18 Sep 2025 Intermediate This material is for medium-skilled players draw exploit winrate There is one special skill that helps you win really big money in live poker. It is not the thinnest value bets on those who like to call you, and not multi-barrel bluffs, and not the ability to fold cards on the river in time. It is a much deeper skill. And the only one that separates the real offline crushers from ordinary professionals and especially from losers. Today you will learn What exactly this skill is and How to use it to increase your bankroll. Using the example of one of my most painful hands, I will show you how I managed to go from ignorance and leaving the room with a broken ego to systematically winning huge pots. How my world turned upside down for the first time I clearly remember the biggest pot (in bb) that I have ever lost in my life. It was 2018, when I arrogantly thought I had solved live poker (not even close). So. There is a popular place in London where I spent most of my time playing live. They introduced a new format of cash games - with unlimited deep stacks. The joke was that the maximum buy-in was unlimited, and a player could buy in for as much as the entire liferoll. So, still thinking myself invincible, I bought in for £1,000, which was 500bb. I sat down and started playing. Everything was going well, and then I was dealt on the BU - a great hand to play for such a big stack, I thought then. Preflop The table had 500bb effective stacks. HJ opened to £10 (5bb), I 3-bet him to £35 (17.5bb), the blinds folded, and HJ 4-bet to £120 (60bb). With a «normal» double starting stack of 200bb, I would definitely consider folding, but with an effective stack of 500bb, I called. Flop The flop comes . - A good flop, right? I was thinking confidently and already anticipating winning +500bb from the opponent when I hit one of my outs, but I didn't even imagine that everything could turn upside down. The starting pot is £243 (122bb). Stacks are £750 (375bb). The opponent c-bets about half the pot to £130 (65bb) and I call with excellent pot odds. Turn The comes - bingo! I thought, that's it. There's £503 (252bb) in the pot and the stacks are £750 (375bb). To my delight, the opponent bets £300 (150bb) into this pot and I decide not to drag it out and just push straight away in this small SPR... to get an instant call on my all-in. We turned the cards over and the river didn't change anything. My opponent showed me and the 1st nuts. - In the blink of an eye, I felt like I was electrocuted and everything inside me went cold. I couldn't believe the disaster: out of nowhere, I lost 500bb, worth £1,000. It felt like a collapse - The rest of the session didn't go well either, and the final loss for the day reached £2,104 in 7 hours of play, while I tried to get back what I had earned with my backbreaking work. It was the worst day of my poker career to date. What was that? I thought in old patterns for a long time and could not understand and accept the new information that the World presented to me in such a harsh form, since I did not accept it any other way. It seems that everything is obvious here and there is nothing to think about: the second nuts got stuck in the first. And the fact that these were two flushes in the same hand, the probability of which is 0.81 x 0.81 = 0.6561%, is just a terrible cooler. If such a loss happened in a tournament with a stack of less than 100 bb or in a cash game with a stack of slightly more than 100 bb, then even today I would regard this situation as a cooler, and Hero is not at all to blame. But in this example, the effective stack was 500bb (!), and its real value was £1,000, which is a lot in absolute terms for a real person, not a poker bot. In short, I played that hand so badly that even the deck felt sorry for me, and a little later I will show you how it should have been played and why. But first, let's finally find out what this skill is that I keep talking about in this article. Well, probably many have already come to the conclusion that This skill is the ability to play in deep stacks. It is this that will bring you millions in live poker over the long term. In deep stacks, both profits and losses are magnified. In live poker, a 200-blind starting stack is a common situation, with players buying in early to avoid having to constantly refill their stack to 100bb, as is done automatically online. And for other reasons too. So, when everyone at your table is playing with 200-blind (or more) stacks, it is vital that you master good deep and super-deep stack skills. Otherwise, your losses will far exceed your profits. When the effective stack was 20bb, if you lost it, it was a pittance. But when you have 500bb in the stack in front of you, that money is comparable to your rent or mortgage. How should I have played this hand? We start with the preflop as usual, because it is the foundation of the hand, and if you screw up the foundation, then it will be hard to keep everything else in a normal balance and for everything to stand strong. The 3-bet - both the action and its size are absolutely, completely OK. But The critical mistake was to call this 4-bet and this size from the open-raiser with HJ. That's when everything started to go down the drain, when one big mistake led to a series of further losses. The problem was not so much the size of his 4-bet, but the fact that my cards can be dominated in this situation. And the deeper the stack, the more significant this is. If the flop comes, say, , and my opponent keeps dumping money into the pot, I'm in a really tough spot because I'm not going to want to call 3 barrels in a 3-bet pot with 500bb of stack with KQ. Suited KQ has even more problematic properties - and they all come down to its dominance in really big pots by any criteria. KQ very rarely makes the 1st nuts. If your opponent triple-barrels in a regular pot, it's often dominated by big kickers among one-pair hands. It can also be dominated by flushes - as in this unfortunate example where I lost a thousand pounds. And if it's a 4-bet pot and you're deep-stacked, then when you get triple-barreled in these circumstances, you're not feeling comfortable even with a full house of QQQKK, because your opponent might have a pair of kings and the 1st nuts again. Therefore, the most basic and important skill when playing in deep stacks is the ability to correctly select hands on the preflop, so that on the postflop you always have the 1st and 2nd nuts in medium-deep stacks