I think a lot of peoples best gameplay comes out in small to mid stack but I find most people have a hard time maintaining their lead. I try to play tight and aggressive but I usually find my stack to be deteriorating with my style. Any techniques or rule of thumbs would be appreciated.

Originally Posted by Skrrrrtreynolds

I think a lot of peoples best gameplay comes out in small to mid stack but I find most people have a hard time maintaining their lead. I try to play tight and aggressive but I usually find my stack to be deteriorating with my style. Any techniques or rule of thumbs would be appreciated.

Thank U 4 Posting

The first thing to do is to check for leaks in our game. We may feel our game is solid but having a big stack leak can reveal that we may not be.

With shorter stacks we make a mistake we either bust out our put ourselves into shove fold mode. Often that means we make only the one mistake. With larger stacks we can keep making mistakes and that is what bleeds our stack down.

So a review of your hands specifically when you have a big stack is key.

A mental review of your thought process during big stack play is also good.
You may not have a big stack leak but it may help to review and be sure.


We are looking for thought patterns that are errors such as:

I would normally fold but I have a lot of chips I will call.

If I shove over the top here this mid stack has to fold.

I will thin value bet this spot it is only Xbb.

I am getting x-1 in this multi way pot I will call I have the chips.

If I take down this big stack villain right now I will have the chip lead.

So you may be reading this and saying these are reasonable thoughts and they are.


However we want to be based on DATA not on emotion. On board runouts- not I have the chips to do this.

We want to be drawing to the nuts when getting x-1 in a multiway pot not to a hopeful 7 high flush draw for instance.

We want to know the other big stack can fold a hand if we are going to get them to fold and base it on the board runout. Often other big stacks in the mid stage section of tournaments are not the tight foldy type.

Again not saying that you do this- I have done it myself. I repeatedly see others doing this, so I am just bringing it to your and anyone else reading this, their attention in case it may be of help.

Freerolls have a Brazilian system. )) These players at the beginning of the tournament play any acceptable hand for all-in and this happens systematically when several players from Brazil play at the same table. This makes sense, as the range of the game becomes higher with a large stack.

When I have big stack, I try not to spill my chips just because I have lots of them and have space to play lots of hands, that I usually don’t. I try to put pressure when I can with my big stack, and to control pots that I play, but again against the people that I can. I think that saving big chip stack is more important than playing wild, and risking to much, what almost every time leads to disaster, and losing.

when I am building a big stack, I try to put pressure on the middle and close to me stacks, because it is not profitable for them to play with me, they can lose their entire stack.

You have to keep your opponents under pressure and steal the pots.
And good decisions need to be made in specific situations.
But for sure, it’s not easy to maintain a chiplaeder position in the tournament if you manage to reach it early.
I didn’t really see anyone as a chip leader at the beginning of the tournament and in the end they even won the tournament.(Of course, it can still be like that, but it's sure to be rare.)

Punish the short stacks with impunity.

With a large stack, you should play a lot more aggressively than usual, play more hands, push your opponents. If the situation is on bubble, no one wants to contact you at all. Poker tournaments are won by those who are not afraid to play and take risks.

Mid-stack tight players get as tight as possible. They have too many chips to shove, and by definition they don't often call or 3-bet preflop. Therefore, all they have to do is throw away many hands that they would have played under different circumstances.
Sitting directly to your left is a tight middle-stacked player - it's like being on the button twice a round. This is the ideal situation. For these reasons, I sometimes even call shoves from the tight short stack to my left. If I call and lose, that player will double up to mid-stack and play even tighter, allowing me to steal the blinds from him more often.
Loose players usually don't get tighter with the average stack. Some will play as if they are short stacked and will play lightweight with the big blinds than most other players. Others will play like they have a big stack and 3-bet lightly or speculatively call.
None of these situations work for me if I'm using pure style, so when I'm out of position with these players, I'll open the game with a tighter and more playable range. That way, if they choose to shove back, I can call them more often, and if they choose to loosely call preflop, then I can play the stack more often postflop. Worst-case scenario - if you open a wide hand, throw a marginal hand and lose the pot to them - then you end up with a loose aggressive player with a large stack to your left. This must be avoided

try to play looser expand your hand range a little more and try to steal more blind that if as a lot of caution

I have always played looser with bigger stacks....but position is always the key!