harlem (Anonymous) says

Excellent post. Detailed as usual.

01/27/08

Anonymous says

Thanks Bond! I look forward to the next one. Till then I will reread the old ones over and over till it sinks in.

01/27/08

Anonymous says

great post.

01/27/08

Anonymous says

What happened to part 13?

01/31/08

Bond18 says

Part 13 is going up on P5's on their home page, and since all their pieces need to be original works it can't go up on my blog until it's been on their front pate for a few days.

02/07/08

Islandgrinder says

excellent article! believe it or not I was just planning on writing an article on bigstack play for my blog. lol, it was not gonna be anywhere near as precise and clear as this... just what i'd observed playing stars 180s, i will just put up a link to this post instead.

This will definitely improve my bigstack play. Thanks.

02/07/08

Anonymous says

The link to the first article in the series directs to the part 11 article

02/11/08

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Authors Note: Some of you may notice that part 13 in this series is missing. Part 13 is on the topic of ‘ranges’ and has been finished. Long story short P5’s offered to pay me for articles and I’m A-okay with selling out as long as it doesn’t compromise integrity. So enjoy part 14 while I go blow my money on an unnecessarily expensive shirt.

Classic poker literature circulated an enormous amount if misinformation about playing a chip lead or big stack. Many wrote that when you have so many chips you should avoid confrontation since it’s ‘unnecessary’ and ‘you have time to wait.’ Yet again, strategy like this is complete bullshit. In situations without sizeable $EV considerations you should never pass up + cEV situations, regardless to the size of your stack (yes there are occasionally spots you (although there are occasionally spots where you would pass up a marginal, high variance spot if it means it would cost you later +cEV spots but that’s another discussion.) Proper chip lead strategy means being able to find what +cEV and +$EV situations exist that could not exist if you had a smaller stack. Many of the best players intentionally take gambles early in order to set themselves up for having a larger stack later in order to create more +EV spots because they are aware of this concept.
Still, it’s important to keep in mind that the size of your stack doesn’t give you a license to do just anything. During a hand the most pertinent detail is still what effective stacks are. For example, if you’re on the CO with 80 BB’s and all three players behind you have 15-20 BB’s, your opening range shouldn’t really be that much different as to when you have 15-20 BB’s as well. Will there be a difference in some spots? Sure, but it won’t affect things nearly as much as some other situations. Let’s take a look at how things change when having a big stack at certain stages of the tournament.

Early Game: Say in the first couple levels you’ve run well and stacked two or three players. You’ve now got one of the largest stacks in the tournaments and are the chip leader of your table. How does this change things? To be honest not all that much. Stacks are still quite deep and nobody’s strategy has changed all that much. There’s no antes and there’s nothing for you to gain by ‘applying pressure’ or anything like that. Very often in situations like these effective stacks will be still very deep and people are playing in a fairly straight forward manner, so getting highly creative solely for the reason that you have more chips will likely result in spew. If you get a large stack and come up against another large stack on the table it’s more important to have a good grip on deep stacked play than have any illusion that you’ll get a ton of extra folds just because you’re both big. Cash game experience will help in situations like these, though they are mostly rare.

Mid/Late Game: At this stage having a large stack begins to be important. When the average stack goes under 50 BB’s (and will soon get considerably lower) and when antes come out you now have some power. To be honest before antes come into play my open raising standards don’t really loosen that much based on the size of my stack, but once they do having a large stack will make a considerable difference. Just how much you loosen up of course still depends on factors like image, players behind you, stacks behind you, etc. My opening range is going to be a little bit looser compared to having say, 25 BB’s, but not necessarily an enormous amount. When you’re on an 18 BB stack it’s better to resteal someone with 20 BB’s than someone with 80 unless you know for a fact the guy with 80 is opening very loose due to his stack size. However, when you’re the big stack it’s the other 15-20 BB stacks who need to be cautious with restealing on you.


One thing that does change considerably is my 3 betting of other large stacks. This is a valuable weapon in the arsenal because
A. Very few players are capable of 4 betting light.
B. Very few players cold call reraises (especially if you do it to players when you have position.)
You should watch for which kind of players will 4 bet light and which will just call reraises light, but most are making a push/fold decision based on whether they think their hand fares well against your 3 betting range. I especially think there is some merit to 3 betting stacks in positions where they wouldn’t expect it. For example, 3 betting an active but not maniacal player who’s opened MP1/MP2/HJ with 45 BB’s when you have 75 BB’s and position behind him can be very good and deceptive since he’s not anticipating a lot of resteals when opening from these positions, especially if you’re not too late behind him.

