Going Deeper

[MLG]

Ok, MTT forum its time for you to learn about deepstacked play (at least a little bit). Some thinking/discussion points to get us started.

1. POT CONTOL.

2. Raising for information is bad....especially with medium strength hands.

3. Worrying about charging draws is wrong. Protecting against a draw is very important only when your hand is big enough to have to worry about calling a large bet on later streets.

4. GET TO SHOWDOWN. This is the single most important concept that MTTers dont think about. When you have a medium strength hand you need to think about this more than anything else, more than charging draws, more than getting information, more than folding better hands.

5. The River. A blocking bet has two components. A better hand might fold sometimes, and a worse hand might call sometimes. If both of those criteria arent met it isnt a blocking bet. If it isn't a blocking bet make sure its a value-bet or a bluff. Otherwise CHECK. Bad river bets are much more dangerous when both players still have a lot of stack left to use on the river.

6. Implied and Reverse Implied Odds. This is an old point, but its still important. Hand values change. The deeper the stacks the worse big cards get, the worse top pair gets. Hands that with 25x or even 40x you want to play for your stack are hands that you want to get to showdown cheaply with deepstacks.

7. Bluffing. This doesnt come into play all that much in MTTs, because a lot of deepstacked play focuses on stacking players that dont understand the above concepts. However, against good, or decent players bluffing is much more important. You shouldn't over do it, but you should be aware of picking spots and selling situations. There is a narrow space between being predictable, and spewing. Its our job to find it.


These points are pretty simple, but implementing them is pretty hard. So lets see if we can't talk a little bit about playing deep stacked poker. There are some very good short/medium stack MTTers here, and if they really want to make the next step and improve this is the way to go.

[sngmachine]

nice topic, I'm curious to see what the regulars have to say about this.

[tubasteve]

Can you give examples of #3 and #5 in action?

[suckbot]

Ok.. I give it a shot.

1) totally agree. As a deep stack, I want to raise to put pressure on them, not force them into a call later due to sheer pot odds / pot committed.

2) no opinion. I do not think the point of raising with the large stack is to get information as opposed to just applying pressure.

3) Again, I'm all about pressure. It's not about "charging for a draw" it's "do you think your draw is worth me potentially pushing you all in for?" this is not to say that my deepstack strat is pushing people all in all the time, but I certainly want to threat there.

4) yes. When I think I'd be ahead, it's isolate, force them to make a tough decision and then see 5 cards if so. rinse.. repeat.

5) Better win a smaller pot then get called by the strong hand and/or check raised which you might have to call anyway.

6) the one thing I would say on this is having the chips to play around with starting hands has yielded immense returns at times. With this approach you better know when you get away though.

7. As you say, it's an old point, but don't try to bluff the unbluffable. Late in tournies sometimes you're at the table with all LAG players. This makes for a very very bad time to bluff at post typically.

[MLG]

suckbot,
deepstacks, not big stacks. as a big stack you have more chips than everybody else. Im talking about deepstacked situations, where everybody has 100-200BBs or more.

[MLG]

tuba,
sure I can. why don't you try it though?

[SinPies]

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Can you give examples of #3 and #5 in action?

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[KneeCo]

Great post MLG, I'd like to add a couple of things if I may, although I'm not at all qualified.

1. OVERPAIRS ARE DEATH. With shallow stacks, you might be able to get by playing your cards, but with deep stacks you have to put your opponents on a hand a lot more and you have to be willing to fold something like AA on a cordinated low board, but you have to do this without becoming weak-tight.

2. POSITION. I think position becomes much more valuable as stack get deeper just because there are more 'moves' in a given hand (with shallow stacks, you only have 3-4 moves, if that, before the chips are in the middle). For example, with deep stacks, if you put your opponent on a C-bet, you can repop him without giving him odds to call with just two overcards or something.

3. EXTRACTING MAX VALUE. This kind of goes with one aspect of MLG's #1 (Pot Control; there's another aspect which is harder to master, which is the opposite of what I'm about to say), and is especially true with deep stacks, you shouldn't slow play yourself out of value by betting so little on early streets that you can't make large bets on the end. However, there's nothing wrong with a huge overbet (especially on the river) if you think it will get called, this comes into play when you put your opponent on a hand he just wont lay down that you beat (a boat when you have quads, or a second nut straight or something).

EDIT: Because, I can't count and these were numbered 1, 1, 2.

[sweet wicking action]

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3. Worrying about charging draws is wrong. Protecting against a draw is very important only when your hand is big enough to have to worry about calling a large bet on later streets.

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when i'm considering what to do with TPTK and a draw-heavy board, i should be more inclined to check behind, rather than bet in position? this feels so wrong to me.

mlg, you're saying the only time i should be protecting against draws is if i have a hand that i will probably have to call with, even if the draw hits?

edit: otherwise, i'm trying to get to showdown?

[Requin]

[ QUOTE ]
5. The River. A blocking bet has two components. A better hand might fold sometimes, and a worse hand might call sometimes. If both of those criteria arent met it isnt a blocking bet. If it isn't a blocking bet make sure its a value-bet or a bluff. Otherwise CHECK. Bad river bets are much more dangerous when both players still have a lot of stack left to use on the river.


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I find the block bet is way overused. I often see people post things like 'blockbet for 2/3 pot'. That makes no sense. Like MLG said, know what you bet is intending to do. A blockbet is intended to gett you a CHEAP showdown. Betting 2/3 pot is not cheap. In fact, if you chose to c/c, it will often be for about the same price. Not only do you get a showdown this way, but you also really increase the chance of villain bluffing at you. And since you see showdown for sure this way, that translates into a lot of chips in the long run. So I very rarely blockbet the river: I usually check any medium strength hand, and then make a decision if/when my opponent bets at me, while making sure to take into account the fact that villain is now more likely to bluff.

Also, do not blockbet if you don't know what you're going to do if villain raises you. If villain is wild enough that you won't feel comfortable folding to a river raise, but at the same time don't think you'll be nicely ahead of his reraising range, then don't blockbet. If, however, you feel confident that villain will never (or very rarely) bluff raise you on river, or raise you with a worse hand than your own, then a blockbet is reasonable. The point is that you do NOT want to blockbet the type of villain who will reraise you with a worse hand than your own, unless he's so wild that you're willing to play your hand for stacks.