Preflop Range Charts for Spin & Go

In Spins (Winamax Expresso, PokerStars Spin & Go, Betclic Spin & Rush, etc.) more than in any other poker format, preflop play is essential.

This is largely due to the shallow stack depth (< 25 bb at the start):

• Many hands are played or end before the flop.
• And many hands quickly go all-in. A preflop mistake is costly because it can make you lose your entire stack and it is very often difficult to make up for it afterwards.

Preflop range charts (also called preflop ranges) are charts with 169 cells that tell you, for each possible hand pair (for example: AK or 98), the best preflop action to take.

Let's look at an example

For this we'll place ourselves in the following situation: we have 25 bb, we're in the Small Blind (SB) and the Button (BTN) who is first to act preflop makes a 2 bb open.

Now that the situation is set, let's see what the preflop range chart tells us to do:

Reading a preflop range chart like the one above is very simple.

Each cell has a color that corresponds to an action, for example above: 🔵 blue = fold, 🟢 green = call, 🔴 dark red = all-in.

And in each cell, in addition to a color, the name of a hand is written: for example: Q2o, 72s, 66, etc.

And that's all there is to know...

So for example if we look at the chart above again:

We can see that with for example J♥️7♦️ ("J7o"), the best action, meaning the most EV+ action, is to fold.

We can also see that with for example K♣8♣ ("K8s"), the best action is to call the Button's open.

At this point you might be asking yourself the following question:

The answer is... yes ... and no...

Unfortunately, it is rare for complex problems to have simple solutions...

Yes because GTO is "unbeatable"

Each action, meaning each cell, of each chart is determined by GTO.

GTO (Game Theory Optimal) is calculated by solvers which, through complex calculations, manage to produce a way of playing that is impossible to exploit.

In other words, even if your opponents know exactly how you play, they won't be able to take advantage of it over time.

With a GTO strategy, you can only win.

But it is (very) difficult to play perfectly GTO

In practice, it is very difficult to play perfectly GTO.

Perhaps the most extreme example would be the GTO range chart for SB in Heads-up at 25 bb:

That's why in our Spin & Go Ranges, we created a simplified version for each chart, humanly understandable and memorizable.

We also wrote for each situation a sort of mini-course (we called them Strategy Guides).

They help you understand the charts so you don't have to memorize them "mindlessly", which would be impossible anyway since there are several hundred of them.

If you want to learn more, you can read our Strategy Guide for the Button position for free:

Read the Button Strategy Guide

And there is even better than GTO

In practice, as surprising as it may seem, playing according to GTO principles is not always the best strategy.

Indeed, most of the players you will encounter in Spins will be recreational players whose game will be very (very) far from GTO.

I won't go in depth here into the difference between GTO play and Exploitative play as it would be too long.

But I did it with explanatory diagrams in chapter 13 of our course for beginners in Spins. So feel free to read it if all of this isn't clear to you!

That's why in our Spin & Go Ranges, we created the Exploitative version for each GTO chart.

We've reached the end of this short explanatory article about preflop ranges in Spins.

I hope I've convinced you of the importance of working on your preflop game regardless of your Spin format (Expresso, Spin & Rush, Spin & Go, etc.) and that preflop range charts are an excellent way to do that.

For next steps, feel free to:

• Check out our Spin & Go Ranges
• Try the Trainer to learn the Ranges