SOURCE: www.detnews.com

In a recent column, I covered deep-stack play in tournaments. This week, let's look at how to play a healthy stack in live games.

Playing No Limit Hold 'em with a large amount of chips in comparison to the blinds is the most skillful form of poker in the world. It's certainly more challenging than a short-stack poker tournament where blind levels escalate very quickly.

Deep-stack poker is defined by the number of bets players have in relation to the big blind. In some tournaments, like a $20 buy-in sit-and-go with $1/$2 blinds, the game literally starts out short-stacked with players having just 10 bets. Betting options are extremely limited as players are often forced to move all-in before or after the flop.

Compare that to a deep-stack game where the blinds are still $1/$2 but the average buy-in is $500. Now, it's a completely different ballgame. When players have 250 bets in front of them, you'll rarely see anyone moving all-in, especially before the flop.

Let's check out a hand example in these two different game formats.

Holding pocket aces, you raise to $6 in a short buy-in game. An opponent has pocket queens, and with just $20 in front of him, his obvious play is to go all-in. End of story.

Now compare that to a deep-stack game where you'd likely see a very different betting pattern. In this game, you might also raise to $6 with the pocket rockets, and the guy with the queens might still re-raise to $20.

But playing with a deep-stack, you'd probably re-raise again before the flop to, say, $60. Facing your re-raise, your opponent just might fold his hand, fearing that you have K-K or better, and that his big stack may very well be at risk.

For a $20 bet and no more betting to follow, it's worth taking the risk. But for a $60 bet and more betting to come, it's a potential stack destroyer.

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