Whether you are new to playing in free poker tournaments or not, you may wonder how to play your chip stacks. If so, then read this guide which will help you decide how to play the stacks from short to big.
We start off by playing with short stacks. When playing with a short stack, play tight, but play aggressively. The best way to do this is to steal the blind where possible, rather than just pushing your opponents into a decision. There is no advantage to trying to trap as a short stack seeing you are risking a lot more than your opponents.
Now we look at the average stack. Here you should play your normal game and do not change your style as you are good enough on chips to not need to be aggressive in order to survive. This is the best time to try and steal blinds and antes though. You have enough to scare the bigger stacks and enough to cover smaller stacks.
Finally the big stack. There are two ways to approach this. You can play extremely tight and wait for smaller stacks to be eliminated to improve your position. By this I mean playing only strong starting hands. The other approach is to be aggressive and force others into tournament life or death decisions. You can get away by moving with marginal hands in this case.
However, remember that playing aggressive can cause you to let others back into the tournament by doubling them up with marginal hands. So play wisely if you go this route.
By knowing how to play each type of chip stack should enable you to stay in the game longer and hopefully start winning some tournaments and increase your winnings.
Hopefully my tips will be of benefit to you. Its worth playing as many free poker tournaments to perfect your skills when playing online poker.