How to Play your Stack Size in SNG Tournaments – Introduction For Beginners
Whether you're playing tournaments or cash games it doesn't really matter, but for the sake of this article we'll look at playing your stack size in tournaments. When you're playing in tournaments in the online poker rooms you typically start with about 100BB in a regular format tournament. As the tournament progresses you'll either be sitting with a large stack or short stack and you need to know how to change your playing style to match your chip stack.
Your chip stack will always determine how you play in tournaments, or at least it should if you're playing properly. When you're a large stack on the table you can get away with more raises and steal the blinds, whereas when you're a low stack you might only have one play which is either fold or all-in. As a big stack you have the luxury of seeing more flops then most other players which gives you better odds of hitting hands.
Large Stacks
When you manage to work your way up the table and become a large stack in the tournament you should begin to open up your game a little bit. When you can see cheap flops make sure you take advantage of them, and when you have good whole cards make sure you raise the action up. You don't want people limping in and making a hand as it might be hard to get away from your hand after the flop. Try to not bet too often as you don't want people to think you're just buying the pots or else you might start seeing some of the smaller stacks calling your raises.
Normal Stack
If you've been waiting for cards and not hitting much in your tournament and are still around what you started with then you need to continue making stingy hand selections. Don't jump into pots with nothing or raise with nothing because you can't afford to be re-raised at this point. When you do get some cards make sure to cash in on them and just try to hang in there. You'll typically need too loosen up your game once the blinds start rising, but by then hopefully you've hit a hand and double up your chip stack.
Medium Stacks
When you're roughly at half the chips you've started with in the tournament you can consider yourself a medium stack. If you're in this situation in your tournament then you need to almost hold off until you get two good cards and go in with them. You don't have much room for making pre-flop calls as you'll be throwing away a lot of chips.
Small Stacks
If you lose a hand in your tournament, but are still alive and have roughly 35BB or less left then you need to wait for your all-in move. Continue either folding or going all-in until you move up into a better situation or you bust out of the tournament. There will always be times when you're the short stack don't sit for the monster hand just throw your chips in and hope for two live cards.
