Cool Ways To Stack Poker Chips

 
Martin Harris

As a tournament reporter for many years, I’ve spent a lot of time eyeing players’ chip stacks, enough to develop all sorts of ideas and opinions about the significance (or lack thereof) of how a player chooses to stack his or her chips.

There are varying degrees of tidiness displayed in chip stacking. Some players are very meticulous about lining up their stacks in perfectly constructed, uniform towers. Meanwhile others tend always to have a few strays laying around, or even have “dirty stacks” with chips of different denominations mixed together in a single column.

It’s tempting to perform a kind of “profiling” simply from the way a player stacks his or her chips, which like other assumptions based on, say, clothing, appearance, or the player’s sex or age might indicate something meaningful about a person’s playing style. Or not.

We might be tempted to place the guy who lines up the markings on the edges of the chips so all are perfectly aligned in a category of “tight” players who never make any moves without having calculated risk-reward ratios to the nth degree. And the guy with messy chips in differently-sized stacks that always appear on the verge of toppling over might be thought of as more “loose” with his calls and raises.

New players may find themselves distracted by such speculations. But more often than not when it comes to stacking and handling chips, they’re going to be more focused on what they are doing with their own chips than with worrying about how others are stacking theirs.

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A skill that is commonly overlooked by novice tournament poker players is that of chip stack management. Managing your chip stack refers to an awareness of the number of chips you have and how your stack size compares to those of your opponents. The changing blind levels and how this relates to your stack and those of your opponents also need. Assuming you start with a fairly standard $1,500 stack made up of high and low value chips, you can get away with using around 10-15 chips per person. Fun with Poker Chips.

Stacking Standards

The symbolism of stacks may be debatable. That said, how players stack their chips is not without meaning. And for new players, it is probably worth knowing some of the standards for stacking.

There’s a whole generation of players now who got their first experience playing poker online which means when they do finally try playing in a live poker room the whole idea of having to deal with chips might well be altogether new. They might know all about starting hand selection, the importance of position, and the odds of drawing to a flush or straight, but stacking chips isn’t necessarily something they’ve faced before.

It might seem like a trivial thing to learn, and in truth it doesn’t take long to become familiar with how to stack chips. But for new players there are a few factors to keep in mind going in.

The great majority of players stack their chips in a similar way, with stacks of 20 being the standard most often employed. Some prefer building 30- or 40- chip high stacks (or more), while others like to stack them in 10s or even in lots of short stacks of five. But 20 is a convenient stack size — not too high or low, and easy for counting, too.

What Are the Rules?

Most cash games and tournaments have a rule in place acknowledging the necessity of allowing opponents to be able to see your stack clearly enough to have an idea what you have in front of you, although the rule generally still allows players certain freedoms with their chip caretaking.

For instance, in the Poker Tournament Directors Association’s most recent set of TDA Rules currently used in many tournament series, there’s a rule noting that “Players are entitled to a reasonable estimation of an opponent’s chip count; thus chips should be kept in countable stacks.” The rule goes on to say “The TDA recommends clean stacks in multiples of 20 as a standard” and that “Players must keep higher denomination chips visible and identifiable at all times.”

These are guidelines often followed by many in tourneys. They are followed in cash games, too, and thus for new players are worth knowing.

  • Chip stacks don’t have to be 20 chips tall, but keeping stacks of 20 (or multiples thereof) is what the TDA “recommends” (as do others).
  • However tall your stacks are, they should be uniform and easy enough for opponents to count simply by looking at them.
  • Higher denomination chips always should be visible, too, and not hidden behind lower ones or in other ways — that also is part of making it possible for opponents to make that “reasonable estimation” of what you have when a hand begins or at any point during the play of a hand.

As a tourney reporter, it’s always handy for me when players follow these guidelines as it makes the job of counting their chips and reporting those counts much easier. Take a look at the picture to the right. The yellow chips are worth 5,000 each and the grays are 1,000. How many chips does that player have? How long did it take you to count them? (See below for the answer.)

