Big Stack School

brackdog

brackdog

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I don't usually have this problem, but yesterday in the Fult Tilt Facebook freeroll I caught fire just after the pay line and ran my stack to about 50K, 15K more than the next nearest player. 40/400 Players left, blinds were 600/300. Not a turbo game, 10 minute levels. It's a freeroll, so play was generally loose, but the prize pool was decent so the game was not crazed.

I had some early success pushing mid-sized stacks around, lost what seemed like a disproportionate share of hands in races against smaller stacks who pushed. Took a catastrophic beat when I played 10-10 aggressively into a non-threatening flop against one player who wouldn't let his 3-3 go, and turned his set. Ended up losing about 2/3 of my stack in that hand, from there on it was my usual lower-middle of the pack scramble.

Following the wsop ME from year to year, you see lots of players with huge stacks on Day X disappear on Day Y, so I can't be the only player who doesn't know what to do when the pile of chips gets big. General strategy suggestions on how to play a dominating stack?
 
B

BluffYou123

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Interesting read. I'm usually terrible with a big stack so I am interested to see what feedback this thread gets. My own thinking is to just play my usual game when I have a big stack and sit tight. Try to pick up some pots from late position but not get carried away.
 
loopmeister

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I've had exactly the same experiences.

I think the key thing is that I'm not that experienced at deep stack poker. I've been mixing some cash sessions into my play to try and improve on that area.

If you're the big stack but the average stack size is around 20BBs, then I would suggest trying the following strategies, though this is by no means gospel.
i) keep playing tight. I'd spew half my stack getting clever with hands like 53s from MP. I've noticed guys with biggish stacks going after the big stack sometimes because of the implied odds.
ii) If you're on the bubble / ITM, I try to identify the mid-stack players looking to ladder up and those who're in-it-to-win-it. The former you can shove into a ton and just takes their blinds, limps and raises.
E.g. Let's say villain is in CO w 20BB. Antes are 0.1BB. You're the BTN w 50+BB. You're in mincash territory and he's reasonably placed. MP raises 3x. Presume his range is quite tight: 55+, AJ+, KQs (8.4%). If you shove here with ATC, what will he call with? Assuming your read is correct and he doesn't want to get knocked out, he'll only call with QQ+, maybe AK (2.6%). That's only 31% of the time. So 69% of the time you scoop a nice pot. 31% of the time you're behind, but you still have 25.4% equity in the pot! So your EV is 0.69*(3+2.4) + 0.31*(0.254*22.4 - 0.746*20) = 0.86BB.
Not a bad return for any two cards :)
This play is still EV for villain up to 25 BB under these assumptions. You can play with the ranges in Pstove, and maybe slice off the bottom of your range, but this is still a very +ev play in many situations.

I've ignored the blinds here; if you have a calling station / super shorty still to act, then proceed with caution, but for simplicity, let's assume they fold to a nitraise + bigstack shove.

If an aggressive shortstack player is stealing your blinds a ton, it's worth standing up to him. He <i>should</i> be tightening up with a big stack behind him, but if he isn't, I'm calling/shoving with a much wider range. Firstly, I can knock him out; secondly, it sends a message that my blinds aren't charity.
 
cardriverx

cardriverx

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yeah i was in a poker curious freeroll where I was just pushing with anything at the beginning (I didn't really want to play it). Well end result I had about 70k at one point with #2 having 29k lol.

I played wayyy too loose and ended up back in the middle, then played well, ended 3rd.

I think the key is not letting it get to your head and playing ultra-loose.
 
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Niantic

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I am sure that most players is playing more lose with a big stack than they would do with a medium sized stack.
Personally I do tend to call the marginal hands as well, just to see if I can hit on the flop.
That is not the best play. I think that the best play with a big stack would be:
Play fairly tight, raise some hands in late position, if they're worth to call an all-in move from one of the remaining stacks playing the hand, and since you have a 50bb, maybe even 100bb stack, then you can afford to sit around and wait for the monster hands.
That is the best way to play a deep stack, I think.
Then again, others might say that you should be a bully and just dominate the table with your stack.

It's very individual :)

Regards!
 
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