Poker Strategy Deep Stack Tournament

Everyday players are sitting down at the tables and consistently making fundamental mistakes because of lack of knowledge, misinformation or failing to maintain focus.

Even just a small strategical adjustment in poker can potentially save you a huge amount in the long run.

Often, in a tournament, you will only have to make a decision preflop and on the flop because the stacks are so short. In a cash game, you have to consider your poker strategy all the way to the river with a deep stack at risk. The complexity of cash games is in the value game. Don’t assume, however, that because cash games are all about. One of the biggest differences between cash and tournament poker games is the diversity of stack sizes, and it is essential to account for this when determining the best strategy for a tournament. Daniel says: “The number one mistake I see tournament players makeis you see a player who has a chip lead or a very big stack and then just. A deepstack poker tournament means that you’re getting more chips than usual. For example, let’s say you usually start with 15,000 chips for $400 events on the WSOP Circuit (this is usually the case). If it’s a deepstack tournament, then you’re likely going to be starting with somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 chips.

In this article we will point out some of the best live and online poker tournament strategy tips you can use to improve your game as quickly as possible.

Tip 1: Play The Right Starting Hands

Whether it be lack of patience, or an unfamiliarity with opening ranges, many tournament poker players still open too wide. This is especially true when it comes to early and middle position opens, where there are still many opponents left to act behind who can be dealt a strong hand.

The problem is when called, wide openers are often at a range disadvantage. Often being dominated by their opponents, they are vulnerable to 3 bets since they frequently won't have a holding strong enough to continue under pressure.

Furthermore, although opening a hand like 7 ♠ 5♠ might at times not be a terrible strategy from early or middle position, speculative hands like suited connectors and gappers, as well as small pairs, work best with deep stacks behind.

These speculative hand types infrequently connect strongly with the flop, so those times they do you want to have deep stakes behind to have the potential to win a huge pot. Modern day tournament structures often only see deep stack play occur during the first few levels of play. This leads us into the next tournament poker tip, being stack size aware.

Learn which hands to open raise in MTT's - Watch lesson 6.1 from the Road to Success MTT Course. A power-packed 50 minute video below, just use one of the button options to unlock it and get instant access.

Tip 2: Be Stack Size Aware

Effective stack size plays a critical role in a tournament players success.

Having a deep stack, and therefore expanding an opening range to include a lot of speculative suited hands and small pairs is a tournament strategy that is going to be punished if a number of short stacks are yet to act behind. This most notably occurs in turbo tournaments where the average stack size is quite short.

Short stacks will be in push-or-fold mode. Being short, they don't have time to wait and will be looking to take any opportunity they can to move all-in. This high rate of all-ins will leave wide openers frequently being forced to relinquish their hands, without even having the opportunity to try to hit a nice flop. Problematic hands often include; J8s , KTo and weak Ax hands.

It's not just short-stacks that can cause a problem, aggressive players will be looking to attack wide-openers. This is especially true when a player opens with a vulnerable M8-M14 (20bb-35bb) stack. 3 bets get good leverage against this stack size, since continuing in the pot represents committing a significant portion of a players stack.

Wide openers would be wise not to commit a large percentage of their stack with marginal holdings, and so will be forced to fold, or face being in a high-risk situation. Staying aware of your own stacks utility, as well as anticipating how opponents will utilize their stacks, is an important tournament poker tip to keep in mind.

POKER TIP: If you are currently using BB to calculate stack size, here's a look at why using 'M' is a better MTT strategy.

Tip 3: Be Careful Overplaying In The Early Stages

As a stack gets deeper, the less willing a competent player will be to put their entire stack at risk since they have more to lose. It's rare to see good players all-in during the early stages of a tournament with hands like AKo or JJ preflop.

Smart players recognize that their counterparts aren't going to be risking their entire stack with weaker hands like AQo . Therefore, even a strong hand like AK could be at a significant equity disadvantage facing a deep stacked opponents all-in range. Could you fold QQ here?

Rather than putting in an extra raise, often times just calling with even very strong hands in the early stage of a poker tournament has great benefits.

