Being the Bully (Big Stack in a SnG)
Monday, March 8th, 2010Playing poker online is much easier when you control the lion’s share of the chips. Case in point: if you have the ability to take out an opponent for all his chips, and even in the event you lose you’re still a very viable player in the tournament, then you have a huge psychological advantage over your opponents.
We call this bullying. If you watch a few games and you watch a big stack online poker player know how to use his big stack, you’ll see him raising a lot more than a lot of the other players. And you’ll see him going all-in a lot more. Why is this?
It’s elementary. For one, it’s an easy way to use that psychological advantage to steal blinds. And since you don’t have to worry about losing or going out of the tournament as easily as other players, you can open up your range of playable hands. Another advantage to this is that you get to take the initiative in more pots. You have the innate advantage of being able to play more loosely with your marginal holdings.
On top of all that, you can use your stack to bolster your table image. Say you’re a relatively tight player and you end up with the big stack because of your tight play. With that image, you’ll be able to steal more in position when people look at your image coupled with your stack size.
So when you do have the big stack, don’t be afraid to push people around. Think of yourself as the sumo wrestler just bumping people around with your belly if they get in your way. Because aggression and a big stack in online poker can be one the most dangerous weapons in your arsenal.