What kind of adjustments would you make in a game with the following conditions?

Game is 1/1, max buyin 300, no rake, ten-handed. Without a rake, the rebuys inflate the stacks. Within five orbits, the stacks of the hero and four Vs jump to around 700-1,200. The other five Vs, tight-passives and scared money getting run over, are between 100 to 400. Opening bets start at 5 but soon jump to 15. Among the deep-stacked players, one is a pro. The other deep stacks play too wide because they love playing third-level poker. They are observant and make massive bluffs, often with air, on flops that miss their opponent’s range.

On the one hand, the opening to 15 with the stack sizes make this game more like regular 2/5 with around 150 BB, not 1/1 with 800 BB. On the other hand, hero can open for less than 15. He pays only 2 per orbit rather than 7. Hero can see more cards for cheaper than in 2/5. But if hero plays nitty, the observant deep-stacks will adjust to the hero and fold to his bets.

I read once, that in unraked deep-stacked games, hands like TPTK and even top two-pair have fewer streets of value. You’re looking to get it all in with sets, straights, and flushes. Careful with paired boards.

Can someone who knows more than I about deep-stacked poker help me here?

It's good that you're the only pro in the game, but I would suggest to just play it like a 2/5 game. If everyone's beginning to have 6 or 700 dollars, aside from a couple players, just keep opening to 15 and see how many callers you're getting. If you're still getting 4 or more callers I would raise even more. You don't want deep stacked players seeing cheap flops especially if you have hands like AQ/AK; we wanna get it heads up/3 ways usually.

Slight adjustments pf and post flop w/ most of the larger changes happening on turn and rivers.

PF Axs and scs go up in value so can open more and call more 3bets.

KQo goes way down in value and gets replaced by J9s.

Can open wider on button w/ more suited hands.

Less to no4betting w/ AKo.

Increased 3 and 4bet sizes.

4bets are very tight very deep. Basically only AA, AKs, and A4s/A5s.

Post flop you basically play a little more conservatively w/ stuff that might have previously been two street hands they go down to one and c bet a little less, but really depends on the board and all the other stuff going on.

I know this isn't what you are asking, but in a game with lots of loose players buying in deep, opening to huge sizes, and trying to see flops, there is a big advantage to playing a short stack. This is something I know I've heard Bart Hanson talk about before. If the players playing $100 - $200 stacks wise up, they can really punish the deep stack players by 3bet jamming pre-flop with a solid range.

Having to consider the wide range of stack sizes involved in hands is going to be an interesting challenge. Sounds like a fun game!

Thanks for the compliment but the pro is a real pro who has made a living from poker for 15 years, not a wannabe like me. I’m just one of the big stacks.

Sounds like a game with the potential for high variance.

One adjustment I'd make would be to do less flat calling and over-calling behind the weaker players when the pro or any of the better / more aggro players are on the BTN or in the blinds. Instead, I'd be 3B'ing and 4B'ing the aggro players more when we're IP.

I'd be opening a tighter range, and limiting my 3B calling range to hands that aren't going to be dominated very often post flop, with more big pairs, mid-range suited connectors and big suited aces, fewer middling pairs, higher suited connectors, and middling suited aces.

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I agree to just play it like a 2/5 -- play your usual tight/aggressive.

Fantastic advice on preflop. Thank you.

I plan to buy in first for 130 and aim to get two Vs with big stacks to call a 15 preflop bet. The hero’s SPR below 3 on the flop makes a simple decision. Meanwhile, the two Vs have tough decisions, contending with the reverse-implied-odds against each other.

Of course, after you double- or triple-up, this strategy is no longer works.

Hence, no 3betting or calling with KQo

This seems to be the consensus. I've actually never played 2/5. I'm glad it's an unraked game.

I mean...that's awfully specific, but, yeah, be wary of getting involved with those "trouble hands" - all the unsuited middling Broadway combos, almost Broadway (T9, J8, etc), 66-99, and A6-A9s are all hands that seem playable pre, and we might want to call a 3B IP, but are likely to cost us a lot of money if we connect and a good V wants to play a big pot.