Some of my colleagues occasionally complain about players not stacking chips neatly or in amounts other than 20. Of course, the players’ obligation to each other and the fairness of the game is certainly greater than their obligation to reporters. It’s essential that everyone be able to play hands knowing how the stacks compare because such knowledge directly affects the strategy employed when deciding whether or not to fold, call, raise, or shove all in.

Conclusion

A lot of times new players don’t want to give away the fact that they aren’t experienced when they sit down in a live game for the first time. It is easier said than done, but inexperienced players shouldn’t worry too much about being pegged as a newbie. Everyone was new to the game once, and if you can try to focus on playing hands as well as you can and not fretting too much over making “rookie mistakes,” you’ll enjoy yourself a lot more while gathering experience to help you going forward.

Know, though, that if you stack your chips in 20, keep your stacks relatively orderly, and be sure to keep the big chips up front and visible, you won’t be drawing attention to yourself as someone unfamiliar with how to stack chips.

Now your hand might shake a little the first time you grab some of those chips to raise with your pocket aces and a couple might spill off the top, but you’ll learn to deal with that in time. And as you gather more experience, you’ll gather more chips, too, and thus more chances to stack them.

(With those neat stacks of 20, it is easy to see at a glance in the photo that the player has 680,000 chips. Bonus question: How many chips are in the photo at the top? Yellow = 1,000, red = 5,000; blue = 10,000)

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Everyday players are sitting down at the tables and consistently making fundamental mistakes because of lack of knowledge, misinformation or failing to maintain focus.

Even just a small strategical adjustment in poker can potentially save you a huge amount in the long run.

In this article we will point out some of the best live and online poker tournament strategy tips you can use to improve your game as quickly as possible.

Tip 1: Play The Right Starting Hands

Whether it be lack of patience, or an unfamiliarity with opening ranges, many tournament poker players still open too wide. This is especially true when it comes to early and middle position opens, where there are still many opponents left to act behind who can be dealt a strong hand.

The problem is when called, wide openers are often at a range disadvantage. Often being dominated by their opponents, they are vulnerable to 3 bets since they frequently won't have a holding strong enough to continue under pressure.

Furthermore, although opening a hand like 7 ♠ 5♠ might at times not be a terrible strategy from early or middle position, speculative hands like suited connectors and gappers, as well as small pairs, work best with deep stacks behind.

Best Way To Stack Poker Chips

These speculative hand types infrequently connect strongly with the flop, so those times they do you want to have deep stakes behind to have the potential to win a huge pot. Modern day tournament structures often only see deep stack play occur during the first few levels of play. This leads us into the next tournament poker tip, being stack size aware.

Cool Ways To Stack Poker Chips

Learn which hands to open raise in MTT's - Watch lesson 6.1 from the Road to Success MTT Course. A power-packed 50 minute video below, just use one of the button options to unlock it and get instant access.

Tip 2: Be Stack Size Aware

Effective stack size plays a critical role in a tournament players success.

Having a deep stack, and therefore expanding an opening range to include a lot of speculative suited hands and small pairs is a tournament strategy that is going to be punished if a number of short stacks are yet to act behind. This most notably occurs in turbo tournaments where the average stack size is quite short.

Short stacks will be in push-or-fold mode. Being short, they don't have time to wait and will be looking to take any opportunity they can to move all-in. This high rate of all-ins will leave wide openers frequently being forced to relinquish their hands, without even having the opportunity to try to hit a nice flop. Problematic hands often include; J8s , KTo and weak Ax hands.

It's not just short-stacks that can cause a problem, aggressive players will be looking to attack wide-openers. This is especially true when a player opens with a vulnerable M8-M14 (20bb-35bb) stack. 3 bets get good leverage against this stack size, since continuing in the pot represents committing a significant portion of a players stack.

Wide openers would be wise not to commit a large percentage of their stack with marginal holdings, and so will be forced to fold, or face being in a high-risk situation. Staying aware of your own stacks utility, as well as anticipating how opponents will utilize their stacks, is an important tournament poker tip to keep in mind.

POKER TIP: If you are currently using BB to calculate stack size, here's a look at why using 'M' is a better MTT strategy.

Tip 3: Be Careful Overplaying In The Early Stages

As a stack gets deeper, the less willing a competent player will be to put their entire stack at risk since they have more to lose. It's rare to see good players all-in during the early stages of a tournament with hands like AKo or JJ preflop.

