Size Matters (Stack Size, That Is)

Stack size is not an absolute number. It is always a ratio. For example, both Dan Harrington’s M, in his no-limit tournament books, and Lee Nelson’s Kill Everyone’s CPR compare stack size to the Cost Per Round – the total cost of antes and blinds each round. Cash games are seldom played with an ante, so most cash game players think in terms of the number of big blinds in a stack. Ten BBs would be a tiny stack, while 300 BBs would be a very deep stack. Players normally buy-in for 40 to 100 BBs. This amount will, of course, increase or decrease when they play hands or add some more chips to their stack.

It is important to note that all of these measures relate to stack size before any action has occurred. Other than with very short stacks, which should go all-in or fold, these numbers may not be that relevant from a strategic point of view. Yes, short to medium stacks favor big pairs and high cards, while deep stacks provide more favorable implied odds to drawing hands like small pairs or suited connectors. Generally this doesn’t change your normal pre-flop strategy too much. You should probably make your normal opening raise with all hands in your raising range. For example with K-K, A-Q, or 9-8 suited, you should raise the same amount, no matter what your stack size is. I suggest that your normal first-in raise follow one of two styles. The simplest is to always raise the same amount. This prevents anyone from drawing any inferences about your hand based on the size of your raise.

The most popular raise size in high-limit games is 2.5 to 3.5 times the big blind. In smaller games like $1-2 or $2-$5, players tend to raise to 3 to 5 times the big blind. A slightly more complicated method is to base your first-in raise based on your position. In early position raise smaller amounts and in later positions raise larger amounts. For example, in a game with blinds of $50-$100, I might make it $250 in early position, $300 from middle position and $350 from the cutoff and the button. Since I do this with all hands in my raising range, no one gains any information about my hand strength from the amount that I have raised.

The important points are that the amount of the first raise does not reflect hand strength and it also does not relate to stack size. It is hard to relate your raise size to your stack size without severely distorting your strategy. If you raise to three BBs with a stack of 30 BBs, you might extend this idea to raising to four BBs with a stack size of 40. Each raise represents ten percent of your stack. You can’t very well raise to 20 BB, with a stack of 200 BBs. This would result in your stealing a lot of blinds from moderate hands, but losing huge pots to great hands. Based on this, one might make think that stack size doesn’t have much to do with strategic considerations.

Clearly this is wrong, but there isn’t that much advice about incorporating stack size into your strategic plan. In the excellent book, Professional No Limit Hold-em, Flynn, Mehta, and Miller give a detailed discussion of stack-to-pot ratio (SPR). They define SPR ratio as occurring after the flop. If you start a hand with 103 BBs, raise to 3 BBs and get 2 callers, the pot now has 10 BBs. You have 100 BBs. Your SPR is 10, and this should have tremendous impact on your strategy. They argue rather persuasively that SPR’s of 5 or 6 favor hands with one high pair, while SPR’s of 13 are disastrous for those hands. Note that hands like K-K or A-Q (when it connects,) will generally end up as one big pair on the flop.

I certainly don’t want to try to summarize their entire discussion in one short article, but I think that any serious no-limit cash game player should add this book to their library. It will give you some suggestions for setting a target SPR, manipulating the pot preflop to achieve it, and playing hands differently depending on how close you are to your target. Their advice on reraising amounts and manipulating pot size is excellent. Almost every player would do well to incorporate some of their ideas into his strategic plan. ♠

Steve “Zee” Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A — Nice Guy Eddie’s at Houston and Doc Holliday’s at 9th Street — in New York City.