultaneously unexploitable. That is the equilibrium of a game. A Sklansky-Chubukov number is a threshold against a single worst-case, fully informed opponent. Different question, different answer.

Because of that, neither model contains the other. Compared against the Nash push thresholds in the same source table, the Sklansky-Chubukov number is lower for 107 of the 169 hands, identical for 22, and higher for the remaining 40. Every one of those 40 is an offsuit hand: A7o sits under its Nash push threshold while A9o sits over it. Treat the two charts as separate tools rather than a strict and a loose version of the same one.

The widest divergences concentrate in suited hands, and overwhelmingly in connectors and one-gappers: 98s, T8s, J8s, T9s and 87s open the five largest gaps in the table, and 18 of the 20 widest belong to suited hands. A hand whose value comes from improving later plays badly against a caller who already knows what he is up against, and the Sklansky-Chubukov number prices that in. JTs, worth 18.1 big blinds here, is a clean example. Pairs mostly do not behave this way. 22, at 24.0, is the only pair in that top 20, and every pair from 55 up sits within a big blind of its Nash push threshold.

All 169 Hands, Ranked

Sorted by threshold, deepest first. Read a row as: with this hand, a small-blind shove is correct at any stack up to this many big blinds.

Thresholds are for an unopened small blind shoving into the big blind, no antes. Hands showing 50.0 sit at the ceiling of the published table.

Download the Chart

The same table as a one-page chart, laid out for printing or for keeping open on a second screen. The PDF prints cleanly at letter and A4; the PNG is the version to drop into a study document.

When to Use Which Model

Reach for the Sklansky-Chubukov number when you have no information. It is a printed chart, it needs no software, and it holds up against any opponent because it has already assumed the worst one. First orbit of a satellite, an unfamiliar live room, a final table where nobody has shown a hand down: if the stack is at or under the number, the shove stands on its own.

Reach for a Nash equilibrium range when you know the structure you are in and want the range that performs against a field guessing as much as you are. Nash also responds to position and to the number of players still to act, which a single-column ranking cannot. Our push/fold trainer solves the Nash push and call ranges for a given stack depth and drills them hand by hand.

The division in practice: Sklansky-Chubukov for the decision you have to make in ten seconds with no notes, Nash for the ranges you learn away from the table. Neither chart accounts for antes, for ICM pressure at a pay jump, or for a big blind who has been calling shoves with any two cards. Those adjustments come on top of whichever baseline you started from.

Push/fold thresholds are one model among several. For the ranges we calibrate against at 8-max and full ring, see BBZ's all-in threshold charts.