Deep Stack Poker Literature

Many No Limit Texas Hold’em poker players still get their knowledge from poker books these days and this is despite the influx of coaching sites. But some of the older poker books on deep stacked cash games were primarily focused on deep stacked play and this is a far cry from online play where players can buy in for no more than 100 big blinds and often can purchase the minimum 20 big blinds. This all leads to the average stack sizes being considerably lower in online games than what many of these books discuss.

Books like Supersystem and the Harrington on Cash series are great books but they do have many hand examples in them that either focus on deep stack play or have deep stacked examples. This may seem confusing to a novice as novices tend to play their cards and not the situation. There is a huge difference between playing your cards and playing a situation. If a novice player gets dealt A-A then he will tend to play that hand in the same way irrespective of just how big their stack is.

If they have 20 big blinds then they will raise and re-raise and get all-in before the flop and be correct to do so. But in deep stacked play then you will be forced to see flops and turns and only a very tiny percentage of your stack will have gone in the middle when you were a big favourite. Post flop then you either win a small pot when your opponents fold or you lose a big one when your opponent out flops you and your hand is telegraphed by your pre-flop actions.

While both of the books mentioned discuss the dangers of big pairs and “trouble” hands, I still think that the vast majority of novice players fail to fully take on board the full importance of stack size until they are much further down their progression as poker players. But this is a serious reason as to why coaching sites are doing so well in how they are teaching people how to play poker. It isn’t because the players are fundamentally better although in many cases they are, it is more to do with the fact that these new players have grown up in the online poker environment.

Deep stacked cash games are difficult to play well which only serves to underline why so many players struggle with them. Tournament poker rarely gets to be deep stacked once the early “cash game” stages are over and the middle levels kick in. Even many cash game players these days are not playing with full stacks and many buy in for the absolute minimum on purpose as part of specialised minimum stack strategies.

What all this means of course is that many poker books out there may not be the optimal ones to read and study if you are contemplating online play. Also if you are a novice or inexperienced player then you really shouldn’t be playing deep stacked poker anyway. In fact, starting out in minimum stack play not only could quantum leap forward your chances of making money but it will also prohibit highly skilled players from getting an edge over you.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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