Making the transition from short to deep stack NL

[Lawrence Ng]

If you're like me, you probably started off playing the Party NL games and have come very accustomed to the 50x buy-in structure since Party first implemented NL.

I personally liked the 50x buy-in because I was (and still am) a noob when it comes to online NL play. It allows for some easier decision to be made, yet at the same time a smaller buy-in seriously hinders the good/great player who is able to wield a deeper stack to their advangtage.

Now, it seems there's some ambiguity on whether or not buying in deep for 100x BB is a good or bad thing. Buyins for the most part are all relative and even though Party has increased their buyin to 100x BB, there's no one forcing anyone to keep only buying 50x BB. It's all really within your comfort level.

A lot of what I am iterating here is covered in Ciaffone's and Reuben's NL + PL book which I would highly recommend to anyone to read and some of it is gurgled back from a lot of good discussion by some of my most respected posters there (Ray Zee, El D., ML4L, Matt Flynn, AJ off to name a few)

Pre-flop play

Small to mid pocket pairs go up highly in value simply because when you do flop a set, you have the potential to take down a much a larger pot and get royally paid off. Suited connectors like 45, 56, 67 also go up highly in value and can be used to call raises or even raise with again simply because if the board hits your hand you can reap a nice pot against a bad player who will overplay whatever holding he has.

The question then becomes when and where and how much should I call and/or raise for? The general rule here is that if you call a raise with either a pocket pair or suited connector, do so if it will cost you 5% to no more than 10% of your stack.

Now if we can hands like those mentioned above, what hands can't we play? If there's a raise from a pretty solid player who is TA, then I avoid a lot of hands like AQ, KQ, JT, KJ and the likes of that. If's a loose player who goes to showdown a lot or is insanely aggresive, then I will call some of those hands. Remember, NL is still all about the opponent and I don't think this changes online.

Of course QQ,KK,AA, AK are still monsters and you should raise pre-flop and re-raise if you can isolate it down to increase your chances of winning, but if you do this all the time in deep stack you won't make much money and win small pots as most opponents will know your holding and correctly fold (which isn't so much the case with small stack play since the opponent might be pot committed anyways and call you). Sometimes, you can flat call a good raise pre-flop with those hands above for deception and slowly milk your way through the course of the hand.

Flop Play

Deep stack poker is all about flop play. There are far less opponents who are going to shove all-in pre-flop and thus relieve any thinking work they have to do and let the poker gods take their course of action. Deep stack is ALL about flop play.

There's way too much to cover here in terms of flop play, but I would recommend Howard Lederer's Secret's of Hold'em for a good basic guide on some NL flop play and Doyle's NL section in Super System 2.

Basically the flop is where your most important decisions are made in deep stack. Your position, stack size, image allows you to wield whatever comes on the flop to how you figure you want to play it best. Do you slowplay your set? Do you raise your overpair on this board if someone bets out or should I just call? Should I call a pot sized bet for my open ender and will I get paid off if I hit? Do I have good folding equity given the nature of my opponent?

Turn Play

Surprisingly for me, I don't think there is as much importance in turn play as there is in flop play and river play. Surely some of you may disagree and I am looking forward to good discussion on whether this is so. Usually most players have a good portion of their chips committed to the pot by the turn in short stack play and are pot committed thus alleviating any more heavy decisions. Deep stack will also vary on this as 2 or more opponents usually have a good number of chips remaining.

River Play

Deep stack river play in NL is what truly separates the boys from men and the good from greats. Value betting, over-betting, and of couse bluffing is all done on the river. As far as bluffing goes, you have to know your opponent's tendencies and how much folding equity you believe you have. The deeper the stacks, the more leverage you can have in getting an opponent to fold a winning hand. If you missed a straight draw, and a 3rd suit hits the river and you think your opponent puts you on a flush draw, you have a lot of folding equity and bluffing power. This obviously doesn't work very well in short stack play simply because if your opponent is almost all-in they are correct to call you due to pot odds.