• Allows your opponents to continue with hands they were folding to a re-raise that you have crushed.
• Disguises the strength of your hand and keeps you unpredictable.
• Prevents you from getting all-in facing a super strong range where often times you're crushed.

Tip 4: Continuation Bet Aggressively But Not Always

Players have learnt the value of c-betting, but it's a strategy that is often misapplied. Being the preflop aggressor shouldn't lead to a mandatory c-bet and double barrels.

This is especially true in multi-way pots yet players continue to make fruitless c-bets with weak holdings into multiple opponents.

Even in heads-up situations, key factors to consider include;

• How does the flop texture interact with players ranges?
• Who has the strongest range?
• Who has nut advantage (the biggest share of super strong hands)?
• How passive or aggressive is the opponent we're facing?
• How does the stack size/SPR allow us to operate on the flop and future streets?

The following hand illustrates the effect nut advantage can have on profitable continuation betting and how it applies to this tournament poker tip:

Tip 5: Be ICM Aware

The Independent Chip Model or ICM, is a great model players use to make more profitable decisions when deep in a tournament and especially at a final table.

Unlike in cash games, chip values fluctuate depending on the stage of the tournament and the competing opponents stack sizes. At it's most extreme, ICM strategy can make A♠A♣: an easy fold preflop.

Imagine a situation in a satellite where 9 players get a World Series of Poker entry and there's 10 remaining. The action folds around to a player with 100,000 in tournament chips who moves all in from the small blind. You're sitting in the big blind with A♠A♣: and also 100,000 in chips. You look around and see a few opponents with only 1000 chips left, which is the size of the current big blind. Obviously one of these short stacks is likely to bust very soon.

Obviously one of these short stacks is likely to bust very soon. Moreover the chance that they collectively out survive your 100,000 stack is extremely remote. You'd likely be a 99% chance to get a WSOP entry, so why would you call with your A♠A♣ and risk busting next around 20% of the time?

Aside from calling too wide in spots when the most profitable strategy is to proceed tightly, the opposite can also be true when it comes to pressuring your opponents. ICM allows players when they have the opportunity to assert pressure on there opponents stacks, to go ahead and do so liberally, since thinking opponents counter-strategy is to play a tight range of hands.

Here's an example of how drastically a hand range can change when the opportunity to assert pressure at a final table exists. 5 of the 6 remaining players at the Pokerstars Sunday Millions have 15bb's, whilst the UTG player has a short 2bb stack. Since the 15bb stacks wants to avoid busting out next and missing out on a large pay jump before the immanent bust out of the 2bb stack, the small blind can adjust their all-in range. Instead of the profitably 57% all-in range in normal play, they can move all-in with 100% of hands to apply pressure on the big blind.

Whilst the big blind should adjust their calling range from the regular 36% to just 10% of hands to account for the ICM effect in play.

The PokerNerve Road to Success course teaches players how to master ICM situations, which is key to tournament poker success since ICM comes into play as the prizes become significant. If there was only one tournament poker tip that you take away from this article, it's that you need to know ICM!

Tip 6: Bet The Appropriate Size

Strong players are capitalizing on their opponents tendencies to bet too big or too small in a number of different situations. With some similar considerations to that of continuation betting, when selecting a bet size important aspects include;

• Which player's range does the board texture favor?
• Who has the greatest nut saturation?
• How does SPR influence our betting strategy

Poker Strategy Deep Stack Tournaments

There are many great articles online about bet sizing. You should be sure to check out ThePokerBank's and the Pokerology's to learn more about this tournament tip.

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Tip 7: Take Equity Realization Into Account

Possibly due to the popularity growth of Twitch, many poker players approach to big blind play has evolved. The current trend is to defend the big blind with virtually any 2 cards, as some top pros elect to do, and the justification for this is taking advantage of the excellent pot odds being offered.

While the inclusion of antes combined with commonly seeing a small open raise size does offer the big blind generous pot odds, this has led to a fundamental flaw in the way many players approach big blind play in poker tournaments. The key concept overlooked, is equity realization.

