Poker Tournament Tip 1: Steal a Lot, But Don’t Go Overboard “Open small and often.” This phrase drove the pre-flop strategy of almost every tournament regular for years, and it still has some merit. With antes in play, a 2.25BB open has to pick up the pot less than half of the time to show an immediate profit. In poker, a 'deep stack tournament' is a tournament where players start off with a large amount of chips relative to the size of the blinds. For instance, in a traditional tournament, players might start off with 5,000 chips and blinds may begin at 25/50, with antes being added later in the tournament. Playing the Deep Stack. Having a deep stack is one of the best feeling in tournament poker. You know that you are in good position to make a deep run if you aren’t in the middle of one already. Aside from this, your big stack size will allow you to play aggressively and even take some hits without severe repercussions. Deep Stack Strategy Deep Stack – Early Stage Tournament Play There are a lot of guides and study resources to help you understand and conquer medium stack tournament poker play.
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In the majority of Texas Hold'em cash games, the maximum buy in for each of the stakes is 100 times the size of the big blind. There are a few Texas Hold'em poker rooms that offer larger buy-ins, but this is the norm at the majority of cash tables. Nonetheless, this 100 big blind buy-in gives you a lot of room to work with in each hand, and requires that you put a lot of thought into your decisions before making your play.
However, you will occasionally find yourself doubling up and increasing the amount of money you have in front of you from 100 big blinds to 200 big blinds or more. If there are other players at the table with the same amount of money as you, there is a large amount of money at stake when you play in hands against such opponents. When the stacks are so deep and there is so much money to be played for, your general strategy and approach to the hands should change accordingly.
One important point to remember in deep stack poker is that your implied odds increase significantly. Whereas before you could only win a maximum of 100 big blinds from your opponent, you are now playing for double that or more. Consequently, if you can manage to hit a big yet disguised hand against another deep stack player, you stand to win a large amount of money.
Now the question is, how do you go about winning such a big pot?
Poker Deepstack Strategy Guide
Whilst premium hands like AK and AQ still hold a lot of value at the table, they are not necessarily the hands that you are looking to play. This may seem a little odd considering you are playing for such a large amount of money, as you would think that you would only enter pots with the best hands possible – but hear me out...
These premium hands are far too obvious, and it greatly reduces the likelihood that your opponent is going to throw their whole stack in the middle when high cards come out on the flop. After all, you're not going to win a 400 or more big blind pot from your opponent when you hold top pair and they hold second. The best way to win a huge pot is to play hands that your opponent is not going to suspect.
This is where small connecting hands like 56 and pocket pairs come into play.
If you call a raise from your opponent, they are not going to put you on these sort of hands, as they are going to expect you to be holding something along the lines of AK or AQ. Therefore if you manage to get a little lucky and hit 3-of-a-kind or better, you are in a very good position to take a large chunk of their stack, as they will not believe that you hold such a strong hand given the low cards that come out on the flop.
This does not necessarily mean that you should be calling raises with any old raggy hand before the flop – far from it. You should be selective in the cards that you play, and occasionally call raises with hands that have potential, such as connecting cards and pocket pairs. Low suited cards are best avoided in my opinion, as a low flush is more likely to lose you your stack as opposed to winning your opponent's, so look to play cards that can hit straights and make sets. These are going to be the money makers.
It is also important to not get attached to the hand if you only catch a small piece of the flop. For example, if we hold 67 offsuit and the flop comes 3-7-T, I am in no way interested in putting up a fight for this pot. Middle pair with a weak kicker is not the sort of hand that I want to back up with my 200BB stack, so I am going to be more than happy to fold to any action. We may or may not have the best hand, but with so much money at stake I don't really care for risking it.
A large majority of the time, you will not hit a big hand when you play such low cards, which is to be expected. However, the fact that you can occasionally expect a huge pay-off when you do more than makes up for the small pots that you lose out on when you miss.
As long as you are selective with the connecting cards that you play and you can avoid getting attached to the hand when you do not hit big, there is no reason why you can't use this little technique to get the better of your opponents the next time you are playing deep stack poker.
Other Poker Strategies
Deep stack play exists in every form of poker, be it sit and gos, tournaments, or cash games. In a cash game, you will have the ability to control just how deep your stacks are and whether or not you would like to play. In tournaments, however, there is no option to change tables and buy back in with 100 big blinds (unless you’re like Phil Ivey and don’t mind losing over $500,000 a hand). For this reason, learning how to adapt to deep stack play is an absolute necessity.
