How bounties change push/fold ranges
In a progressive knockout (PKO) tournament, busting a player wins you part of their bounty on top of the chips. That extra prize widens calling ranges a lot. Shoving ranges widen too, because the shover also wins a bounty when they get called and win. The chart above is preset to the big blind facing a 15bb button shove with a bounty worth 5 big blinds. Change it under ICM, bounty & stacks.
What is a bounty worth in big blinds?
Convert the cash you would collect into chips at the rate the prize pool pays for chips. In a typical PKO, half of each buy-in goes to the prize pool and half to bounties, and you collect half of a player's bounty in cash while the other half goes onto your own head. The cash half of a starting bounty is then worth about half a starting stack. For example, with a 20,000-chip starting stack and a 1,000 big blind, that is about 10,000 chips, or 10 big blinds, plus some extra value for the growth of your own bounty. As the blinds rise, the same bounty is worth fewer big blinds.
Ranges by bounty size (9-handed, big blind ante, equal stacks)
| Spot | No bounty | 2bb bounty | 5bb bounty | 10bb bounty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Button shoves at 15bb | 36% | 36% | 56% | 91% |
| Big blind calls a 15bb button shove | 25% | 31% | 58% | 95% |
| Button shoves at 10bb | 44% | 51% | 85% | 100% |
| Big blind calls a 10bb button shove | 35% | 55% | 92% | 100% |
| Big blind calls a 15bb cutoff shove | 18% | 26% | 54% | 95% |
Covering matters
You only win a bounty if you have at least as many chips as the player you bust. With equal stacks, whoever wins the all-in busts the other, so both players are playing for a bounty and both ranges widen the most. When only one player can win a bounty, either because you cover the shover or because the shover covers you, the big blind's calling range lands in between. When the shover covers you, you still call wider than with no bounty, because the shover widens their range to chase your bounty.
| Spot | Equal stacks | You cover | They cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big blind calls a 15bb button shove, 5bb bounty | 58% | 37% | 36% |
| Big blind calls with no bounty | 25% | 25% | 25% |
Exact big blind calling ranges vs a 15bb button shove
- No bounty (25%): 22+, A2s+, K9s+, QTs+, JTs, A3o+, KTo+, QJo
- 5bb bounty, equal stacks (58%): 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T6s+, 96s+, 86s+, 75s+, 65s, 54s, A2o+, K2o+, Q3o+, J7o+, T8o+, 98o
How these ranges were calculated
We add the bounty to the winner's payoff whenever they bust the other player, then solve the shove-or-fold and call-or-fold decisions together to an equilibrium in chip EV. One bounty value applies to everyone at the table. Real PKO bounties differ from player to player and part of each bounty you win goes onto your own head, so treat these ranges as a starting point. See how we calculate for the full method.
More charts: push/fold chart · reshove chart · PKO bounty ranges · ICM bubble ranges · by stack: 5bb, 8bb, 10bb, 12bb, 15bb, 20bb · by seat: button, cutoff, small blind, UTG · 6-max · heads-up · big blind calling ranges.