Your Stack is King!

A players "stack" is the total chips or currency that he has in play on the table at any given time. A player with a lot of chips in front of them would be considered to have a 'large stack' and a player with few chips would be said to have a 'small stack' or be 'short stacked'. Often a unit of twenty chips is also referred to as a stack as a typical chip rack holds five stacks of 20 chips (100 total).

The size of a players stack relative to other players stacks is very important in any game. This is particularly important in tournament play as the blinds are continually increasing.

Having a large stack takes the pressure off as you are not under undue pressure to play marginal hands (take more risk). With a large stack the shorter stacks will be less willing to go up against you as you could call any push and not do too much damage. Big stacks are also notorious for calling shorter stack pushes with marginal hands.

The size of your stack is key in no limit games when declaring all in. The more chips you are pushing with, the more likely it folds round and you pick up the blinds. You can afford to be looser as a big stack with your chips than if you were an average or small stack.

For this reason that many players try to build a stack early, especially in tournament play.