Equity realization reflects a players ability to take a certain hand, and win their share of the pot, frequently enough, to make it profitable in the long-term. Although some top pros have the ability to win their equity share of the pot even out of position, less skilled players rarely do. This leads to a large chip loss in the long run.

It is quite difficult to realize of your equity when out of position, with no initiative and a weak range. This means them glorious odds you are being offered aren't quite as good as you think!

The following article explains this crucial tournament poker tip in more detail; Equity Realization.

Tip 8: Don't Miss Double And Triple Barrel Opportunities

'One and done' is the plight of many aspiring tournament poker players. Everyday at the tables I see players missing profitable opportunities to double, or even triple barrel. Understanding what turn and river cards are advantageous to a players range, along with opponent tendencies, are crucial parts of a winning barreling formula.

The most common scenario at the table, is a heads-up pot where the big blind calls an open-raise. And this happens to be a great spot to barrel. Big blind defenders have a wide range, and it's important to pressure this wide range, especially on only partially connected board textures with one or multiple high cards.

RedChipPoker has a great article on spotting profitable double barrel opportunities which you can read here: THE +EV DOUBLE BARREL GUIDE

Tip 9: Check-Raise More Flops

The biggest difference between the current tournament population, and the future generation, will likely be their approach to check-raising the flop. This opportunity typically occurs in a heads-up pot, after defending the big blind verse an opponents raise.

Currently, MTT players only check-raise the flop in this situation around 7-8% of the time, when closer to 20% is a more optimal strategy. On certain flop textures, check-raising close to 25% of the time is an extremely profitable strategy. And if players are getting out of line with their c-bets, then check-raising at an even higher frequency could be a profitable exploit.

By giving up too easily on a wide range of board textures, or taking a more passive approach and simply calling, c-betting can be done with reckless abandon. However, by selecting a nice mix of check-raising hands, combining some strong hands with some good semi-bluffing candidates, a check-raiser can become tricky to play against and exploit the average players tendency to over c-bet.

POKER TIP: Applied correctly and check-raising becomes a super powerful weapon in your arsenal leading to more profitable poker results. But also think beyond the flop, there's plenty of check-raising opportunities you may be missing. This video demonstrates an interesting turn check-raise situation.

We discuss check raising strategy in more detail in our post over on unfeltedpoker.com.

Tip 10: Develop A Good 3betting Strategy

Whilst 3 betting aggressively is a strategy many players employ, especially in online poker circles, failure to apply optimal 3 betting strategies has certainly led to a lot of spewy poker. Simply attacking opponents who are suspected of opening wide doesn't cut it in the modern poker world.

Players have learnt to deal with 3 bets more profitably, by mixing in some calls with timely 4 bets. Moreover, the role stack size plays when it comes to 3 betting it still largely misunderstood by much of the poker community.

Sure there are certain stack sizes where 3 bets gain a lot of leverage, but how about the role blockers play? And when is 9♦7♦ a better 3 bet candidate than K♦T♠ ? These are just some of the considerations when it comes to a profitable 3 betting strategy. See how to design strong 3betting ranges in this article by Donkr.

Poker Strategy Deep Stack Tournament Rules

Bonus Poker Strategy Tip: Avoid and Deal with Downswings

As a poker player you want to earn your money as easily and as stress-free as possible right? Well, understanding ROI, variance and bankroll management can help (see TopPokerValue's article on bankroll management).

All poker players at some point experience downswings. In some cases, this can affect their play, volume or state of mind.

Poker Strategy Deep Stack Tournament Game

You'll be miserable, hating poker, playing less and earning less per tournament as your play will suffer.

Along with finding ways that work for you to keep a positive mindset, taking pro-active steps can help keep you confident by knowing you are dealing with the situation like a professional whilst at the same time taking positive action to get back on track and winning.

What is ROI and variance?

Every tournament you enter has an EV associated with it. So if you enter a $10 tourney, as a good player maybe you have a 30% ROI, so you make $3. So it doesn't matter whether you brick that tourney or win it for $5000, you make $3 in the long run.