There are many different things about playing with a big stack vs. playing with a normal sized stack. To start, you will have much better implied odds with random suited connectors, small pocket pairs, and other more speculative hands. This is truly the most important aspect of deep stack play, the number of different hands that any player could have. Along with that comes the need to be able to read other players exceptionally well. The ultimate goal is to keep your opponents confused by playing a variety of hands, while being able to maintain solid reads against other players. If you can do both of these, you will be miles ahead of the competition.
Deep stacks are one of the few poker variables that affect pre-flop and post-flop play indifferently. You will need to be able to make creative plays at all stages of the hand, and neither one makes a much larger impact than the other. You can get involved in 3-bet and 4-bet pots both pre and post-flop, creating some monster action. You will need to think even more critically about each and every decision that you make because the money is that much more significant. Where a big mistake might have cost you 100 big blinds before, it may very well cost you 250 or 300 big blinds now. Attentiveness can not be stressed enough with deep stacks.
Poker Deepstack Strategy Game
Adjusting Pre-Flop
Pre-flop adjustments, in short, can be summarized best by generally widened ranges. In other words, both you and your opponents are going to be playing a whole lot more hands. When you have more money to play with in relation to the blinds, it gives you the opportunity to make a minimal investment for what could end up being a sizable win. This is the inherent beauty of deep stack play. Of course, the magnified losses will help to balance things out.
Some plays that you can safely attempt with a deep stack that you otherwise would not be able to include: calling 3-bets with speculative hands, light 4-betting, and folding after 4-bets. These three sets of plays would be very rarely implemented in a game with normal stack sizes. Once you are playing with 200+ big blinds, however, these all become realistic elements that you can and should work into your strategy. For comparisons sake, take a look at the examples below.
If you are playing $1/$2 NLHE and are facing a 3-bet with a small pocket pair, the odds are that you will probably let it go. The reasoning for this is simple: the pot and implied odds just aren’t there. If you double your stack sizes, however, the exact opposite will hold true. Whereas before you would need to invest $30 to potentially win a maximum of $200, you would now be investing $30 for a shot at $400. With a normal sized stack you would need to win all of your opponents chips close to 1:6 times, with a $400 stack, that number shifts to 1:13 times. Needless to say, this is quite a significant jump.
Poker Deepstack Strategy Chart
4-bet folding is one of the worst plays that you could ever make in poker. While it is seldom going to be a “good” play, deep stacks allow you the chance to cut your losses with a failed 4-bet. It is worth noting that you will need to be working with a super deep stack for this to make sense. A deep(ish) stack is still not enough to justify a 4-bet fold.
Using the same example as above, pretend that you want to 4-bet. At $30, a reasonable 4-bet would be to around $80-$90. With a $400+ stack, this means that you still have 75% of your chips left in play. Many times, you might even have more than that left. This is way too much money to ever require that you shove all in. While you are sacrificing a bit of equity and shoving/calling an all in would be correct with smaller stacks, there is one big variable in the way. With a smaller stack size, your opponent will be prone to shoving all in with much weaker hands than when they have 200+ big blinds. This alone is enough to give them credit for a hand that will have you beat by a margin much too large to ever warrant a crying call. With shorter stacks, you should shove/call all ins with 4-bets because there is always a decent chance that you are not too far behind, but that just won’t be the case in spots like this. A deep stack 5-bet is much, much stronger than a short stack 3-bet or 4-bet all in.
Adjusting Post-Flop
Poker Deepstack Strategy Calculator
Post-flop play, as you might imagine, is much more dynamic than pre-flop. You will run into some awfully tricky hands that will leave you sweating bullets. With that said, you need to enter any deep stack game with a sense of fearlessness. Where fundamentals and actual tangible skills are typically your biggest asset, the ability to make tough decisions for a lot of money will mean much more when you are playing very deep stacked. Your opponents will not usually be all that comfortable with deep stack play. A natural tendency is to tighten up and wait for great hands to play, but this is going about it all wrong. Instead, you should counter this game plan with aggression and decisiveness.
Winning players won’t be afraid to put all of their money in on the flop with a monster combo draw. Plays like this deliver multiple benefits. First, you are in a great position to hit your hand and win if your opponent happens to call. Secondly, and most importantly, your opponents will tend to get nervous and lay down anything other than the nuts if they are going to need to risk a lot of money. Now, regulars would be the exception to this rule, but your average competition won’t be grinding out 100k hands per month.
Pressure and aggression are big winners in deep stack play. Use your opponents fear as a tool for profit. You might be surprised to see how often players fold their hands just to ensure that they don’t lose a big pot. Remember that it is better to lose some big pots and win some big pots if you are also picking up a bunch of moderate sized pots along the way. Steady wins payoff much more than those occasional monster wins, even if you don’t realize it in the moment.