Bluff inducing is also a powerful weapon here, but should only be used if you highly believe your opponent missed a draw or if a potential scare card hits the river.

If you think your opponent has a good hand, then usually a good 1/2 pot to 3/4 pot bet does the trick. I rarely if ever overbet the pot on the river, unless I recently showed or pulled off a bluff. But one of the occasions when overbetting seems correct is against a good opponent who thinks I have a draw and I hit my draw and then on the river I put in a huge bet to look over-strong. It doesn't work a lot, but sometimes it does and I get paid off royally trying to look like I'm stealing.

Party 6 max thoughts and other notes

I love 6 max games. Any great player must thrive in short handed games simply for the fact that the player receives far more hands an hour which equates to more BB/hr in the long run. NL is no different.

As of this writing, Party has over 72k players of which a lot are playing SS NL and good number in the 400 buyin's and up.

There's been a lot of confusion around as to whether Pokertracker really helps in these games. I will say without a doubt that it does.

Amir has done all of us 2+2er's a huge favor by creating Playerview - a real time mod that allows for display of stats such as VPIP, PFR, CR, WSD..etc..etc that updates as the hand histories are being downloaded. I highly recommend you use it.

Stats like VPIP won't tell you a lot in terms of what holdings players have, but they can help you isolate it down if they are tight or loose. I personally like the PFR% stat and the WSD, W$SD which enables me to figure out just how well my opponent plays and whether or not I have leverage to bluff them.

Prior to the 100x BB buyin, I was averaging about 6-7 BB/hr in the NL games. This average should definitely increase now provided the pool of bad players remain the same, but have a high disadvantage to the good players now who can wield a deep stack.

A final note: A good chunk of NL is about the numbers, the stacks, images, and players. The bottom line when it comes to NL is that it's a game that demands respect and requires balls to play. This is true no matter what the size of the game is. So while it's easy to assume that the $50 or $100 buy-in is gonna be smooth sailing, don't do so. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Have patience for this game, and it will pay off.

A lot of you probably know this stuff already, so I apologize for making such a long write up. The forums here especially the NL and PL (both mid/high and SS) have given a lot to me and helped me in my NL games, so I thought I would just give something back.

Any comments and discussion appreciated.

Lawrence

[Sponger15SB]

Great Post.

tyty

[sourbeaver]

Very nice lawrence [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[thatpfunk]

Did you print it out Sponger [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]?

Nice one Mr. N. Very kind of you to take the time [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[hukilai]

Thank you for the great post.

What about unsuited AK, AQ, KQ? Have they gone even more down in value preflop?

[jdl22]

You should add a little to it and send it to Mason for the magazine.

[AZK]

Yes, do not play AQ/KQ against a raise.

[Lawrence Ng]

AK is still a very strong hand simply because you always will have TPTK when you do hit. I would not get married to it post-flop though. The general rule is you do not want to build monster pots with only top pair, it can get you into a lot of trouble.

Like every hand in hold'em, it's always dependant on the situation and the opponent. Monster pots require monster hands or monster draws. There's nothing worse than shoving a huge bet and not knowing you could be a huge underdog in the hand and getting called.

As for AQ, KQ, KJ, JQ, JT, and god forbid you want to play QT, and KT - I would probably usually fold in EP, and open raise in LP only. 90% of the time though, I fold these hands pre-flop to any raise simply because these hands spell trouble unless you whack the board.

Lawrence

[Lawrence Ng]

[ QUOTE ]
You should add a little to it and send it to Mason for the magazine.



[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the compliment. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

My post is semi-plagarized material from various sources, books, 2+2 postings, and of course personal experience. If I were to send it to Mason as a magazine article, I'd have to pay more royalties than I'd lose in bad beats on my worse night.

However, I am working up on writing an article with the merits to getting a coach for poker. Hopefully I'll get around to finishing it soon.

Lawrence

[daveymck]

Thanks you, added to favourite posts. I knew post flop play was key but that my 12% VPIP wasnt good for these 100bb games although good for keeping out of trouble when bonus whoring.