Smart players recognize that their counterparts aren't going to be risking their entire stack with weaker hands like AQo . Therefore, even a strong hand like AK could be at a significant equity disadvantage facing a deep stacked opponents all-in range. Could you fold QQ here?

Rather than putting in an extra raise, often times just calling with even very strong hands in the early stage of a poker tournament has great benefits.

  • Allows your opponents to continue with hands they were folding to a re-raise that you have crushed.
  • Disguises the strength of your hand and keeps you unpredictable.
  • Prevents you from getting all-in facing a super strong range where often times you're crushed.

Tip 4: Continuation Bet Aggressively But Not Always

Players have learnt the value of c-betting, but it's a strategy that is often misapplied. Being the preflop aggressor shouldn't lead to a mandatory c-bet and double barrels.

This is especially true in multi-way pots yet players continue to make fruitless c-bets with weak holdings into multiple opponents.

Even in heads-up situations, key factors to consider include;

  • How does the flop texture interact with players ranges?
  • Who has the strongest range?
  • Who has nut advantage (the biggest share of super strong hands)?
  • How passive or aggressive is the opponent we're facing?
  • How does the stack size/SPR allow us to operate on the flop and future streets?

The following hand illustrates the effect nut advantage can have on profitable continuation betting and how it applies to this tournament poker tip:

Tip 5: Be ICM Aware

The Independent Chip Model or ICM, is a great model players use to make more profitable decisions when deep in a tournament and especially at a final table.

Unlike in cash games, chip values fluctuate depending on the stage of the tournament and the competing opponents stack sizes. At it's most extreme, ICM strategy can make A♠A♣: an easy fold preflop.

Imagine a situation in a satellite where 9 players get a World Series of Poker entry and there's 10 remaining. The action folds around to a player with 100,000 in tournament chips who moves all in from the small blind. You're sitting in the big blind with A♠A♣: and also 100,000 in chips. You look around and see a few opponents with only 1000 chips left, which is the size of the current big blind. Obviously one of these short stacks is likely to bust very soon.

Obviously one of these short stacks is likely to bust very soon. Moreover the chance that they collectively out survive your 100,000 stack is extremely remote. You'd likely be a 99% chance to get a WSOP entry, so why would you call with your A♠A♣ and risk busting next around 20% of the time?

Aside from calling too wide in spots when the most profitable strategy is to proceed tightly, the opposite can also be true when it comes to pressuring your opponents. ICM allows players when they have the opportunity to assert pressure on there opponents stacks, to go ahead and do so liberally, since thinking opponents counter-strategy is to play a tight range of hands.

Here's an example of how drastically a hand range can change when the opportunity to assert pressure at a final table exists. 5 of the 6 remaining players at the Pokerstars Sunday Millions have 15bb's, whilst the UTG player has a short 2bb stack. Since the 15bb stacks wants to avoid busting out next and missing out on a large pay jump before the immanent bust out of the 2bb stack, the small blind can adjust their all-in range. Instead of the profitably 57% all-in range in normal play, they can move all-in with 100% of hands to apply pressure on the big blind.

Whilst the big blind should adjust their calling range from the regular 36% to just 10% of hands to account for the ICM effect in play.

The PokerNerve Road to Success course teaches players how to master ICM situations, which is key to tournament poker success since ICM comes into play as the prizes become significant. If there was only one tournament poker tip that you take away from this article, it's that you need to know ICM!

Tip 6: Bet The Appropriate Size

Strong players are capitalizing on their opponents tendencies to bet too big or too small in a number of different situations. With some similar considerations to that of continuation betting, when selecting a bet size important aspects include;

  • Which player's range does the board texture favor?
  • Who has the greatest nut saturation?
  • How does SPR influence our betting strategy

There are many great articles online about bet sizing. You should be sure to check out ThePokerBank's and the Pokerology's to learn more about this tournament tip.

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Cool Ways To Stack Poker Chips

Tip 7: Take Equity Realization Into Account

Possibly due to the popularity growth of Twitch, many poker players approach to big blind play has evolved. The current trend is to defend the big blind with virtually any 2 cards, as some top pros elect to do, and the justification for this is taking advantage of the excellent pot odds being offered.