Now, of course, you don't make $3 each time. 80-85% of the time you lose that $10, some percentage of the time you win a little bit, and some very small percentage of the time you win a lot. How small those ‘small percentages’ are primarily depends on not only your skill edge, but also the field size which is an extremely important concept that is often ignored.

Variance is a factor of two things:

1) Your edge

2) The field size

Example 1)

You play the Hot $55 which has $30K guaranteed, every day for a year on Pokerstars. It has 1600 runners and you have a 5% ROI, because turbo ROIs are small. Your average yearly profit is $605 however you will lose money on the year 55% of the time.

Example 2)

You play a $20 tourney with $3K guaranteed on a softer site every day for a year. It has 200 runners and you have a 30% ROI, because it's a normal speed tourney and you’re against an easier field. Your average yearly profit is $2400 and in this case you lose money only 12% of the time.

A lot of people would look at those two tournaments and make a decision based on the buy-in and 1st place prize money as to which was better to play, and it would be grossly wrong. Once you accept all the above, you realise that the 'up top' number is largely meaningless.

Yes, on the same site bigger fields may mean a lot of fish have registered to play, but you'll find a lot of small field, soft, non-peak hour tournaments have a great pro-to-fish ratio and hence are great value. Of course once you consider other sites that have smaller fields, you'll often find they are a better choice than what might be running on Pokerstars.

So what can you do?

When players start losing money and along with that, confidence, not only does their game deteriorate but they often compound that problem by failing to make rational decisions. Often losing players, or players on a downswing, go 'bink chasing' and decide to take a shot to win all their money back in one tourney. Or load up some quick $82 hyper-turbos to try to turn it all around quickly.

People get overly fixated on what's 'up top' and wanting to score big in one tournament. That’s a sure-fire strategy to fuel a down swing. If your house got knocked down would you try to slap it back up in a week? Take that opportunity to rebuild a better, stronger house.

Make sure you're adding in some study and keep focused (see Sky's Matsuhashi How To Study Poker series), and stay fresh and positive as you approach each session. Be smart and get back into profit quicker instead of enduring a 6-12 month variance rollercoaster!

Closing Words On Tournament Poker Tips

Poker is a multi-faceted game which makes it fun but challenging. Challenge yourself to factor in the relevant concepts, and make more profitable decisions. Tighten up from the big blind, and in general around the table. This tip often quickly improves a new players results, or those that have a got a little sloppy with their play.

Calculate stack size using 'M'. Always be aware of your own, and your opponents stack sizes so you don't get yourself caught in awkward situations. One awkward situation that often comes up is when you hold an overpair to the board and an opponent puts the heat on you. Don't be afraid to make big lay downs to preserve your stack, especially in the early levels.

Be aware of your cbetting frequency. There's no need to waste tournament poker chips cbetting every time, especially when the pot is multi-way. Pick your spots to make profitable plays. Remember when it comes to the final table, regularly profitable playing ranges might alter due to the payouts. ICM is the key when it comes to those final big decisions.

Another key to success is knowing when to fire multiple bullets at your opponents. Barreling, especially against a wide big blind range can really help increase your non-showdown winnings. Finding ways to accumulate chips without always having the best hand is what top players do. This is why check-raising and having a good 3 betting strategy is so important. Correct use of these strategical concepts and the other tips outlines will get you winning more at the tables.

Now that you've acquired some great holdem tournament strategy tips to help you achieve MTT success, go out there an implement them!

One of the quickest way to improve your poker game is to take on a poker coaching, a course or join a poker training site; if that is something that interests you be sure to check out the PokerNerve road to Success Course for some advanced poker tournament strategy or you can check out HowToPlayPokerInfo's guide on poker training & poker courses to find the right option for you.

Any other poker tournament strategy tips? Leave them below in the comments, we would love to hear them!

There are a lot of guides and study resources to help you understand and conquer medium stack tournament poker play. There are even more guides and tools to help you master short stack tournament play. The phase of the tournament that seems to get the most neglect, though, is deep stack tournament play.

