So it seems like most of the sites allow you to have your chips converted into BB and play in BB as oppose to chips. I know party did that as one of the sites and it seems that 888 you can do that as well.


Now with BB as oppose to chips, it seems to be much easier to bet and size your bets as oppose to chips. Does anyone here agree with this? I watched a streamer like boski and he seem to be playing on acr with BB as oppose to chips... so did Jonathan Little. But many other players however seem to play in chips... like Jeff Gross and other streamers. But it still seems like chips is still what most people prefer?


The big issue I have with playing in BB as oppose to chips are


1. How do you look at bet size in BB and then interpret the bet? For example if a pot is 10k in chips and opponent bets 8k, you can see its a big bet obviously. But if its in BB, well it could bet 5bb into a 5.6bb pot etc. Now obviously you can click the bb to chips as well while playing. Do you find it harder to determine if someone is bluffing vs value betting when playing in BB? I find it much harder since its like okay he bet 5bb into 5.6bb etc or 3bb into 5.6bb


2. How do you calculate bounties while playing in BB? I know with progressive tournaments, people say a starting stack is worth 1/3 the bounty ... though someone else mentioned it was 1/2.. but seems majority say its 1/3rd which is the case. How do you calculate someone's bounty when playing in BB? You need to change it to chips everytime? So its probably best to play progressive tournaments always in chips as oppose to BB?


3. Do you find it better/worst when you are betting? Example if its in bb and raised preflop, well you could bet 1.8bb into a 5.4bb pot etc and its much easier to bet than say 7300 into a 21900 pot. But as you get to the turn and river, obviously its much easier to size your bets in BB as oppose to go... okay i need to bet xxxxx into xxxxx to set a river shove. But in the end if you jam river, its like okay... 27bb into 33bb pot etc... vs say 27000 into 33000 pot.



Also when you are shortstack, do you find it strange to play with say 6.8bb or 5.2bb etc as oppose to chips? I always like to have chips shown... but obviously having the bb shown is good. I'm curious what do most of you all prefer? BB makes bet sizing much easier especially when you are deepstack. Like if you are 250bb deep, it make sense to play in chips, do you agree? But once you are below a certain BB, probably best to change it back to chips? I know pot odds and everything is the same whether chips or BB but I find the BB a bit not good if I had to stick with just one.

In your first question, I don't think about it being an 8k bet into 10k pot, I think about it as being an 80% pot bet or a 90% pot bet in the 5bb into 5.6bb pot bet.

One major advantage is just easier and quicker decision making. At a quick glance, I can see what the stack sizes are of every person at every table I am at and can use a bit less brain power to make decisions. For someone playing long sessions with a lot of tables, every bit of thinking that I don't have to do in a tournament saves mental energy for later spots. I don't have to go through a process of "ok it's my turn to act, what are blinds at this table? ok, now what is everyone's stack? ok let's do the quick math on that here... I'm cutoff with 28bb, btn has like 17ish, sb has me covered, and bb has like 12 or so.. ok now I can think about what I want to do." If the table is in bb's, I can just be like "ok, there's my stack, there's everyone's stack, now let's act."

Math can generally be easier to do with smaller numbers as well. If on the flop the pot is 621,000 and someone cbets 251,614, you might need to look a bit longer to realize that's about 40% pot. In bb, I would find it easier to see that it's a 2.8bb bet into a 6.9bb pot (blinds are 45,000/90,000/10,000).

Most tournament strategy hinges critically on the relation between players', both hero's and villain's, stack depth in comparison to the blinds. A preflop open from a 60bb stack is going to be composed very differently from an opening bet from a 14bb stack (and the 60bb stack's shoving range is going to be nil, while the 14bb will be shoving with some frequency).

It is extremely useful when contemplating an open to look to one's left and see which stacks are "reshoving" stacks, roughly 20bb or less. Those stacks are more likely to come over the top than deeper ones. There are hands that I will open when everyone acting after me has decently sized stacks that I will fold if there are short stacks waiting to act.

Having the stacks counted in big blinds makes seeing this a lot easier than having to do the calculation every time I look left.

I don't play PKOs, so I haven't studied the issue in detail; but in any sort of tournament, stack size is not linear. You cannot say in the late stages of a tournament that a bounty is worth one third of a starting stack, because that quantity of chips is worth a lot more to a short stack than to a large one.

Bounties and the conventional payout ladder do not pay out in chips; they pay out in dollars (or whatever the currency is of the site or casino).



But you are 250bb deep only at the start of the tournament. Deep into the tournament you are going to have a stack size ranging from a few blinds at the most desperate to about fifty blinds or so if you are doing very well.

