Posted 4/10/2022 by admin

Poker Deep Strategy

Play Where US Players are Welcome!

BetOnline Accepts players from the USA, and has soft games compared to Pokerstars and Full Tilt.

Deep Stack Poker Tournament Strategy Deep stack tournaments allow for the most actual play of all forms of poker, with the exception of no blind increase events. The entire premise of a deep stack tournament is for players to really let their skills do the talking and to eliminate as much luck as possible. With such a deep stack with which to start, you can approach the first couple of levels of a turbo tournament the same way you would regular MTTs. The blinds and antes are too small to be worth. Instead of playing defensively, you should be playing solid and aggressive poker early on in order to build up a stack for a deep run. If you find yourself short-stacked and near the money bubble or a pay jump, only then should you start using a more survival-oriented playing style. Deep Stack Tournament Strategy In Deep Stack tournaments the number of chips you start with is greater in comparison to regular freezeout MTTs. The blind levels are also twice as long, which makes them preferred by tight/conservative and skilled players who adopt a small ball game.

>>Play at BetOnline Now (US Players Accepted)!<<

Deep Stack Tournament Strategy

In Deep Stack tournaments the number of chips you start with is greater in comparison to regular freezeout MTTs. The blind levels are also twice as long, which makes them preferred by tight/conservative and skilled players who adopt a small ball game. It also reduces the risks and variance of MTTs by allowing you to play under less pressure.

In a typical deep stack tournament you will receive 5,000 starting chips with 10/20 blinds. Compare this to turbo MTTs structures at PokerStars (which give you 500 or 1,000 chips at 10/20 blinds) and you can see the difference immediately.

Best Site for Deep Stack Tournaments: Titan Poker – $500 Bonus!

The best site for non-US players to play Deep Stack tournaments is Titan Poker. They now run the exciting European Deep-stack Championship III, and have a number of regular deepstack tournaments along with deepstack satellites from $3 – $10 entry fees.

For US players PokerStars is the site we recommend for deep stack tournaments. Each day PokerStars runs deepstack tournaments with buy-ins of $10 -$30. The biggest deepstack event at PokerStars takes place on Saturdays with a buy-in of $100.

Deep Stack Tournament Strategy

Because deep stack tournaments run differently to regular online tournaments you need to slow down your game

The first thing noticeable in deep stack tournaments (e.g. WSOP) is that aggressive players who are not used to the format will make too many re-raises and all-in moves pre-flop. This won’t be as effective in deep stack tournaments because fewer players will call you. Most of the time any player who calls you will have you beat.

Re-raises are less effective because the stack sizes are much deeper. In the beginning of a regular online tournament a re-raise to 300 chips may represent 30% of your chips (starting on 1,000). However, in deepstack tournament starting on 5,000 chips this will represent only 6% of your chips. Thus making it less likely to call. Players who do this too often tend to become frustrated.

There are 3 basic approaches to accumulating chips in deepstack events:

The first is playing passively. This means limping into many flops and seeing as many as possible. Your aim is to exploit your opponents weaknesses in post-flop play, and this in itself requires excellent post-flop reading ability on your part. Rather than setting a trap, you’re really just waiting to corner a bad player. You’ll make big wins in these pots which compensate for the flops you missed.

The second type of strategy is the small ball approach (utilized by Negreanu and Hansen). In deepstack tournaments small ball poker means seeing as many flops as possible while attempting to limit the size of pots and cost to see the next card. This is to reduce the risks and cost of play. You’re effectively trying to “slow” the play down and continually put pressure on your opponents by making moves first.

The third approach for deepstack tournaments is TAG play (tight aggressive). Under this strategy you’re only playing premium hands or others when in position. The goal is to make as much money in the pot pre-flop as possible, so your post-flop play doesn’t matter as much. This is an easier strategy to adopt for weaker tournament players.

Conclusion on playing Deep Stack Tournaments

Overall, deep stack tournaments are designed for “better” tournament players. Reading opponents and taking advantage of position is more important than blind stealing or being uber aggressive. Deepstack tournaments in many ways are more resembling of cash games than turbo MTTs/SNGs. Patience plays a bigger role than other tournaments.

