Can anyone give some general information or rule of thumb on how to play versus different stack sizes?

For instance how to play when on my left or right I have small/mid/big stack sizes.

Any info or suggestions for books courses or videos I can watch on that subject will be appreciated.

As a general rule, as stack sizes increase, the value of hands with a lot of playibility increase (e.g., suited connectors) relative to the value of big cards/premium hands and vice versa. Of course, this is not to say that 78s is ever a better hand than AA or AK. But when you are very deep you will have a much better chance to realize the equity in your 78s type hands -- because you will be getting much better implied pot odds and won't have to risk as much of your stack on those type hands.

So with deep stacks (and really you need to account for your stack, V's stack, and the stacks of the remaining players yet to act -- as well as whether they're the type who will 3! often), I like to call a lot in position with speculative hands trying to take down a big pot. With small and medium stacks, you'll be playing a lot more premium hands, and a lot less speculative hands (except in the BB, where you'll often will have odds to call). You should also be three-bet shoving (stealing more) based on relative positions and V tendancies.

There are really two issues here. One is effective stack size and the other is the % of the stacks which affects whether or not you or an opponent will call shoves.

Effective stack size is essentially what Bubblebust was referring to above. It is the lesser of the remaining stacks. The higher the effective stack size the wider the range and the more post flop play there will be. With shorter stacks, post flop play may get curtailed by all-ins as well as pre-flop play. It will also affect implied odds significantly. One thing people sometimes don't think about is the % of the effective stack size they are betting. When it is over 33% prior to the river it becomes less likely that there will be any fold equity.

The % thing I referred to above is mostly about the impact of an all in on a larger stack. If you have a stack that is more than 50% of an opponent, they will likely call down an all-in much less frequently than if your stack was say < 33% of theirs.

You have to really be aware of what everyone’s stack size is, not just the guys to your immediate left or right. If there’s a 6bb stack in the blinds, it changes things.

Most important issue, of course, is what your stack is. What’s useful about knowing other players stack sizes is that it allows you to range them better. If a guy open raises or calls a raise with around 20bbs, you can discount low suited connectors, etc.

3 betting is a huge part of it too. As far as resources, there wil live plenty of free content on YouTube discussing this.

Good luck!

I have a question pertaining to this. Obviously, we open for a bit more at 40bb than at 20bb (2.2-3x vs 2x). Say we’re BTN with 40 BB and the blinds both have 20bb. Do we open with a size for our stack (to make calling worse) or for their stack (to make reshoves worse)? What if one has 20 and one has 40? Thanks

Icyhot, in this situation, we play to their effective stack size. So we play as if we have 20bb here. Which usually means opening not too large, because we can expect them to shove over the top of us pretty frequently and with good hands we can get all of the money in easily anyways. Always want to factor in all the stack sizes. If you have 100bb and everyone behind you has 12bb, we’re going to play as if we have 12bb.