It may be a challenge to balance. I'm not sure, but I think if we're going to be more selective with our pre-flop 3B calling ranges, we may have to be willing to 3B-bluff the better Vs' opens with some weaker hands from that range, when we're IP. I don't love 3B'ing with a hand like 65s, but I think that would be the correct strategy vs an MP open from one of the better V's in this game.

If we don't 3B-bluff with the less-likely-to-be-dominated hands in our 3B-calling range, I think we'd be doing too much flat calling and not enough 3B'ing. It won't take good V's too long to figure out what we're doing, and make the correct adjustments, by over-folding to our stronger 3B'ing range, and mercilessly c-betting whenever the board doesn't favor our flat-calling range.

I'm doing this on the fly, so I may be wrong. I think the logic is sound, but maybe run it by some of the better / more experienced players you know and trust.

Have they? Doesn't sound like it for most of them, thank goodness

One consideration that nobody pointed out to me with deep stack games is that none of the bad players ever ask how to adjust, or think about it much at all. This means they'll be weird spots where their betting range will be much bigger and more linear than it should be, so you don't want to be hero calling weirdly strong lines (and it's 50/50 if bluffing big will work well).

Can you give an example of what you mean or expound on this? I'm struggling to imagine the scenario.

Would a weirdly strong line be over-playing some middle-set with 3 to a straight or flush on board?

Just that the deeper you get the hands you want to put money in with changes, as other people said you want to be more polarized instead of having better medium strength hands (A5s vs. AJo etc.) ... but your bad opponents won't be following this advice. So it can sometimes be confusing because a V will bet hands they shouldn't bet because it's so deep, which means you might be tempted to hero call hands that should be okay vs. a polar range but it's against a wider linear range and it won't go well.


A good example in a slightly different light is this recently big hand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UhdlMvQSvg

...now a lot of stuff is happening in this hand, but one thing that looks really bad to me is deciding (multiple times) to just go for it with AKo.
Like solvers will happily ship AKo for 100bb but even by 200bb they have second thoughts, and by 400bb they start doing things like slightly preferring ATs over AKo for 3bets. I wouldn't be shocked if solvers rarely 3bet AKo by the time you hit 1500bb.

And, yes, that's high stakes but I actually saw someone do something very similar at a "normal" 1-2 game when 500-600bb deep where they kept bluffing AK and the board ran out something like 93245 and they shoved river for 3x pot to get snap called by 66.

Always cover the whale

Yeah from the stuff I've seen AKo drops off and very deep it's just AA, AKs, and some small mixture of the suited wheel aces.

So...like I said earlier, it sounds like a game with the potential for high variance, if we're playing against a 50-50 mix of solid regs/pros who understand the correct deep stack ranges and bad recs who really don't.

A quick search for "playing correct deep stack ranges pre flop" returned a lot of results. Two near the top were from Upswing and Poker Code. Doing a quick scan of the articles, it seems like they're more or less in agreement.

https://upswingpoker.com/deep-stack-strategy-tips/

https://www.pokercode.com/blog/deep-...poker-strategy

Keep your open sizes about the same, but 3B bigger. When we're IP, we can keep the same 3B range, but OOP, polarize more, with more suited connectors and suited aces. Post flop, we should be playing more defensively, checking more to avoid bloating the pot with medium strength hands, and avoid calling down light.

Fantastic stuff.

Id also add that, this isnt even because of the deep stacks, but with a 15x open sizing you can tighten up and should basically only be 3 betting or folding when facing a raise, because there is near zero pot odds from the measley $2 that started in the pot.

Are the suited wheel aces meant to be bluffs? Wouldn't you still generally prefer to have KK than AKs?

No because deep stacked you want more ways to make the nuts. KK is very vulnerable because running into AA 500bb deep is a disaster and also most of the time you just have to try to get to showdown and can't get paid post flop.

The reason AKs and A5s are better are they block AA so you can pressure hands even as strong as QQ and KK. They also have more ways to make strong hands like straights flushes trips.

You can just play more aggressively on more boards whereas KK is very limited as it's only strong if you flop a set or a clear over pair and even then you can't go that crazy a lot of the time.