The Big Stack

When I sat down at the $5/$10 no limit table at The Grand in Biloxi, I had already made my biggest mistake: playing in that kind of game.

I came to the table with a measley $750 compared to my opponents' stacks of a few thousand. It only took me a couple of hours to lose it all -- my biggest single loss.

At the time, I only had a dim awareness of how important bankroll and stack size was.

An equally skilled player with double the money that I have will bust me the majority of the time because he can afford to make more marginal decisions and still win.

This is especially important in no limit, where aggression is more important than anything. An aggressive player with sufficiently deep pockets will put in all his money when he has a 50 percent chance of winning (or even less because many times people fold). A normal player with a small bankroll can only afford to risk all his money when he has better odds.

The same applies at the smallest no limit games on the Internet. Someone sitting at a $25 buy-in no limit table who has won $100 can afford to take more risks than someone who only has $15. So the person with $15 can't afford it when the $100 dude raises it to $5 before the flop unless he has a very strong hand. Meanwhile, the $100 guy may have a marginal hand, but it's too expensive for the smaller stack to find out.

The point is that if you have the money to back yourself up, it's worth it in the long run to go all-in if you have even the smallest advantage. There will be streaks when you lose your entire buy-in several times in a row, but in the long run, it's worth it to risk it all any time you're favored (except in tournaments, when you have to be more careful because you can't just buy back in).

Most of this is obvious, but it helps to type it.

Playing weakly to try and protect your stack is more expensive than playing the odds.

On another note, everyone needs a cool poker nickname. What's yours? Find out here.