Question about the 30 day course, ( Effective stack size )

SpanRmonka said:

Its a bit of a quirky one. The effective stack is the smaller one, when 2 handed. But as this could be multiway, the effective stack is the larger of the stacks that is not the big stack.....this is because the effective stack is refferring to the most chips that the big stack would have to call off with.

So there are 4 stacks, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, in a hypothetical game.....

If they are all in the hand, then the effective stack is 3000. This is the most chips that can go into the pot and be called. The point is, the 1000 guy going all in has not effect on the maximum amount that anyone else has to call, as someone larger can still shove too.

If only 1000, and 4000 are in the hand then the effective stack is 1000, as this is the most that can go in the pot and be called.

For the guy with 4000 chips, he has to think harder to call a 3000 all in that=n he doesto call a 1000 all in.

Click to expand...

monkeytilter said:

The effective stack from your perspective is always the maximum you could end up playing for (if it goes "all in")

In a heads up pot (2 players), the shortest stack is the effective stack because that is the most you can play for. Say you have 100 big blinds and villain has 10 big blinds, then the effective stack is 10 big blinds.

Multiway it's more complicated but the general principle is the same, you just consider your stack against each villain in turn and the smaller of the two stacks is the effective stack.

So three handed in a pot, you have 25BB, villain 1 has 100B and villain 2 has 12BB. villain 1 is playing 25BB effective vs you and 12BB effective vs the short stack (villain 2). You are playing 25BB effective vs the big stack (villain 1) and 12BB effective vs the short stack (villain 2).

Click to expand...

flamenkit154 said:

Don't worry too much, effective stack size is always tricky when there are many players in the hand.Basically, your effective stack changes depending on who you are looking at. Against the shorter stacks, the effective stack is just whatever they have in front of them, because you can't win or lose more than that against them. But against the guy who covers you, the effective stack is your own stack, because he can take all your chips but you can only double up yours.Katie is probably talking about the big stack who covers the hero because that's where the real danger is for your tournament life. Hope this helps you clear things up, keep going with the course!"

Click to expand...

fundiver199 said:

Others explained the definition of effective stack already. However I will add, that with multible players left to act behind, we often want to consider the other stacks as well and not only the effective stack when selecting our action. If we have 72BB, and the players behind us have 11BB, 84BB, 15BB, 19BB, 12BB and 20BB respective, then the effective stack size might be our 72BB, but that does not describe our situation particularly well, since 5 players have stacks between 11-20BB. And for that reason we might still select to only min-raise and shy away from hands, that dont block rejamming ranges and also dont want to call of a rejam.

Click to expand...