thepokerkid123
Visionary
Silver Level
How do you play big cards when you're deep stacked?
I don't play well when I get very deep stacked, my win rate drops off dramatically. Shorter stacks can take marginal situations but if you get mixed up in a pot with another very deep stack you need more than a one pair hand and often the big pots are won by a flush or straight. The value of suited connectors that can flop big hands goes way up and the value of big cards goes way down, that's simple enough but what do you do when you're dealt big cards?
When I'm up at say 300 BB's and I'm dealt AA, KK or AK, I've got no idea what to do if there's someone else with a similar stack.
You obviously raise pre-flop, so you're called in one or two places and the flop hits some random looking cards (assume no A when you hold kings and that when you hold AK you hit top pair top kicker).
Obviously you bet the flop, as these are all strong hands that need to be protected but you get called by such a wide range by another deep stack. They should call you with any draw.
Half of the cards in the deck become scare cards. You have to lead out and bet again (even if you're in position here, it's probably checked to you so you've got to do the betting, if someone does bet into you it's usually an easy fold), you can't check because if you did that you may as well just wave a white flag.
So the situation is that you're making a big bet into a dangerous board (just about any board is dangerous here, even if only for the threat of two pair). I seem to fall into this trap fairly often and end up commiting so many chips to this one pair hand and end up either having to fold it or call a raise with aces and lose to rags that made two pair or better.
The sollution is obviously to either play a small pot, or not let anyone see too many cards. Playing a small pot means playing a multiway pot though (the pre-flop raise, if it's big enough to thin the field makes the pot get very big very fast) and not letting anyone see cards means overbetting pre-flop and if you do that, you really have to put in a large enough portion of your stack to take away the implied odds for people to try and draw out on you which means getting very little value for your cards.
Or maybe it's best to just play them normally and hope to take down the pot on the flop/turn?
Which would probably be okay... except for how easily you can be pushed out of the pot here by a raise from someone betting a draw or just bluffing.
I don't play well when I get very deep stacked, my win rate drops off dramatically. Shorter stacks can take marginal situations but if you get mixed up in a pot with another very deep stack you need more than a one pair hand and often the big pots are won by a flush or straight. The value of suited connectors that can flop big hands goes way up and the value of big cards goes way down, that's simple enough but what do you do when you're dealt big cards?
When I'm up at say 300 BB's and I'm dealt AA, KK or AK, I've got no idea what to do if there's someone else with a similar stack.
You obviously raise pre-flop, so you're called in one or two places and the flop hits some random looking cards (assume no A when you hold kings and that when you hold AK you hit top pair top kicker).
Obviously you bet the flop, as these are all strong hands that need to be protected but you get called by such a wide range by another deep stack. They should call you with any draw.
Half of the cards in the deck become scare cards. You have to lead out and bet again (even if you're in position here, it's probably checked to you so you've got to do the betting, if someone does bet into you it's usually an easy fold), you can't check because if you did that you may as well just wave a white flag.
So the situation is that you're making a big bet into a dangerous board (just about any board is dangerous here, even if only for the threat of two pair). I seem to fall into this trap fairly often and end up commiting so many chips to this one pair hand and end up either having to fold it or call a raise with aces and lose to rags that made two pair or better.
The sollution is obviously to either play a small pot, or not let anyone see too many cards. Playing a small pot means playing a multiway pot though (the pre-flop raise, if it's big enough to thin the field makes the pot get very big very fast) and not letting anyone see cards means overbetting pre-flop and if you do that, you really have to put in a large enough portion of your stack to take away the implied odds for people to try and draw out on you which means getting very little value for your cards.
Or maybe it's best to just play them normally and hope to take down the pot on the flop/turn?
Which would probably be okay... except for how easily you can be pushed out of the pot here by a raise from someone betting a draw or just bluffing.