A greyed-out cell does not mean the hand is bad. It means you cannot be holding it in this spot. Here are the two charts involved, side by side, and the rule that makes them readable.
SB vs BB Raise is the second chart in a sequence. You limp, the big blind raises, you act again. A hand can only appear here if you limped it on the previous street.
AKs is the textbook case: at 20bb you open-raise it, so it never enters the limping branch. Its grey cell says "this situation cannot occur", not "fold this hand". Hands you limp and then give up facing the raise do appear, as folds.
Always open SB Opens first. It shows which hands you raise, which you limp and which you fold. The vs raise chart then only covers the ones you limped.
One last thing worth knowing: greyed-out cells do not count towards the range percentage shown. They are not decisions you make, they are branches that do not exist.
Strategy tip
A cell looks wrong? Open the Opens chart for the same position and the same stack. The answer is almost always there.
| Hand | SB Opens 20bb | SB vs BB Raise 20bb | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA | Limp | All-in | Limped, then shoved when the big blind raises. |
| AKs | Raise | Not limped | Open-raised, so it never reaches the second chart. |
| 76o | Limp | Fold | Limped, then given up facing the raise. |
Because this chart only covers one branch: the one where the small blind limped. Hands you open-raise or fold on the previous street cannot reach this situation, so they are greyed out.
No, it is the heart of the strategy at this depth. At 20bb the small blind open-raises AKs and limps AA. AKs therefore cannot face the raise, whereas AA gets there on purpose, so it can shove.
No. A fold is a decision you make after limping, and it has its own colour in the chart. A grey cell means the hand never reached this situation at all.
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