Short vs. Deep stacked poker

Playing a shorter stack is infinitely harder than playing a big stack in a poker game. When you are sitting down with a shorter stack a great deal of the time your only option is to shove all the money in and hope for the best. When you have a lot of chips in front of you there are more viable options than simply moving all of the money in. With a bigger stack you have more room to play hands and see them out before making decisions. The decision process with more chips is a lot more complex than with 7 or 8 big blinds. When you can start to read players well you will have success whether with a big stack or a short stack.

Playing a short stack in tournaments gives you only one option a lot of the time which is to raise all-in or fold your hand. If you can make a lot of wider shoves in tournaments rather than wait for the Aces or kings you can pick more chips up for when you do get big hands. Also, if you start to stack off more and more people will get curious and may call once. That is the time you are hoping to have a big pair and be way ahead of their hand. It does happen that when you get too short that the blinds can eat you alive, so, what you want to do to combat that is start moving it in with 12 or 13 big blinds so you don’t get blinded away and forced to put your poker bonus money in with a bad hand. If you can pick your aggression level up and gamble more often with a smaller stack you will be better off. If you are sitting around and waiting for hands you can lose more than you make and won’t be able to recover unless you have a lot of luck on your side.

When playing a deep stack there are three main options to go with. You can speed your game up and try and make a run at winning the tournament right there or you can slow down to play almost no hands. The third option is in between and the best option. It is basically to go after weak players and attack them. Sit back against the stronger players who you know will play back at you. Risking a lot of chips with a bad hand is something you don’t want to do and should never be doing with a deep stack. If you can begin to play more pots from the middle to late position for a raise you are doing a good job with your big stack. You want to constantly be feared that you will bust players, but also realize that a tournament cannot be won with a lot of players still left. Tournaments are a grind and whether you have a deep stack or a small stack you can still get to a final table.