Being almost exclusively an online player, I hardly ever dabble in deep stack situations. When I am talking deep stack situations, I am going to be referring to stacks of at least 200 big blinds per person involved. There are times when you and another player have built up stacks on a table and you will make a choice rather to play deep or leave. If your deep stack play is lacking, you might be forced to pass up a mediocre player with a lot of money in front of them. Also, a lot of live games over 5/10 NL are uncapped buy ins that I have encountered, so you will want to be able to play those if they are soft as well.

Online has brought an aggressive style and that has been mainly due to the stack sizes being 100 big blinds to start. When you reraise on a flop with 100 bb (big blinds) you are going to be investing 15-20 bb in the pot, so when they call, there will not be much room for plays by the river. But if you had 600bb to start, it opens up all the doors to plays that an online player is unable to make day in and day out.

The main thing to remember when playing deep stacked is foresight. With rather shallow stacks, when you raise a flush draw on the flop or turn, you probably are going to be priced in to call if your opponent shoves over. This is not true in deep stacked poker and you can easily get blown off your draws. You don’t want to just raise every time you have a flush draw, but instead pick your spots and opponents to manipulate. Deep stacks also allow for large implied odds. If you have 600 bb and can call 50 bb total to hit a straight, you are probably going to do it against the right opponent. You want to plan your hands out much more carefully with deeper stacks. Plays need to be thought out two or three streets before they actually occur.

Reverse implied odds play a much bigger roll as well. A lot of lesser players will call a lot on mediocre draws like a 9 high flush draw because they have deep stacks and then justify it by saying, “well if I hit I’ll win big!” This is true if the player will pay off and more importantly, their draw does not trump yours. If they are betting on a 3 8 10 two spade board, and you have the 67 of spades, you appear to have a huge hand. If you are against two pair or worse you are pretty close to even money. The problem is when the turn comes off the 2 of spades and he flips AQs to scoop a big pot against your not shrinking draw. You want to be careful to draw to hands you know are good if the opponent is not going to be folding. If you miss, that brings us to every good player’s favorite part of deep stack poker: bluffing.

Bluffing truly becomes an art as the stacks get deeper and deeper. Sure a stubborn player may call you down on the flop and turn all in with 100 bb stacks with KQo on a K 10 9 6 board, but see if they can stand the pressure of three full pot bets by the river. With such deep stacks, your fold equity is huge and if you can represent a hand that has your opponent questioning his holdings, there is a good chance you can get him to lay it down.
Obviously if your image is reckless, a three barrel bluff or a big river check raise to move him off two pair is probably not a great plan. If your image is right, you can make a losing scenario into a very +ev situation.

Deep stacks on the table means its even more paramount to know your image, and your opponents’ images and tendencies. A lot of times you can find yourself in weird spots that with a little planning you could have avoided. Instead of check/raising the flop with your draw and then leading out, maybe you check/raise the flop then check/shove the turn so you don’t get shut out of your draw and can apply more pressure. The most important thing to stress when playing with deep stacks is that when you act, whether it is a bet, check, raise, call, or fold, you want to do it with a purpose. Players with larger stacks that aren’t used to playing them start to leak chips in situations that could be avoided. There will be tough situations as there always are in poker, but you are trying to eliminate the ones that can be eliminated. If you call a reraise with Jacks before the flop, the flop comes Q J 10 with a flush draw and you are bet into, and then shoved on on following streets, your decision is tough no matter what your plan is. Hopefully your reads will be sharp enough to make the right decisions, because in deep stack poker, a misstep can be very costly.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Poker Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Being almost exclusively an online player, I hardly ever dabble in deep stack situations. When I am talking deep stack situations, I am going to be referring to stacks of at least 200 big blinds per person involved. There are times when you and another player have built up stacks on a table and you will make a choice rather to play deep or leave. If your deep stack play is lacking, you might be forced to pass up a mediocre player with a lot of money in front of them. Also, a lot of live games over 5/10 NL are uncapped buy ins that I have encountered, so you will want to be able to play those if they are soft as well.

Online has brought an aggressive style and that has been mainly due to the stack sizes being 100 big blinds to start. When you reraise on a flop with 100 bb (big blinds) you are going to be investing 15-20 bb in the pot, so when they call, there will not be much room for plays by the river. But if you had 600bb to start, it opens up all the doors to plays that an online player is unable to make day in and day out.

The main thing to remember when playing deep stacked is foresight. With rather shallow stacks, when you raise a flush draw on the flop or turn, you probably are going to be priced in to call if your opponent shoves over. This is not true in deep stacked poker and you can easily get blown off your draws. You don’t want to just raise every time you have a flush draw, but instead pick your spots and opponents to manipulate. Deep stacks also allow for large implied odds. If you have 600 bb and can call 50 bb total to hit a straight, you are probably going to do it against the right opponent. You want to plan your hands out much more carefully with deeper stacks. Plays need to be thought out two or three streets before they actually occur.

Reverse implied odds play a much bigger roll as well. A lot of lesser players will call a lot on mediocre draws like a 9 high flush draw because they have deep stacks and then justify it by saying, “well if I hit I’ll win big!” This is true if the player will pay off and more importantly, their draw does not trump yours. If they are betting on a 3 8 10 two spade board, and you have the 67 of spades, you appear to have a huge hand. If you are against two pair or worse you are pretty close to even money. The problem is when the turn comes off the 2 of spades and he flips AQs to scoop a big pot against your not shrinking draw. You want to be careful to draw to hands you know are good if the opponent is not going to be folding. If you miss, that brings us to every good player’s favorite part of deep stack poker: bluffing.

Bluffing truly becomes an art as the stacks get deeper and deeper. Sure a stubborn player may call you down on the flop and turn all in with 100 bb stacks with KQo on a K 10 9 6 board, but see if they can stand the pressure of three full pot bets by the river. With such deep stacks, your fold equity is huge and if you can represent a hand that has your opponent questioning his holdings, there is a good chance you can get him to lay it down.
Obviously if your image is reckless, a three barrel bluff or a big river check raise to move him off two pair is probably not a great plan. If your image is right, you can make a losing scenario into a very +ev situation.

Deep stacks on the table means its even more paramount to know your image, and your opponents’ images and tendencies. A lot of times you can find yourself in weird spots that with a little planning you could have avoided. Instead of check/raising the flop with your draw and then leading out, maybe you check/raise the flop then check/shove the turn so you don’t get shut out of your draw and can apply more pressure. The most important thing to stress when playing with deep stacks is that when you act, whether it is a bet, check, raise, call, or fold, you want to do it with a purpose. Players with larger stacks that aren’t used to playing them start to leak chips in situations that could be avoided. There will be tough situations as there always are in poker, but you are trying to eliminate the ones that can be eliminated. If you call a reraise with Jacks before the flop, the flop comes Q J 10 with a flush draw and you are bet into, and then shoved on on following streets, your decision is tough no matter what your plan is. Hopefully your reads will be sharp enough to make the right decisions, because in deep stack poker, a misstep can be very costly.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Poker Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.