Yorky Pud

More and more poker tournaments live and online are being played in a deep-stacked structure, especially live events. In these tournaments players usual start with around 200 to 300 big blinds in their stacks, like in the World Series of Poker Main Event, and have slow blind structures that increase every hour to 120 minutes. These events are favoured by skilful players as they allow more play per level but also because many players struggle to adapt to playing with so many big blinds in their arsenal.

Weaker players fail to recognise that the deeper the effective stacks are the more significant implied and reverse implied odds become. What may be a standard play whilst the effective stack is 100 big blinds deep suddenly becomes a glaring mistake if you double or triple the stack sizes. Imagine you are involved in a hand at a six-handed table where one of your opponents raises preflop and you make the call with a pair of eights. The two of you see the flop come down Ac-8d-5s, gifting us middle set.

Obviously this is a fantastic flop for you and with stacks 100 big blinds deep it is basically  never a mistake to get our entire stack in, in fact we are going to be almost always stacking off whilst 200 big blinds deep but what about if we were 400 big blinds deep or even deeper (unlikely in a tournament I'll admit but certainly possible playing cash games, especially heads-up.)

Hands that we may refer to as coolers such as kings into aces or king-high flushes running into ace-high flushes cannot really be called coolers on deep-stacked play because they are actually avoidable. In deep-stacked No Limit Hold'em hands suddenly start to play much like Pot Limit Omaha hands in that hands that can make the nuts increase in value, as do connected cards but small pairs and non-nut hands start to decrease in strength.

Big pairs become more valuable not only because these hands tend to win at showdown but also because the chances of us flopping a set and one of our opponents flopping a higher set are even less likely. Being in a deep-stacked set-over-set situation can be extremely painful and should be avoided at all costs! Another type of hand that increases in strength the deeper stacks get are suited aces. Have you ever noticed on televised cash games such as High Stakes Poker, the more aggressive players seem to raise and call in all positions with suited aces? This is because they are playing deep and being able to hit the nut flush against the second nut flush is much more valuable.

Hands such as JT, T9, T8, 65 all become stronger too due to the fact they can not only make the nuts but they can do so in a much more disguised manner than say a flush. Players naturally notice flushes easier and avoid committing chips when the board is flushed but straights often go undetected until it is too late and are therefore ideal for deep-stacked games.

With more and more games being played deep-stacked it is important you grab these basic concepts quickly otherwise it will not matter how many chips you begin with, they will always be migrating to the stacks of more skilled and knowledgeable opponents.