Hold Em Authority - Texas Hold Em Strategy and advice for all levels of players

Deepstack tournaments are something created by PokerStars within the last year or so, and to be honest, I don’t think a lot of players like them. They are very time consuming, so that could be the attribute that keeps most players away from them. If any of you have dabbled in the world of deep stacks, you’ll understand that it is an entirely different beast. For those of you that haven’t, let me explain what these deep stacks are all about. First off, you start with 5000 chips, not 1500. Secondly, blinds go up every half hour, not every 15 minutes as is typical for a PokerStars tournament.I have found some common pitfalls that I find myself falling into, and I hope this article will help you from falling into those same traps that are oh so easy to get caught in.

1. Playing too many hands - I have 5000 chips, and the blinds will be no higher than 15/30 for the whole first hour, I could really see a lot of flops, right? Wrong. The more hands I play, the more I find myself getting outkicked, dominated, drawing, and chasing. All of these are very bad things, and can turn a 20 chip call into a 500 chip loss in a real hurry. Dont change your preflop strategy in a deep stack just because you have more chips to start with.

2. Don’t pay attention to the other stacks - for some reason, a person that has a five figure stack always looks so much more impressive because that extra digit is inserted. Don’t get caught thinking that a double up is mandatory so you can have 10,000 just like the other big boys. This is going to be a long tournament if you play solid, you’ll have your chances. Don’t force it.

3. In continuation with point 2, remain patient. Patience is an absolute must in these types of tournaments. You are going to see twice the hands you normally do in a tournament, so be prepared to fold a lot. If you can’t be patient, you’ll never make it to that 5th or 6th hour where the real money is.

4. Finally, try to avoid going all in early in the tournament - the blinds are going to increase, but your stack probably won’t be small relative to those blinds for quite some time. You have no reason to put all your chips in the middle for a coinflip, or a draw, or any other situation where you might be beat.

There you have it, a deepstack strategy that will get you deeper into the tournament most of the time. Now, go read this excellent series by poker blogger Adam LaBare on how to be successful in Multi Table tournaments. Note the fact that he doesn’t claim to be any sort of superstar; he’s a student of the game, just like you and me.