Poker Deep Stack Strategy

Odd but true… this strategy may work early on in the tournament… but when blinds and antes start getting larger and larger after a couple of hours you must bet more aggressively and play a much wider range of hands. Although ‘small ball’ poker style may help conserve chips and help win smaller pots with not much competition against tight players that fold a lot; adopting a liberal raise and 3 to 4 betting style of play especially post flops are great ways to dramatically increase your chipstacks! That’s the way to play later on in tournaments… but you may find some loose cannon players early on that love donking off many chips around 25%-50% preflop and all of it on the river. Catching them and winning all their chips would be supremely awesome if you knew they are deliberately doing that to combat against ‘small ball betting strategies’… just got to put them on a their polarized hands and call or reraise them all in if you are 100% you have them loose cannons beat.

Bonus

$400
$2000

Advertiser Disclosure
T&C apply to bonus offerings

Deep stack tournaments allow for the most actual play of all forms of poker, with the exception of no blind increase events. The entire premise of a deep stack tournament is for players to really let their skills do the talking and to eliminate as much luck as possible. Wiping out all luck is an impossible task when it comes to poker tournaments, but deep stack players are able to capitalize on the skill factor much more than regular tournament players.

With this advantage comes a noticeable tradeoff. Deep stack tournaments take a lot longer to complete than any other game. As a result of this increase in playing time, player stamina will be of the utmost importance. Stamina is always something that matters in poker, but it never matters more than when in an enduro tournament. This is one of the facets of play that a lot of players tend to completely discount. No one, even poker players, really considers poker to be a game where physical performance or condition actually matters.

The truth is, however, that it can be the difference between a solid play and a big slip up. There is a reason that savvy poker players try to target the guys who have been playing all night in a brick and mortar casino. The more tired you are, the more likely it is that you will donate some or all of your chips.

Deep stack play is all about picking your spots and taking your time. You are given a lot of chips so that you can pass up on your weak hands and get in the middle when you have something to actually work with. Luckily for you, this is a foreign concept to a lot of players. There will always be those players who think that a deep stack tournament is just like every other event, but the truth is that deep stacks are very different.

Try to spot the players who are playing way too fast and are clearly not in it for the long haul. Unless you are truly prepared for what’s in store, deep stack evens can be incredibly grueling and even quite boring.

Again, this is where endurance comes into play. If you can mentally outlast the players who don’t have the patience to play with restraint, you will find that a lot of pots fall right into your lap. Deep stack play is not about creating opportunities, but instead allowing the opportunities to fall into your lap. This is the exact opposite advice of what you would expect, but it is the absolute truth. The later stages of a deep stack tournament will call for more decisive action, but you won’t need to worry about that for awhile after the first hand is dealt.

Deep Stack Poker Strategy

Profiting from Passiveness

You just read about how a passive approach is the road to riches in deep stack tournament poker. So, how are you going to profit from the passiveness of other players? When the other players stay in slow mode, it will be your chance to crank up the aggression. The pitfall that many players fall into is misidentifying exactly when that stage of the game has arrived. You won’t be working with a short stack and big blinds for a long time, so don’t even worry about changing gears for at least a few hours (depending on the size of the field).

Eventually, though, you will start to run out of chips and it will be time to make moves. You can profit from this by putting the pressure on before your opponents have even considered possible adjustments to their strategy.

Small Edges and Consistent Play

Even the final tables of deep stacks will allow for a moderate amount of post flop play. Unless you have a fair amount of experience with this type of event, it will be awkward to try and play post flop poker with just a few players left. The natural inclination for a tournament player is to pick up the pace and push/fold when the final table is assembled. This will be necessary eventually , but it will be a detrimental strategy if you implement it too early.

The end goal in a deep stack is the same as in any type of tournament. You need to be able to make constant changes that will put you in a position to win. These changes will be much more mild in their implementation in a deep stack tournament, but they will exist nonetheless. You need to be able to do what everyone else is doing, but slightly better. This is why skills are so valuable and the entire basis of all success in deep stack play.