Playing Big Stack Poker

A big stack is a good thing, isn’t it? Not necessarily. A big stack at the start of a poker game (say at a poker tournament) is a great advantage. However, if you don’t know the basics of playing big stack poker, then you are likely to find yourself out of chips and out of a seat at the table.

Advantages of a Big Stack

A big stack means you will have more chips to play around with. You can bet aggressively, for one. You can scare off your opponents from the big pot with big bets that they can hardly afford, and thus have a great chance of stealing the blinds and win really big pots. When you have the big stack at the table, you are king.

Bad Strategy when Playing Big Stack Poker

There’s something about the big stack, however, that can mess up your game so if you are the big stack player at the table, you need to be very careful. You see, if you have a big stack you gamble more and more, take more and more risks and, overall, start following bad poker strategy.

A big stack player at the poker table starts out with a sense of infallibility. He knows that no one in the table can beat his chips. What does he do in result? He becomes careless that’s what.

First, he starts playing more money for the chance to see the flop – in other words, he starts speculating and he sees more flop than he folds. Why? In the big stack player’s mind, he can afford to see more flops – so he does. Then, the big stack player also becomes reckless with his bets. He falls in love with his chips so he loses sight of the cards and the odds. Even if he has a mediocre hand, it does not matter. He disregards the bets and raises made by his opponents in response to his big bets, and he continues betting like crazy – and on middling cards no less! Why? The big stack player can afford it – so he does.

Aggressive betting plus a loose style of playing will wreak havoc on anybody’s stack – even a big stack player. If you are playing big stack poker, remember that you still have a finite number of chips; you can still run out. If you want to win in poker, play sensibly – big stack or not.