Brush Up on Your Deepstack Strategy in Time for the MPS Malta!

The Mega Poker Series is a four-stop deepstack festival which has been touring Europe since 2012. It is about to kick off its fourth season with a new main sponsor: William Hill and a new destination: Malta! RankingHero members are competing in the RKH William Hill Cup to qualify for the 2015 MPS Malta Main Event (May 6-10) and this is a good time to review the basics of deep-stack play.

With two starting days (one entry per starting day) and a huge 80,000 chip starting stack, the MPS promises a massive prize pool and exciting poker action, which will put to the test players' physical endurance and focus, and most importantly, their skills and strategy. 

Deep-stack tournaments are generally preferred by the pros as the structure tends to favor skill over luck. Though amateurs or less experienced live players may feel reassured by the sheer size of their stack, it is important to be aware of the strategic implications of a large stack/small BB in the early stages of the tournament.

The ABC of early deep-stack tournament play:

All-ins are very rare pre-flop. 

You are not likely to get knocked out on a single hand; players can 3 and 4-bet and still fold without getting fatally crippled.

You will see lots of action on all three streets and must plan further ahead with each move. 

With many players at the table likely to get involved in the action, position is paramount.

Hands change in value: small pairs, suited connectors and suited aces gain enormously in appeal because of their post-flop potential or the higher 'implied pot odds'. Respectively, premium starting hands such as AA, KK, QQ drop in value with the higher risk of getting outdrawn.

Tips from the pros:

Here is what RankingHero ambassadors @Nicolas Levi and @Pedro Canali had to say about deep-stack play.

Pedro Canali:

In the first levels of deepstack tournaments, people usually feel like they have to play tight, they are not at risk so they have time to wait for good hands. In my opinion, the prize pool distribution in most of the tournaments is not flat enough to make this strategy optimal. Most of the money is awarded to the top 3. What I mean is, that finishing 2nd in a tournament one time is way easier than finishing 8th twice. Yet, it will earn you more money.

With that in mind, I suggest to take a maximum risk all the time, playing very aggressive during the whole tournament. The downside of this strategy is that it increases the variance, makes you bust most of the time before the money, but it will be compensated by the increased ROI if you have good bankroll management.

If you take a look at my results, I won 3 major French tournaments in my carrier, and every time I was playing very aggressive and built a big stack thanks to abusing the bubble. What you can't see however, is that I have a lot more early busts than other players, giving me plenty of time to visit the city, grind online or go to the beach :)

Nicolas Levi:

When you have chips, you have flexibility, so you can play your natural style like you would in a cash game. Remember to check your opponents stack, because if it is small it might be difficult to play cute: it's the smallest stack that dictates if each hand is "deepstack".

Good luck to all in the second freeroll tomorrow, Tuesday April 14th, on William Hill and don't forget to save screenshots for the Ipad side mission :)

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Quick glossary:

Deep stack tournament: an event in which players start with big stacks of chips relative to the big blinds (typically 200 BB). At the Mega Poker Series, players will start with 400 BB: 80,000 starting chips and the blinds moving from 200 to 1600 in the eight 60-minute levels on Day1. 

Implied pot odds: pot odds adjusted in terms of how much you expect to gain in later rounds if you complete your draw; typically much higher in deep-stack tournaments.

Abuse the bubble - putting pressure on the shorter stacks at the table when the tournament gets close to the money.

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