Stack depth
How many big blinds a player has, which decides what strategies are available.
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- What it means
- Stack depth measures chips in big blinds, not in chips, so that spots at different blind levels can be compared.
- How it is calculated
- Stack depth = chips ÷ big blind. The effective stack is the smaller of the two stacks involved, since nobody can win more than that.
- Worked example
- 20,000 chips with blinds of 500 and 1,000 is 20bb. Against an opponent with 8,000 chips, the effective stack is 8bb.
- Why it matters
- Short stacks play push/fold; deep stacks can play postflop. The same hand can be a shove at 10bb and a fold at 40bb.
Try it: Range browser
Used in: Preflop charts, one page each
See also: Push/fold, Position, Effective stack