Bubble: Playing the big stack at bubble time is one of the true pleasures of tournament poker. In spots like these you can bend the rules of stack sizes and position against players who to a degree value the bubble. There’s certainly a difference having the chip lead on the bubble of 100r and a 50 FO, but both still allow a level of aggressive creativity.

On tournaments that play tighter on bubble time you can open an enormous range of hands, especially if the table doesn’t show willingness to fight back. On some tables opening 50% of hands (or even more) can certainly be profitable. I’m willing to raise into a number of resteal likely stacks with a wide range of hands I can’t call with because often their resteal range will be reduced. I’m also watching keenly for other active medium-large stacks to three bet or flat call wide pre in order to make their lives hard post. A few examples of how I may get creative that sort of ‘breaks the rules’.

Example 1:
Hero has 70 BB’s. Villain has 33 BB’s. Hero is CO with 75s, villain is MP2. Blinds 500/1000 with 100 ante. The tournament is on or near the bubble.
Preflop: Folds to MP2, MP2 opens to 2700, folds to hero, Hero 3 bets to 7600.

Now, being in position here as well as on the bubble we can make a small reraise that doesn’t commit ourselves for his stack but still puts a lot of pressure on him. I’m normally not 3 betting people with a 33 BB stack light, but when you get an opportunity like this on the bubble and don’t have an insane image, go for it.

Example 2:
Hero has 70 BB’s, Villain has 25 BB’s. Hero is button with QTo. Villain is HJ. Blinds 500/1000 with 100 ante. The tournament is on or near the bubble.
Prelfop: Folds to HJ, HJ raises to 2700, folds to hero, hero calls.

This isn’t really a standard preflop call. However, the villains stack is too short to 3 bet so that option is out. Instead, consider calling wide in spots like these and making more moves post. On a bubble you’ll even get a higher % of players simply check folding to you. Also consider semi bluffing a wider range of flops. There are some various obvious semi bluff boards like KJx, J9x, 789, but in this spot I’m always jamming over a C bet if it comes 89X, 7JX, J8X, 786 and considering a float on Axx or Kxx type flops.

End Game: A lot of playing the big stack in the end game comes down to being highly player observant (as is important with any end game situation.) What kind of opponents are willing to gamble as opposed to just trying to move up the pay ladder? Which villains are playing higher than normal (use OPR people) and which are in their comfort zone? You need to find a balance between aggression/table control and spew.

If we talk strictly about the final table in terms of end game we can get into more specifics. First of all, if you want to continue to play highly aggressive I recommend doing it having just entered the final table and picking on medium stacks whenever possible. This is because the bottom few spots of final table pay outs are often still pretty small. However, once there’s about ~6 left, players have moved far enough up that they’ve secured a decent score and aiming for first suddenly becomes realistic.

You need to be aware that in final table situations cEV and $EV begin to diverge. I’m not mathematically knowledgeable enough to bring out equations or give you an exact point of gambles you should and shouldn’t take (though perhaps I’ll ‘write’ a future article where I simply employ MikeJ to do exactly that) but I can give a fairly obvious example:

If you’re at a final table with 50 BB’s, the other chip leader has 50 BB’s, there’s a medium stack of 25 BB’s, and two short stacks of 5 BB’s you need to have a very significant edge to get your stack in against the other chip leader. You give up a ton of equity if you bust to him, and playing a marginal +cEV spot verse him is going to be massively -$EV over the long term.

Once you get very deep having the big stack allows you to open a little lighter but overall you’re mostly playing a game of effective stacks. You should be aware of the stacks and players you’re able to pick on and which methods of doing so. Against small stacks open shove when appropriate. Against medium open raise into them a lot and semi bluff more post. Against big stacks three bet pre and put them in an awkward spot.

Alright then, that’s all I have for now. As always if you have questions or want me to elaborate more on something feel free. I’m doing nothing but online for the next couple months so I’ve got plenty of time around here.