Poker | Stack Sizes - 1 - 15 Big Blinds
When you sit down at a poker or speed poker table, you are armed with nothing more than a stack of chips.
Now, you may believe that the cards you receive or the person you are facing is going to be your most difficult challenge, but it is not; instead, the most difficult challenge is learning how to manage your stack size effectively.
Once you understand the concept of stack management and, in particular, fold equity, you will realise that the easiest stack size to manage is the shortest one you can get.
Once your stack size is reduced to the 1-15 big blind (BB) size, there really is nothing more that you should be thinking of doing other than folding and looking for spots to move it into the middle.
The only time you can veer from this concept is when you are facing very weak players Online. If this is the case, then you can afford to play an exploitable game and open with your monsters.
This methodology is known as exploitable because if you were playing against a better player and opened with this stack size, they would know you have a monster.
The reason you have a push or fold strategy is for two reasons. Firstly, you don’t want to lose fold equity. If you run your stack down to the lower end of the 1-15BB scale then you are more likely to be called when you make a move.
Even more disastrous would be a multi-way showdown. The second reason centres on folding, which you should never do, because you are risking too great a portion of your stack.
Remember the old adage in poker that you need to make your decisions simple. What could be simpler than shoving or folding?