Playing a Medium Stack Effectively

[LearnedfromTV]

This is a thread that needs to happen. Unfortunately, I'm at work right now and don't have time to make a detailed opening post. I will make two brief, straightforward claims.

1. A medium stack is large enough to cause damage to a typical large stack and effective medium stack play includes making plays that take advantage of this.

2. The most profitable steals/bluffs/resteals are those that threaten a large followup bet. Knowledge of opponent tendencies and your own betting patterns can allow you use a small piece of your stack to 'represent' that the rest of your stack is coming. The key to these bluffs is that most of the time you do follow up because most of the time you do have a hand.

If no one picks up the ball, I'll bump this with more detailed thoughts tonight.

This is a very good idea, thanks for getting it started. This reminds me of a comment someone made recently, I want to say it was CSC or Lloyd but I'm not sure, to the effect that learning to come over the top of raises as a 12-15x stack really made a difference in their tournament success. Care to follow-up?

[LearnedfromTV]

[ QUOTE ]
This is a very good idea, thanks for getting it started. This reminds me of a comment someone made recently, I want to say it was CSC or Lloyd but I'm not sure, to the effect that learning to come over the top of raises as a 12-15x stack really made a difference in their tournament success. Care to follow-up?

[/ QUOTE ]

In my experience, this particular play is almost entirely a matter of read. A reraise with this size stack represents a very strong hand. To do it without a strong hand, you need an opponent who knows this, is likely raising light, and you need him to view you as someone who doesn't usually get out of line. He doesn't need to think you never get out of line, just that it's unlikely.

Often against the right opponent, coldcalling and playing at him on the right flop can have a similar effect and cost less.

Playing the medium stack is probably the worst part of my game. When small stacked, I pick spots and use good preflop play to take down blinds and double up thru races and whatnot. Big stacked, I try to grind it out and steal blinds while putting pressure on the medium stacks. But the medium stack is a little harder, if you try to steal and someone comes over the top when you have 15x the bb for example, you just lost 1/5th of your stack. Have it happen again and it's another 1/4th of your stack, and you are now in short stack territory.

I also think that restealing with a medium stack is something I need to start trying to do, I do well as the big stack, and as a short stack I don't mind getting it all in on a possible coinflip, but as a medium stack, I'm a little hesitant to come over the top of an EP raise with a hand like 77, or much less, 89s. It's part of my game I have been trying to improve lately, and I can't wait to hear some insight from some of the better players here about this.

[centja1]

This is going to be of great help to me as well. I often find myself struggling to find my way out of this position to make a run for the final table and a lot of the time can't seem to make any progress because I'm somewhat lost as to how to react to other players that are either in the red zone or at 20x or greater.

I think the majority of the plays you're able to make as a medium stack will be determined by your relative position to the big(ger) stack(s) at the table. i've often found that a player on my left with a big stack that is playing well effectively shrinks my stack by some margin simply because I can't open as many hands as I would like because of the constant knowledge that I might be re-popped and be forced to fold or play out of position. Hence, I may still make some slightly loose opening raises, but the majority of the time I'll have a hand that I can re-raise shove.

I'd really like to see someone more experienced than I address relative position to the big stack at the table in this discussion too.