Knowing your and your opponents' stack size in big blinds is crucial to shaping your strategy in the moment. If you are quick with math, you can make the conversion from chips to blinds every time you look at your or someone else's stack; but if the software does the conversion for you, why not save yourself the effort?

For what it's worth, my HUD shows villain stack size in BB, so I do not need to use the show-stacks-in-BB option on the table. But I have that set up for the very reason that it is vitally important to know stack sizes in BB.

So do most people here play with chips nowadays or in bb. Again bb makes sense in that its much easier to play as your bet sizing would be in bb. Thus if you have 25bb or 50bb or 100bb, its much easier to see how much you need to bet on flop, turn and river to get stacks in etc. If its in chips, its a bit more work such as you playing around with your slider and bet sizing. It does seem easier when you raise preflop and someone in bb calls and then you bet 1.8bb into 5.4bb as your cbet and much easier to look at.



But the main issues i seem to have with the bb versus chips is... how do you calculate bounties? That would require you to change your stack to chips every single time you need to calculate bounty?



Also when you play in bb as oppose to chips, do you find it harder to determine if someone who is betting into you is value betting vs bluffing? Like i feel you can get better read on someone bet size if they bet say 32500 into 45000 chips... compared to say betting 18bb into 23bb etc. Like when a player jams all in on river... thus you look at the bet size in chips... it might give better read than in bb? If you are playing in bb, well its like you might 3bet to 6bb preflop, bet 6bb on flop, 16bb on turn and then 40bb on river... but when you do this, your looking at it in bb and not chips. So people who play in bb don't find an issue with that?



Also recall someone say if a player keeps changing their stack from chips to bb and vice versa, they are fishy. Is there any truth to that?



I feel like its probably good idea to play in bb... but many times you need to check your bb stack each time by clicking on it.



Thing i notice is i seen lot of players videos... those top regs... who seem to play in chips and never change it to bb. Any reason for that? I guess they just prefer it that way? Obviously math for them is very easy such as calculating how much percentage bet size is 250k into 620k etc.

there is no difference, it's all just multiplying by a constant. playing in bb's automatically just makes you lazy when you get into a live environment

sixfour is absolutely right — mathematically there is no difference. A 10000 chip bet from a 100K chip stack with a bb of 1000 is not a bigger bet than a 1000 chip bet from a 10000 chip stack when the bb is 100. Both are 10BB bets from a 100bb stack.

Unless you are intimidated by big numbers and think the first bet I described above is bigger than the second, it’s really irrelevant whether you play in chips or bb. Do whichever you’re more comfortable with.

Yea i know mathwise, there is no difference. I do find it harder to make bet sizing if say you are playing deep stake early on, such as say 150bb deep or more. Like its easier to play in bb. But say you have 25bb or less, i find it not too hard to play in chips when sizing bets.



Making bet sizes and building pots definitely seem much easier with using bb vs chips. But interpretating someone's bet sizing in bb seem to be harder than in chips. So no one here thinks this?



The other thing is i don't know if the other player is using bb or chips so that is another issue. But still majority of ppl prefer chips vs bb right? Again, its much easier to size your bets or pot control and size your bet sizing with bb. But calculating bounty and looking at someones bet size... i feel its easier in chips than in bb.

Why do you think this is?

Like I said, they are equivalent. If you personally feel better with one or the other, then use that. If you have any intentions of playing live, though, probably using chips is a better idea. Bb is not an option live, obviously, so getting used to playing in chips is probably a good idea.

I think I agree with stremba70 most of the time. They are mostly equivalent, but if you're in a PKO, then you sometimes need to know how many chips things are, because you can think about the bounty as worth a certain number of chips and add that to your effective odds.

just switch between the 2 depending on what you're trynna look at

I like playing in BB because there's no issue with 'scared money' - no matter if the game is small or bigger.
If you think of your chips in the abstract and base your decision on the math of it then the actual value of how much these chips represent shouldn't really affect your play and thus is superfluous/useless information (ICM being an exception, of course...or if you know the other player is 'scared money')

But playing mostly live BBs isn't an option, so it's a good idea to feel comfortable doing quick calcs in your head with either.

Well interpreting someones bet size when they bet in bb... example they bet 1.8bb into 5.4bb... well that isn't that much of a thing since thats 1/3rd the pot on the flop. But when they start betting on turn and river, i feel like if someone bets in chips, you could probably make a better read at their bet sizing vs them betting say 8.5bb into 12bb... don't you agree on that?



