This free poker article contest entrant was runner up in November

Many poker beginners on free poker sites or the lower stake cash online poker sites simply play their cards without proper regard for situational nuances. This leads to mistakes that can cost them a lot of money despite the fact that they’re playing with strong holdings.

One common mistake that I see players make is failing to account for how the size of their chip stack may dictate how to best play their hand. When I started playing poker more than five years ago, I made the same mistake.

The optimum play with a particular hand depends on many factors including your chip stack. A good move for someone with a large chip stack could be a dangerous move for someone with a tiny chip stack.

To put it plainly: size matters. That is not to say that bigger is indeed better. Being “deep-stacked” has its advantageous, but small stacks can be equally effective at the poker table.

A Deep Stack Expands Options

For the sake of this article, I will define deep stacks as stacks that are roughly 125 big blinds or more. Others may define a deep stack as a bit less or more than that number of big blinds, but almost no one would consider a stack of 35 big blinds or less to be a deep stack.

I generally subscribe to the notion that deep-stack play is better than small-stack play. Most professional pokers would agree.

This is because deep stacks give you more room to take advantage of implied odds. In other words, you’re allowed more freedom with regard to starting hand requirements. You can play small pocket pairs hoping to flop your set or small suited connectors hoping to flop a flush or straight. If you miss the flop, you can fold and wait for a better situation. You can be more patient because the blinds aren’t much of a concern; they won’t eat up your chip stack that much.

Another benefit of being deep-stacked is maximizing your profits. If you have the biggest stack at the table, you can extract the most possible chips from your opponents. This is not true for short stacks.

Let’s look at an example of this: If you’re the biggest stack with $900 chips and one player calls your all-in bet with his $600 in chips—and you win—then you take all his money.

Now let’s look at another example: If you’re a small stack with $500 chips and the biggest stack with $800 in chips calls your all-in bet—and you win—you can’t take all his money. He’ll be left with $300 chips because you didn’t have enough money to play for all his chips.

That’s one of the pitfalls of the short stack, but there are some benefits.

A Shorts Stack Encourages Tight, Hyper-Aggressive Play

If you don’t have many chips behind you, you’re forced to basically play for all your chips in every hand you play. This forces you to play premium hands like big pocket pairs and big face cards. You often won’t be getting the right price to play small pocket pairs and suited connectors. Those hands need to see the flop cheaply, and every hand played is expensive for a short stack.

The best move is to get all your chips in the middle with big pairs before the flop or to shove when you hit top pair on the flop. You don’t have the opportunity to wait because the blinds will eat you alive.

One obvious advantage of this essentially all-in or fold strategy is that it forces you to play tighter. Another advantage of this style of play is that it’s harder to get outplayed by more skilled post-flop players. Your decisions are simple: push or fold. You don’t need to worry about the subtleties of the game like betting the right amount or knowing when to fold the second best hand.

There’s also the strange psychological advantage you will have. For some reason, many deep stack players don’t treat short stack players with much respect. They assume that you’re buying in for a small amount because you have a small bankroll or aren’t very skilled. It’s not unusual for the big stack to pay off a short stack player by calling with weaker than usual hands.

I still believe that deep stack play is better, but I’ve faced some tough short stack players and wouldn’t underestimate their abilities.

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This is the joint-winner of the NoPayPOKER.com Article Competition for November 2009 and is from member wolfsbite who got $1000 FreeD

Most people don’t understand position and pot odds and as a result are never going to be able to progress beyond free poker games and make any proper money.

This is a basic guide to what you need to know, once you’ve read this you will, even if you are a beginner, be streets ahead of many players who simply don’t get it or ignore this area of the game (all those people who think poker is only about luck fall into this category, it is NOT it’s about math, variance and probability!)

First: Position is based on where the dealer button is.

Second: Pot odds is the percentage of money you need to put in to call a bet.

Now if you combine these both you can make a educated decision on whether to call or not.

Now the best position to be in is the dealer or “button” as some call it. This is because after the flop you are the last to act. You can get a feel if someone is strong or weak by the amount they bet or if they just check to you. A lot of professional poker players will not fold their button don’t matter what (unless it’s a real weak hand).

Now calculating pot odds is tricky and mostly I just go by normal thinking if it to big of a raise for me to even continues on in the hand. If you want to try here is a rough guide. If there is $50 in the pot and there is a raise of $10 then you are getting 5 to 1 to call and so on.

Now knowing the pot odds and your position will greatly improve your game.

Example if you are drawing to a straight or flush or have 2 pair after the flop and your are in early position and someone raises half the amount in the pot and you have 4 people to act after you your best bet is to fold.

Now seeing the rest of the hand and knowing what you were holding had you made your straight, flush or full house isn’t the whole problem. You have to consider how many people called and what other bets were made down the line.Here an example of mine

I was holding A/10 of hearts and the flop comes AD 9C 10D I was first to act so I put out a pot sized bet with 2 pair (hoping to drive everyone out). I had 3 callers after me so in my mind I’m thinking flush draw, pair of aces and maybe someone has a straight draw.

Turn comes 5H again I’m first to act so I bet same amount as before and I get only 1 caller. River is 8D. I check because there is now a flush out there and a possible straight but I still like my 2 pair.

The other player pushes all in now this would take all my chips to call. So I called “falling in love with my 2 pair” cards shown and the other player had the flush. Now looking back at it I should have never called the all in bet when the other player called 2 big bets I should have just folded and “lived to play another hand”.

Also knowing what I know I just figured that with my bets only someone with high pair and a great kicker was calling. I never counted on it being free poker and people chase all the time and saying its free poker and my cards were suited.

I hope this is help to anyone who wants to advance their poker knowledge and make decisions based on logic and not “its free poker“