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Early in a tournament, players have a very large stack compared to the blinds, usually somewhere over 100 big blinds. As poker players, we know that this means we have the options to play as tight or as conservative as we want. Attacking the blinds in the beginning of a tournament usually is not a high priority since the blinds start very small. However, there are some No Limit Hold Em professional players, such as Gus Hansen and Greg Raymer, who choose to get involved in many pots early on to try to build a big stack. These two players risk busting out early in hopes of building a big stack. They take such risks because they are better players when their stacks are huge. In short, they like to be big stack bullies. Many other players have tried to copy this strategy, but many still do not know how to use their big stacks to control the table when they get them. Learning how to use is a key skill that players wishing to be big stack bullies need to learn, otherwise there is no point in trying to build a huge stack.
Once a player acquires a huge stack, he has to ability to control the table. The player now has the ability to take more risks since even if he loses a chunk of his stack, he will still have a big stack. Taking more risks means opening up the pot with a much more wide variety of hands. Opening with any pair, any suited connector, any two broad cards, all suited aces, any two connecting cards 5-6 and above and even unsuited one-gappers. The point is to try and hit a huge hand to take someone’s whole stack and if the player with the huge stack misses, to bully the other person out of the pot by betting large amounts that will put there tournament life on the line.
Another aspect of being a big stack bully sometimes means making crying calls. For example, on FullTilPoker.net if a small stack pushes into the player with the huge stack, it is often acceptable for the big stack player to gamble and call with almost any two cards. The call with any two cards not only serves the purpose of building a bully table image, but the big stack is risking a very small portion of his stack to make it even bigger. It is okay for players with big stacks to gamble, because they can afford it. Being a big stack bully often can lead a player to winning big tournaments.