While the inclusion of antes combined with commonly seeing a small open raise size does offer the big blind generous pot odds, this has led to a fundamental flaw in the way many players approach big blind play in poker tournaments. The key concept overlooked, is equity realization.

Equity realization reflects a players ability to take a certain hand, and win their share of the pot, frequently enough, to make it profitable in the long-term. Although some top pros have the ability to win their equity share of the pot even out of position, less skilled players rarely do. This leads to a large chip loss in the long run.

It is quite difficult to realize of your equity when out of position, with no initiative and a weak range. This means them glorious odds you are being offered aren't quite as good as you think!

The following article explains this crucial tournament poker tip in more detail; Equity Realization.

Tip 8: Don't Miss Double And Triple Barrel Opportunities

'One and done' is the plight of many aspiring tournament poker players. Everyday at the tables I see players missing profitable opportunities to double, or even triple barrel. Understanding what turn and river cards are advantageous to a players range, along with opponent tendencies, are crucial parts of a winning barreling formula.

The most common scenario at the table, is a heads-up pot where the big blind calls an open-raise. And this happens to be a great spot to barrel. Big blind defenders have a wide range, and it's important to pressure this wide range, especially on only partially connected board textures with one or multiple high cards.

RedChipPoker has a great article on spotting profitable double barrel opportunities which you can read here: THE +EV DOUBLE BARREL GUIDE

Tip 9: Check-Raise More Flops

The biggest difference between the current tournament population, and the future generation, will likely be their approach to check-raising the flop. This opportunity typically occurs in a heads-up pot, after defending the big blind verse an opponents raise.

Currently, MTT players only check-raise the flop in this situation around 7-8% of the time, when closer to 20% is a more optimal strategy. On certain flop textures, check-raising close to 25% of the time is an extremely profitable strategy. And if players are getting out of line with their c-bets, then check-raising at an even higher frequency could be a profitable exploit.

By giving up too easily on a wide range of board textures, or taking a more passive approach and simply calling, c-betting can be done with reckless abandon. However, by selecting a nice mix of check-raising hands, combining some strong hands with some good semi-bluffing candidates, a check-raiser can become tricky to play against and exploit the average players tendency to over c-bet.

POKER TIP: Applied correctly and check-raising becomes a super powerful weapon in your arsenal leading to more profitable poker results. But also think beyond the flop, there's plenty of check-raising opportunities you may be missing. This video demonstrates an interesting turn check-raise situation.

We discuss check raising strategy in more detail in our post over on unfeltedpoker.com.

Tip 10: Develop A Good 3betting Strategy

Cool Ways To Stack Poker Chips To Play

Whilst 3 betting aggressively is a strategy many players employ, especially in online poker circles, failure to apply optimal 3 betting strategies has certainly led to a lot of spewy poker. Simply attacking opponents who are suspected of opening wide doesn't cut it in the modern poker world.

Players have learnt to deal with 3 bets more profitably, by mixing in some calls with timely 4 bets. Moreover, the role stack size plays when it comes to 3 betting it still largely misunderstood by much of the poker community.

Sure there are certain stack sizes where 3 bets gain a lot of leverage, but how about the role blockers play? And when is 9♦7♦ a better 3 bet candidate than K♦T♠ ? These are just some of the considerations when it comes to a profitable 3 betting strategy. See how to design strong 3betting ranges in this article by Donkr.

Bonus Poker Strategy Tip: Avoid and Deal with Downswings

As a poker player you want to earn your money as easily and as stress-free as possible right? Well, understanding ROI, variance and bankroll management can help (see TopPokerValue's article on bankroll management).

All poker players at some point experience downswings. In some cases, this can affect their play, volume or state of mind.

You'll be miserable, hating poker, playing less and earning less per tournament as your play will suffer.

Along with finding ways that work for you to keep a positive mindset, taking pro-active steps can help keep you confident by knowing you are dealing with the situation like a professional whilst at the same time taking positive action to get back on track and winning.

What is ROI and variance?