and strictly the 1st nuts in truly deep stacks. And these are suited aces and pocket pairs. Suited aces always get a draw to the 1st nuts and, thus, you will always win the hand if the highest combination on the board is a flush, which plays the ultimate role in the deep stack. The first nuts in the deep stack is everything. And I definitely prefer suited A4s to offsuited AJo in deep stacks. Pocket pairs are good for hitting super-disguised sets, and if you've already lost to an overset in a stack of about 200bb, then often it's a pure cooler, everything is OK and there are no questions for you. But in stacks of 300bb or more, you'll probably have to be more careful with a non-top set. And the smaller the pocket pair, the more likely your set is not the nut set, when it gets really hot. But suited aces are always a guarantee of the first nuts. Student's Disaster Example 500bb stacks ($1,000). Preflop UTG opened to 7.5bb ($15), Hero on the CO called with , and BB called too. Flop Initial pot is 23bb ($46). The flop came c. UTG cbets two-handed to about half the pot - 12.5bb ($25), and my student raises in position. BB folds, and UTG 3-bets on the postflop (!) to 125bb ($250). - There is a middle set, and my student calls a 3-bet against a two-handed raise on a dry flop. Turn Initial pot 273bb ($546). There comes . UTG cbets a little over half-pot to 145bb ($290) and the student calls. River Initial pot 563bb ($1,126). There comes . Villain shoves 223bb ($445). The student immediately calls and... runs into three kings. To be honest, this isn't that big of a surprise. As I said above, losing 200 blinds with a set to a higher set is normal. It's a cooler. But when you're playing superdeep, non-top sets can get into big trouble. And the lower the pocket pair, the more often you'll be shown an overset. Playing Against 3-Bets from Different Types of Opponents Another adjustment for deep stack play is how and with what you react to 3-bets - these are big 3-bets. When your opponent is a strong, stubborn and aggressive player, then calling 3-bets with speculative hands like low pocket pairs (77-22) can be risky, because the enemy will apply huge pressure on every street. And even if you hit a set, then a loose-aggressive opponent could 3-bet as a bluff / semi-bluff, so the share of pocket overpairs postflop in his range is much lower than that of some nit. Accordingly, the very first raise from you - to collect the maximum value, and not how much the opponent dares to invest himself - gets a frequent fold. But against tighter, more honest and straightforward opponents who 3-bet a clear + strong narrow range (AK/JJ+), then calling such a 3-bet with a pocket pair in order to hit a set and take away the opponent's stack or a significant part of it becomes profitable. Such opponents have huge problems in deep stacks, and their win rate in such conditions decreases significantly. Because they only have one way to play - tight and predictable. But due to their ultra-cautiousness, when they bomb huge bets on every street with a deep stack, you should be careful even with a low set. But there is another reliable way to make big money in games with a deep effective stack. And this is the most important skill that top professionals have. Whenever you see how really good poker vloggers make a lot of money, it is because they have this skill. An illustrative hand, played by the author himself. How to Win Deep Stacked Most of the Time Preflop $1/$3 Cash Game. Starting stacks are in the picture. But, I have about 340 blinds, not 234. A very tight opponent on UTG+1 opened to 4bb ($12) and got called by three players: an unknown player on HJ, me with on BU, and a player on BB that is unknown. Players on UTG+1 and BB cover my stack. Flop Initial pot 16bb ($49). - Four of us see the flop . I have big +nut equity with second pair (5 outs). Preflop aggressor cbets 5bb ($15), I call with my equity, and the other two fold. Turn Initial pot 26bb ($79). Card: . - Villain continuation bets 17bb ($50) - about 63% of the pot. Now I raise this bet 3.5 times to 58bb ($175) with my nut flush draw and low SDV from third pair. - Tight opponent calls my raise. River Initial pot 143bb ($429). Card: . - Villain checks this blank run-out. And I shove my entire stack into him: 167bb ($500) into the pot 143bb - this is an overbet of 117% of the pot. Villain tanked for a long time and eventually folded face-up - probably he wanted to demonstrate what a great fold he just made. What conclusions can we draw from this? This was a risky but ultra-profitable move with a missed flush draw against a tight and cautious opponent who tends to feel a lot of discomfort in a deep stack when he gets raised on the turn and then shoved overbet all-in, and he has «just one pair» in his hands. With a hand that should block part of the opponent’s fold range, it is usually not recommended to bluff on the river. But if the opponent’s range has very few hands that are blocked by our cards, and his tendencies favor bluffing into him, then the latter factor takes the leading role. Live poker crushers are great at playing deep stacks, often making big profits from tight opponents who don’t like to showdown without a really strong combination. We play ultra-aggressively and put the entire deep stack of the opponent at great risk. This strategy requires experience, a strong gut and a good bankroll, but it becomes incredibly profitable once mastered. Summing Up Deep effective stack poker is where the biggest advantages come from those players who understand their opponents well postflop. Nits and overly careful players will continue to settle for crumbs because they are unwilling/unprepared to adapt their strategy. They will play for hours in their comfortable, straightforward, tight style until I take away their deep stack because they can't fold an overpair against my disguised set or straight. At worst, I'll put them in a situation where they almost never showdown. If Hero can get comfortable with such an aggressive game, both bluffing and with the real nuts, he'll be scooping up huge pots one after another while his opponents tilt because «he's always lucky.» Most of the time you won't be playing with a very deep stack. In general, over time, your average effective stack will be around 150bb against a typical amateur at the $1/$2 or $1/$3 tables. However, it's only a matter of time before you get to a truly deep stack situation. And you should take full advantage of it to double up by +500bb.
