Size matters

With so many deep-stack tournaments now available online, it’s becoming vital to know how to adapt your game to play in these structures. Bet sizing becomes more important with deep stacks, so it’s crucial to know exactly the right amount to bet. As ever, the ability to adapt to the table is a key skill.

The first thing to consider is the size of your stack and the playing style of your opponents. Early in a tournament, it’s hard to take someone’s entire stack in one hand. But if the situation is right, you should still try to maximise your chances of doing so. On the other hand, when you have a medium-strength hand, you don’t want to commit too big a portion of your chips. It’s tempting to just go with the often heard ‘big hand, big pot’ line, but from a metagame point of view this is not always wise.

In online tournaments, especially the big Sunday ones, the field is so big and you change tables so often that people won’t be able to understand what you’re doing most of the time. It’s thus best to vary your game, for example by making a big bluff with a pot-size bet on the river once in a while.

IMAGE AND STRUCTURE

The key thing in poker is to be aware of your image and the table dynamics it creates. Everyone knows how to evaluate their hand strength in terms of table image, but to adapt the size of bets can be tougher.

If you bet small on the river with the nuts in position, it might not be the most profitable bet at the time, but if you are playing with other good, observant players, they will notice that you are able to bet for value and it will allow you to bluff more cheaply on the river when the blinds and pots get bigger. On the other hand, if people see you as a maniac, capable of bluffing all-in at any time, then overbetting all-in with very strong hands is a highly deceptive play.

Structure should also be taken into consideration: the slower the structure, the better it is for you, as you (hopefully) have an edge on other players. As such, you should avoid taking too many risks when you have plenty of play available, and always adjust your pre-flop play according to the stage of the tournament.

Early in the tournament when the blinds are small, it’s important to protect your big hands by raising heavily pre-flop. As it’s tougher to play out of position, you should re-raise more pre-flop if you are in early position.

If everyone has 150- plus big blinds, hands like Kings or Aces can get you into trouble, so you want to reduce the number of opponents in the hand. Let’s say the blinds are 25/50 with starting stacks of 10,000, like in the Sunday Million. With five limpers before you, I think the minimum bet is 400. When the tournament reaches the middle stage, it’s vital to observe the size of the stacks of the people you are in a hand with.

On a re-steal attempt for example, you want to give yourself maximum fold equity, but don’t want to commit to the hand, so you want to pick the right stack to do it against. Deep into a tournament, the bets pre- flop will usually be smaller (as everyone gets short-stacked) so it becomes less important to protect your hand, but more important to protect your stack – especially if you have an aggressive pre- flop opening range.

Antes make pre-flop aggression much more worthwhile, but I don’t advocate raising more when they kick in, as it will commit a bigger portion of your stack and not necessarily reduce the chances of getting called.

KEY POINT

In a deep-stack tournament with a slow clock, you should always make a substantial raise when you have a big hand. It’s correct to make it as much as eight times the big blind, especially if there are several limpers

MIX IT UP

There is a lot of debate as to whether you should stick to the same bet sizes all the time or try to vary them. In my opinion, changing up your bet size a lot is very important, but requires a lot of skill, as it can also make you more predictable. Varying the bet size in relation to the strength of your hand can be a dangerous concept, as it will be easier for opponents to adapt to your betting patterns.

I like to open for the same amount at every level, usually three and a half to four times the big blind early on, down to 2.3-2.7 times the big blind very deep in. After the flop however, there are many more considerations. Basically, you want to bet the amount that will put your opponent to a tough decision every time. This, of course, is much easier to achieve as a big stack, as you can put maximum pressure on your opponent.

As ever, the texture of the flop and number of players in the hand are key. If you have Q-Q on a Q-10-9 board with two hearts out of position against three opponents, you will have to bet a different amount than if you have K-K on a K-7-2 rainbow board. The best course of action is to calculate on the flop – depending on how deep you are – how best to stack your opponent when you think you are ahead. The shorter you both are compared to the size of the pot, the easier it will be.

Indeed, you should make a habit of analysing all the aspects of the hand you are in. You need to plan the hand ahead on every street and then bet the amount that will make your opponent react in the most favourable way.

As an example, let’s take a look at a hand I played in the WCOOP main event. I had 58,000 chips on the big blind with A-Q offsuit and a very aggressive player, ‘holla@yoboy’, opened for a standard raise of 2,100 from mid-position. The blinds were at 400/800. Another player called on the button.

I had many options on how to play the hand here, because the opening player had 42,000 in chips. I figured if I three-bet to something like 6,500 or 7,000, he would be in a position where he could easily lay down his weaker hands, but also might read my re-raise for a squeeze move and shove over the top with most pocket pairs, which would be a disaster for me.

Putting that much money in pre-flop with A-Q at this stage of the tournament wasn’t really something I wanted to do, but re-raising and folding to a push would weaken my image at the table. I opted to call and play the flop. It came A-10♥-5♥. With 7,000 in the pot, I thought a check- raise would make him lay down most of his hands, and I was pretty confident I was way ahead of his range, as the only hands that could beat me were A-K, A- 10, A-5, 10-10 or 5-5.

That’s a very small number of hands compared to all the combo draws out there, including A♥-x♥ and Q♥-J♥. Also it would let me see the button’s reaction before committing more money – so if the button raised for example, I could get away cheaply.

My opponent bet 4k, the button folded, and I decided to make it 12k. I chose this amount partly because of the texture of the board, but also because it would leave him exactly 28k – the perfect size bet for him to move all-in with a semi-bluff. I thought that if he was in position with a monster like a set or A-10, calling would be his favourite play.

He instantly shoved all-in and I snap-called. He showed K-J offsuit for a gutshot straight draw – three outs because I had one of the Queens. My hand held up and I collected a big pot. Had I raised more on the flop, he would have known his fold equity was now zero and he would have mucked his hand right there.

If I’d raised less, I believe he might have called, getting very good odds, to fold on the turn, or maybe re-raise me. But then it’s harder for me to put in the fourth raise with my hand.