Playing a Large Stack Early in the Tournament

Every once in a while you will be able to double up once or even twice within the first few levels of a poker tournament. It’s an enviable position, but I’ve seen many players take the wrong approach and give up their early lead. The most common mistake players make with a big stack is becoming very aggressive and trying to bully their opponents out of pots. The problem with this is that since the blinds are very low early on, the pots are small, and if you try to bully the table, you’re risking doubling someone up just to take a small pot that will not significantly affect your big stack. If you want to understand this better, read the article “Tournament Chip Value: The Law of Diminishing Returns”. You actually want to get more aggressive when you’re playing a small stack, not a big one.

It may seem contradictory, but even though you should generally play less aggressively with a big stack early in a tournament, you should play looser. If you have 4000 chips for example, and the blinds are still 15/30, losing a few blinds will hardly affect your stack. Therefore, you can see cheap flops (no big raise before the flop) with a lot of hands. When you do this, you’re looking to make at least two pair. And you only want to see the flop if you think that there’s a chance that if you do make two pair or better, you will be able to double up and eliminate another competitor. This strategy of seeing many unraised flops is better in Sit N’ Go tournaments, because eliminating an opponent is more valuable, as there are fewer of them between you and the money. In large, multi-table tournaments you should be quite conservative with a large stack in the early stages.

Another mistake I see a lot of players make is forgetting that other players have normal or short stacks. Fancy plays like multi-street bluffs and check-raise bluffs work well when other players have large stacks, but against shorter stacked players they make no sense. If a player with 800 chips makes a 150 chip bet, he’s usually going to be willing to put the rest of his stack in. He can’t afford to be selective, so you shouldn’t try to make him lay down a good hand with a bluff.

In conclusion, don’t get carried away when you have a big stack early in a tournament. Keep playing your tight strategy as long as the blinds remain small. You may want to see a few more flops when you can limp in, but don’t try to bully the table and try to maintain your stack: it will be a great weapon when blinds get big.