This may be because it’s more challenging for people to bust out in this stage, so they think it’s less important. You have more chips, so you feel like you have more room for mistakes that don’t cost you your tournament life. It may also be because most players assume they are playing correctly, when in fact they aren’t. Even more, it could be because it’s one of the tougher stages of play to master. Whatever the reason might be, it’s insanity to neglect such a big part of a poker tournament.

In this guide, I’m going to walk you through everything you need to know to start tackling the deep stack stages of Texas hold’em poker tournaments. While I couldn’t possibly attempt to cover every instance or hand possibility involved in deep stack play, I’m going to do my best to cover the major strategic implications that you need to be aware of.

Deep Stacks Versus Structure or Other Players?

One of the biggest misconceptions that I see from tournament poker players is the understanding of what it means to be deep stacked. When I’m talking about being deep stacked from a strategy perspective, it ONLY refers to how many chips you have in relation to the blinds. If you have 100,000 chips, your opponents all have 10 million chips, and the blinds are 300/600, are you deep stacked? The answer is yes! You have over 160 times the big blind. It does not matter that your opponents have monster stacks. You have a smaller stack in comparison, but you’re still deep stacked relative to the blinds.

Anytime you have somewhere over 70 or 80 times the big blind, you can consider yourself deep stacked in a tournament. The more big blinds you have, the more deep stacked you are. If you notice, this is different than in cash games. If you have 100 times the big blind in a cash game, it’s said that you have a normal stack. Anything over that 100 big blinds starts to move you into the territory of being deep stacked. Tournament play is viewed differently. Anything over that 70 or 80 big blind mark starts to be considered deep stacked.

Please make sure that you are not making this distinction based on your opponent’s stack sizes. While they will have the ability to put more pressure on you with larger stacks, it does not change whether or not you personally are deep stacked.

The only time that it does matter how big your opponent’s stack is happens to be when they have a smaller stack than you. If you are heads up with an opponent and you have 200 times the big blind, and they have 30 times the big blind, are you deep stacked? Technically, you are, but the hand is not going to play out that way. The effective stack is only 30 big blinds, so you are not going to be playing a conventional deep stacked pot.

Is being deep stacked only in the early stages of a tournament? Nope! The only reason I have that listed in the title of this guide is that it’s much more common for everyone to be deep stacked at the beginning of the tournament. Technically, you can be deep stacked the entire duration of the tournament as long as you continue to accumulate chips. This rarely happens, though, thanks to the ebbs and flows of tournament poker, but there have been people who have gone wire to wire before without ever falling out of the deep stack range.

Remember, it ONLY matters how many chips you have in relation to the blinds. It has nothing to do with anyone else’s stack or what level of the tournament it is in.

Chips Ripe for the Pickings

One of the best parts about deep stack play (especially when it occurs early in the tournaments) is that there are usually a lot of bad players who have tons of chips they are looking to give away. Are they consciously looking to give them away? No, silly. I just mean they’re not very good and are inevitably going to spew their chips off. They have problems making necessary folds and just don’t know how to play with so many chips in front of them. Think of it like this. If you gave a clueless investor $10 to invest, how big of a mess could they make? If you gave that same clueless investor $1,000,000 to invest, now how big of a mess could they make? Mo money, mo problems.

If you’re a sharp player, this creates a great opportunity for you to exploit these players’ mistakes and pick up some easy chips. How should you adjust your play? Well, you should be looking to play more pots with these deep stacked fish. You should be getting in there with more speculative hands and trying to snap them off when they have a bigger hand they can’t fold.

I’m going to talk later in depth about how the value of certain hands increase and decrease as the stack sizes changes. Most recreational players are not aware of this, and it creates a lot of problems for them that you should be looking to take advantage of.

The reason this is so important early in a tournament is that the recreational/bad players are less likely to make it to the later stages of the tournament with a lot of chips.

Most of them are going to gift those chips away before they know what hit them. This means that you need to actively be in there trying to get your hands on some of these chips before the other sharks scoop them all up.

