Poker - Cash Game Stack Sizes
If you are considering playing cash game poker then you need to understand the importance of stack sizes.
On Poker, there are primarily two different types of cash games, when it comes to stack sizes.
The main type of cash game, and most prevalent, is the 100 big blind stack game (often shown as 100BB). This means that if you sit down to play in a $1/2 cash game 100 big blinds would be $200.
The next tier of cash games is where you sit down with more than 100BB, and these are known as deep stack cash games. If we take the $1/2 example we made above, then you can sit down with $400+ (200BB+).
Online poker spawned a third scenario, one where players sat down with a much shorter stack.
Once again, using the $1/2 example, players would sit down in a 100BB game with $30 and a 200BB game with $90. At first, these types of players were risk-averse recreational players but, slowly and surely, the professional short stacker was born.
Players realised that they could mass multi-table the short stack with a very defined and acute range of hands, and make a living from this style of play.
When the short-stacks first came to prominence, they were viewed as derogatory to poker. Then over time – just like everything else – poker players adapted, as did the poker sites.
Tables were created so that players could play without fear of a short-stacker joining, and players redefined their ranges to play the correct counter strategy when facing a short stacker.