Size matters

	It might help to think of no-limit hold’em as two different games: short-stack hold’em and deep-stack hold’em

If you’re a player who is skilled in limit hold’em and thinking about playing no-limit because that’s all you see on TV these days, you’ll need to make some adjustments in your strategic thinking. We’ve already covered limit hold’em on the turn and the river, but what changes when switching to no-limit?

Fixed-limit hold’em strategy is based on attaining a series of repetitive edges and betting when you have the best of it. Some of these edges may be quite slim, but in the long run, you’ll only be able to beat fixed-limit games if you squeeze the most out of every edge you have.

No-limit – or pot-limit – hold’em is very different. Your results won’t accrue from the multitude of times you can exploit a thin edge, but from the few times each session that all or most of your chips go into the pot. While successful no-limit play requires capturing small pots in order to stay ahead of the blinds, big wins and big losses cluster around a relatively few number of hands, and this makes for an entirely different strategy.

BEWARE THE BUY-IN

In a no-limit hold’em cash game, the first significant decision you’ll have to make is sizing your buy-in. This is never an issue in fixed-limit games, and even the smallest allowable buy-in provides enough chips to play a few hands.

But in no-limit poker, every chip is always at risk, and while you can guard against risking your entire stack, the price might entail folding a hand you would have played if only the price wasn’t so steep. While having as many chips as any other opponent ensures that you’ll get full value on any hand with which you choose to go all-in, it’s also dangerous because you risk losing all of those chips, too. Because you have more to lose with a big stack than you do with a small one, you have to adjust your strategic perspective when playing a large stack.

To some degree, this accounts for the increasing popularity of no-limit games with restricted buy-ins. Restricted buy-in, no-limit hold’em, which provides the rush of no-limit betting, protects players from losing their entire bankroll on one hand. The size of your buy-in can depend on a number of factors, including the size of your bankroll and risk tolerance, the relative difference in skill between you and your opponents, and how many chips your opponents have.

Putting your entire bankroll at risk leaves you vulnerable to going broke in one hand. That takes you out of the game and leaves you to face the unenviable task of rebuilding your bankroll before returning to the game. Even if you’re vastly superior to your opponents, risking your entire bankroll can cast your fate to a random card. A hopelessly inept player with a bad hand can occasionally get lucky and draw the very card that sends you out of the game.

No credible authority recommends putting your entire bankroll at risk, although poker lore is filled with stories of players who have done just that. In fact, some of poker’s biggest names and best players have gone broke on numerous occasions, only to rise like a phoenix and return to play and win again.

Romantic as that might appear, you’re generally better off playing with only a portion of your bankroll. That way, even if you’re beaten on a hand by someone who was incredibly lucky, you can still buy in again and continue playing. When all of your bankroll is on the line, overly cautious play is usually the result, which isn’t surprising considering that losing everything turns you from player to railbird in a heartbeat.

STACK SIZE

It might help to think of no-limit hold’em as two different games: short-stack hold’em and deep-stack hold’em. These are relative terms in the sense that a deep stack for one player might be a short stack for another, but restricted buy-in, no-limit games – these games typically have a cap of 50-150 times the big blind as a buy-in – are all designed for short-stack play.

In restricted buy-in games, it’s common for two players to go all-in before or on the flop any time they have good hands. Moving all-in before the flop doesn’t happen nearly as frequently in deep-stack games, and there’s more strategy involved after the flop because deep-stack players are frequently trapping, while short-stack players are generally jamming. Competitors willing to go all-in with certain hands in a restricted buy-in game will probably fold those same hands for fear of risking all of their chips in a deep-stack game.

Most poker players look for a much bigger edge before committing all of their chips in a deep-stack game. The edge doesn’t usually need to be so overwhelming in short-stack play.

Let’s assume you’re playing $2-$4 no-limit hold’em and everyone has a stack of $200. You raise to $16 before the flop and are called in a couple of places. Suppose you flop top pair with a big kicker and make a typical continuation bet of about half the pot. The opponent to your left makes it $100 to go and the other opponent folds. The pot has become too big to get away from, so you’ll probably reraise all-in and your opponent will call. In this scenario, you’re all in for $200 and the pot is $416, plus any dead money from the blinds.

However, suppose you and your opponents each had $1,000 stacks instead of $200. The hand will probably play out differently, even if the action before the flop was exactly the same. After the flop, your opponent might still make it $100 to go, but now you’ll have $784 remaining if you call, and you have to assess your willingness to risk this money if your opponent makes a bet that would put you all-in. The pot is still relatively small at this juncture – all you invested was a $16 raise before the flop and a $30 bet on the flop – and that $46 you’ll lose if you fold pales in comparison to the $954 still at risk.

Even if you decide to call his raise, you’ll face this same dilemma on the next round of betting. If the turn is no help, and the odds are always against that miraculous card you need appearing on the turn, you’re risking a lot of money to ‘protect’ a relatively small wager.

With so much potentially at risk with a deep stack, you might be better off looking for a better opportunity to commit $1,000 to the pot. But with a short stack and top pair-top kicker, you would probably get your entire $200 into action without a moment’s hesitation.

The decisions you’ll have to make with a deep stack are more complex than those you’ll encounter with a short stack. While a push-and-pray strategy can be effective in short-stack games, it only has to fail once to hurt you when you’re gambling with a deep stack. Even with the best hand, you’ll have to decide if your opponent would bet a hand you could beat now, but could still be outdrawn. You’ll even have to consider whether he’s on a stone-cold bluff. This is poker, after all, and even though a big bluff isn’t probable, it still might happen.

Many of these considerations just aren’t relevant in short-stack, no-limit hold’em.

No-limit tournaments add a few more wrinkles to the equation. Not only do you have to consider the size of your stack relative to your opponents’, toward the latter stages of an event you’ll probably have to decide whether to risk all of your chips in order to try to move up to the top of the pay ladder, or fold in the hope that you’ll move up the pay ladder one rung at a time.

You’ll also encounter many of the deep-stack/short-stack issues in a tournament, too. When you’re short on chips, any Ace becomes a candidate for an all-in move. But when you have a large stack and your opponent also has a lot of chips, you have to consider that your entire tournament life can be snuffed out on the next hand just as easily as you can gain a pile of chips. And while going all-in is always a double-edged sword, winning a confrontation doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll win the tournament, but going all-in and losing guarantees you a seat as a spectator.