Counting in big blinds

The number on your stack is not what matters. What matters is how many big blinds it represents. 2,500 chips are a comfortable 25 BB at 50/100 and a desperate 5 BB at 250/500, with exactly the same chips.

Every strategy in this course is written in big blinds. Get in the habit of dividing your stack by the big blind before every decision.

The effective stack

When two players go all-in, the money at stake is the smaller of the two stacks: that is the effective stack. If you have 30 BB and your opponent 8 BB, you are playing an 8 BB pot, and you should decide as an 8 BB player would.

A raise is measured against your stack

Bets are read in big blinds too, and their weight depends on your stack. A raise to 2 BB is 8 % of a 25 BB stack: an opening bet that leaves plenty of room to play the hand. The same raise with 8 BB commits a quarter of your stack.

That is why the strategy splits into three depths that will come back over and over: 25 BB at the start, where you raise small; around 15 BB, where raising still makes sense; under 10 BB, where almost every decision is all-in or fold. Lesson 7 explains why.