Deep Stack Strategy

Young Grimm

Just wondering what the "best" strategy for a deepstack tourney is? See a lot of flops early and try to double up or play just a regular game as if the starting stacks were normal?

pkrfce9

what is your definition of 'deep stack'? 100+xBB?

what is the patience factor? it has an impact on the strategy.

ReefAquarium

This is a good question.

When the stacks are deep early in the tournament ...

Old school has you playing 99+, AK, AQs from early position and a bit looser in later position.

New school has you playing small ball for 2.5BB raises with small pocket pairs, suited connectors, suited gappers and even worse hands... The idea is to use your hand reading and postflop skill to make up for the theoretical -EV loss preflop and outplay the tight passive intermediate skilled players.

herschelw

In reality both styles work. The key to deep stack poker is not commiting too many chips with weaker holdings. If someone decent puts a large % of thier stack in then You must be able to fold top pair top kicker. Pot contrl and more careful play tend to work best. Keep in mind though I mean careful postflop play. You can style play very LAG preflop successfully as long as you doing so when you're going to be in position postflop.

JimmyHo

ReefAquarium;161332 wroteThis is a good question.

When the stacks are deep early in the tournament ...

Old school has you playing 99+, AK, AQs from early position and a bit looser in later position.

New school has you playing small ball for 2.5BB raises with small pocket pairs, suited connectors, suited gappers and even worse hands... The idea is to use your hand reading and postflop skill to make up for the theoretical -EV loss preflop and outplay the tight passive intermediate skilled players.

Old school, new school? is this the new poker renaissance?

kingkao86

I think this goes back to
play new school on an old school table and play old school on a new school table

Keep in mind, just because your stack is big compared to blinds does not mean you can donk them off. You still want to stay in good shape compared to average chip stack.

Would also advise not to go all-in unless you have the nuts early in the tournament.

Pantsonfire

This depends on several factors but the key one is how the other players are playing.

I've been in $500 buyin tournaments where most of the players got in on a satellite (me included). In these tourneys, I find the players are very tight and tentative and a small ball strategy works when these players are folding missed flops and bottom pair. Any calls pretty well tell you they have a good piece of the flop. Any big bets or raises tell you they have a very good hand and it's time to either slow play your better hand or get out with anything less. If you do make a hand, the best play I like to make is smaller value bets since a check/call from a tight player could mean a better hand than me so I try to keep the pot reasonable.

In a lower buyin tourney like $10-20, the players are much looser. Many are looking to double up. Sometimes there is crazy pf action and if not, many stick around well after the flop. Small ball is totally ineffective since pf raises are not respected nor are continuation bets. However, the implied odds in these games are very high when deep stacked so I see a lot of flops with speculative hands. However, I don't steal and get out unless my hand is headed towards something big. But in the crazy pf types of games, you can bleed off a lot playing like this so I tighten up if I'm looking at folding to a likely reraise. I will however call single raises in position with a wide variety of hands that can make something big. And if you are lucky enough to get into a game where guys minraise or limp a lot, I even limp early with something like 44 or 86s. If there is too much action behind I lose 1bb out of 200bb, no big deal. But then again, at low buyins it's sometimes a minraise or 3x raise with 5-6 players calling and I can close the action (or know that the other left to act will just call) for another 1 or 2bbs.