I did recall jonathan little when he streamed on wpn... he played only in bb and liked that option. Im not even sure if he changed from bb to chips when calculating the progressive bounty? But you have to do that though right? You can't play in chips and calculate it that way right?



With BB, its well in bb and not in chips. Its like okay they bet 1.8bb into 5.4bb when say effective stack is 40bb to make it simple. Now they bet say 6bb into 9bb on turn. But if its chips, well someone might interpret the 60k bet into 90k pot as big... though its exactly the same. But do most people here just do bb when online?


Yea i know live doesn't have that option. I feel like when you are deep stack... like 100bb and above... bb is much better. Or imagine you are 200bb deep. Its easier to size your bets with bb as oppose to chips when that super deep... most agree on this right?



But even when you are 25bb deep, i find bb much easier to calculate bet size because you can say okay i bet 6bb into 9bb now and i get called the pot would be 21bb and there would be say 20bb behind so a pot size bet. When betting in chips, you might bet a bit too little or too much before the river. But playing in bb doesn't feel the same though as you are interpreting players bet sizing in bb...as oppose to chips. Like it doesn't feel right though. Its like okay i will jam 30bb into 40bb pot on river or call that 30bb into 40bb pot on river. It doesn't feel as real as when its chips for some reason.



But when calculating bet size, bb is much easier though since you just need to calculate okay i need to bet 7bb on turn to bet a pot size on river. But with chips, you play around with the bet slider and large numbers. Thoughts on this?

So to me the pros and cons on playing in bb vs in chips.



Pros


Easy to size bets. Whether its preflop, flop or turn or river. Such as how much bb you can bet on flop or turn to set up river bet. You can obviously do this with chips... but the issue is if you are playing many tables... even if you aren't, you have to play around with your bet slider such as okay i need to bet 2/3rd pot on flop here and turn and set up pot size shove on river. Or if its shallow stack, you have to calculate around how much chips you need to bet on flop or turn.



Looks much more simpler. When rarely a player has more than a 50bb stack, then its much easier to look at stack sizes. Even when you have 100b stacks, it isn't that hard to figure out... okay how much can i bet on flop or raise flop, turn and river to get stacks in.



Not having to deal with large numbers. Like someone else says, when someone bets 25358 chips... compared to say 18bb into 28bb pot, it looks much different.




Cons



When its not in chips, it doesn't seem that real. Like when someone bets 6k chips into 18k pot compared to 1.8bb into 5.4bb. Obviously its the same math wise... but looking at bb, doesn't seem as real.



Calculating bounties... is this even possible if you never change your bb stack size to chips? Or there is a way to do it? So seems like play in bb stack... but when bounty situations come up, then switch to chips to do the calculation?



Interpreting bet sizes. So no one here thinks its harder to look at reads on bet sizing when its in bb compared to chips? Originally i thought this was probably one of the biggest negatives of playing in bb.


Next level bb change. One thing i find annoying about this is when you are playing in bb and it shows everyone bb... say you have 12bb. Then when the next level changes, suddenly you might have 9bb. But if you were playing in chips, you would well aware... okay i got 100k in chips and its 4000/8000 now. Next level is going to be 6000/12000. So if the levels go up fast, then its like you might not look at it as like how it would be when stacks?

Playing in big blinds is just so much better and it's not close.

Let's say you're playing a tourney blinds are 80k/160k. You've got 5,120,000 chips effective against villain. I don't want to do long division to calculate how many BB effective we are (eff stack has a huge effect on strategy).

Let's say you're reviewing cash games at different stakes. Buddy1 plays 50NL, buddy2 plays 100NL, buddy3 plays 5NL. If you convert things into BB you never have to mentally adjust for the sizings.

At the end of the day it's just another unit of measurement, but bb's are far superior IMO.

I'm not sure what you mean by bounty calculations.

I guess if this works for you, do it. But I don't even need think about doing the math and I know these things. In live tourneys I feel it's one of my biggest advantages, most people suck at this.

You can't just look at that and instantly say 32?

My arithmetic is decent but I can't simplify that fraction in my head instantly lol. Can you?

Yep. Or at least close enough to within a bb or two, which is all you need to know. If you can't instantly go "well 10 bigs is 1.6m and we've got a bit more than three times that" then that's problem

These are the kind of skills that become automatic when you've spent years playing live translating chips to BB in your head. Your method is much more efficient than what I was doing - trying to get an exact answer by mentally reducing fractions.

It's not really a problem playing online though because there's no need to do unnecessary mental gymnastics. You can just change a setting and focus on strategy and game flow.