Every tournament you enter has an EV associated with it. So if you enter a $10 tourney, as a good player maybe you have a 30% ROI, so you make $3. So it doesn't matter whether you brick that tourney or win it for $5000, you make $3 in the long run.

Now, of course, you don't make $3 each time. 80-85% of the time you lose that $10, some percentage of the time you win a little bit, and some very small percentage of the time you win a lot. How small those ‘small percentages’ are primarily depends on not only your skill edge, but also the field size which is an extremely important concept that is often ignored.

Variance is a factor of two things:

1) Your edge

2) The field size

Example 1)

You play the Hot $55 which has $30K guaranteed, every day for a year on Pokerstars. It has 1600 runners and you have a 5% ROI, because turbo ROIs are small. Your average yearly profit is $605 however you will lose money on the year 55% of the time.

Example 2)

You play a $20 tourney with $3K guaranteed on a softer site every day for a year. It has 200 runners and you have a 30% ROI, because it's a normal speed tourney and you’re against an easier field. Your average yearly profit is $2400 and in this case you lose money only 12% of the time.

A lot of people would look at those two tournaments and make a decision based on the buy-in and 1st place prize money as to which was better to play, and it would be grossly wrong. Once you accept all the above, you realise that the 'up top' number is largely meaningless.

Yes, on the same site bigger fields may mean a lot of fish have registered to play, but you'll find a lot of small field, soft, non-peak hour tournaments have a great pro-to-fish ratio and hence are great value. Of course once you consider other sites that have smaller fields, you'll often find they are a better choice than what might be running on Pokerstars.

So what can you do?

When players start losing money and along with that, confidence, not only does their game deteriorate but they often compound that problem by failing to make rational decisions. Often losing players, or players on a downswing, go 'bink chasing' and decide to take a shot to win all their money back in one tourney. Or load up some quick $82 hyper-turbos to try to turn it all around quickly.

People get overly fixated on what's 'up top' and wanting to score big in one tournament. That’s a sure-fire strategy to fuel a down swing. If your house got knocked down would you try to slap it back up in a week? Take that opportunity to rebuild a better, stronger house.

Cool ways to stack poker chips near me

Make sure you're adding in some study and keep focused (see Sky's Matsuhashi How To Study Poker series), and stay fresh and positive as you approach each session. Be smart and get back into profit quicker instead of enduring a 6-12 month variance rollercoaster!

Closing Words On Tournament Poker Tips

Poker is a multi-faceted game which makes it fun but challenging. Challenge yourself to factor in the relevant concepts, and make more profitable decisions. Tighten up from the big blind, and in general around the table. This tip often quickly improves a new players results, or those that have a got a little sloppy with their play.

Calculate stack size using 'M'. Always be aware of your own, and your opponents stack sizes so you don't get yourself caught in awkward situations. One awkward situation that often comes up is when you hold an overpair to the board and an opponent puts the heat on you. Don't be afraid to make big lay downs to preserve your stack, especially in the early levels.

Be aware of your cbetting frequency. There's no need to waste tournament poker chips cbetting every time, especially when the pot is multi-way. Pick your spots to make profitable plays. Remember when it comes to the final table, regularly profitable playing ranges might alter due to the payouts. ICM is the key when it comes to those final big decisions.

Cool Ways To Stack Poker Chips Zynga Poker

Another key to success is knowing when to fire multiple bullets at your opponents. Barreling, especially against a wide big blind range can really help increase your non-showdown winnings. Finding ways to accumulate chips without always having the best hand is what top players do. This is why check-raising and having a good 3 betting strategy is so important. Correct use of these strategical concepts and the other tips outlines will get you winning more at the tables.

Now that you've acquired some great holdem tournament strategy tips to help you achieve MTT success, go out there an implement them!

One of the quickest way to improve your poker game is to take on a poker coaching, a course or join a poker training site; if that is something that interests you be sure to check out the PokerNerve road to Success Course for some advanced poker tournament strategy or you can check out HowToPlayPokerInfo's guide on poker training & poker courses to find the right option for you.

Cool Ways To Stack Poker Chips Without

Any other poker tournament strategy tips? Leave them below in the comments, we would love to hear them!

Cool Ways To Stack Poker Chips Easy

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