Don’t Get Too Splashy

While the above tip to go after the fish early is important, it has to be taken with a heavy dose of discretion. It can be tempting when you have a lot of chips to put all of those chips to work. It’s completely fine to use your chips to continue building your stack, but you can’t try and do it on every hand. You still need to be conscious of the fact that it’s just not possible to win every hand. Pick your spots wisely and don’t overextend yourself. You can take some shots, but protect that big stack.

Something else I often see that you should not be doing is getting too passively splashy with a big stack. This leak can cause your entire game to sink. Instead of fighting for chips, people will passively see flops and play fit or fold. If they hit the flop, they’ll push forward, but if they miss, they’ll give up and not look for spots to try and win the pot. The feeling that this is ok comes with the idea that they have so many chips it’s not going to hurt to “see a few flops.”

Don’t leak off your big stack. Use those chips ACTIVELY to fight for pots.

The Decreasing Value of Big Hands

Pocket aces are a huge hand, right? AK on a K-8-2 board is a big flop, right? While these are big hands, the deeper the stacks, the lower their value is. When you’re sitting on a shorter stack, one pair hands and overpairs are monsters. With 30 big blinds, you’re usually ecstatic to get it in with top pair and top kicker. With a deep stack, though, if you’re getting 100+ big blinds in with one pair, you’re usually going to be in a world of hurt.

Here’s the problem with hands like aces when you’re sitting on a deep stack. They are hard to fold and rarely will win a big pot deep stacked. You’re destined to win a smaller pot or lose a bigger one. This usually is the fault of the fact that it’s hard to fold a hand like aces.

To backtrack a few steps, I am not saying that hands like aces and AK are bad hands. I’m not even saying that they’re bad hands to get early or when you are deep stacked. What I am saying is that their value based on the tendencies of common players make them a potential hazard in deeper stacked situations.

These hands may put you in some tougher situations and will require a lot more correct decisions to play properly when you are deep stacked. You need to be prepared to fold these hands and do so without a lot of resistance.

Remember, as the stack sizes increase, the value of these one pair type hands decreases. As the stack sizes decrease, the value of these one pair type hands increases.

The Increasing Value of Speculative Hands

Just as the value of the strong one pair hands change with stack size, so do the speculative hands that have the capabilities of flopping sets and making five-card hands like straights and flushes. As the stacks get deeper, these speculative hands grow greatly in value. Why? Well, first of all, they have the ability to snap off the hands we mentioned in the section above. Too many people struggle to fold one pair hands deep stacked, which makes the ability to take advantage of that huge with these hands.

Poker Strategy Deep Stack Tournament Strategy

Second, these hands are extremely easy to fold when you miss or only hit somewhat. For example, most people aren’t going to go broke with 8-9 suited on a 9-6-4 flop. You may lose some chips, but you are going to be able to get away from it if you need to.

As stacks get shallower, these hands lose value because you don’t have enough chips to be speculating. The implied value just isn’t there because people’s stacks are usually too short. However, when stacks are deep, these are the kinds of hands that you should be looking to win some big pots with. Remember, though, don’t get too passive trying to make a hand. You still want to be in there fighting for chips.

Deep Stack Poker Tournament Strategy

Putting It All Together

Here are the main ideas you should be taking away from this. Let’s review.

• Whether or not you are deep stacked is dependent on your chips in relation to the blind level. It has nothing to do with how many chips your opponents have or what stage of the tournament it is. The only time it matters how many chips your opponents have is when everyone in the hand has fewer chips than you and the effective stack shrinks.
• Overpairs and other one pair hands lose value deep stacked because they are tough to fold and are rarely good in big pots.
• Speculative hands that can make five-card hands like flushes and straights and snap off stubborn one pair hands rise in value the deeper stacked you are. These hands are easy to fold when you miss and even when you hit, making them much less of a liability. They become especially high in value when you’re playing against worse players who struggle to make necessary folds.

Ideally, deep stacked tournament poker play is going to play much more like a full stacked cash game than it is a tournament. There will be some tougher decisions to make as you’ll be playing more on later streets than when you are shorter stacked, and the chips get in before the later streets. Just make sure that you are always aware of how deep your stack is and how that should affect your play. Deep stack play is one of the most neglected, but can be the most important in your quest for tournament glory.