Basically if we assume that you play 30 hands per hour your edge has been over 30 bb/100. When combined with the extteme rake at live tables I would still consider that you are having a lucky streak.

I simulated 3 times banlroll development with edge of 20bb/100.

As you can see, the results will vary enough for this little sample, so that you can start to create any kind of beliefs.

In relation to blinds bad players do often bigger mistakes in deeper stacks, not vice versa. But you cannot play with same strategy when you are 400 bb deep than you play when you are 100 bb deep.

Hi pokerinlondon,

Do you take breaks regularly when you play? The longer you play the more often you may need breaks, and those breaks may need to be even more refreshing when you're in you 7th hour compared to your 2nd hour.

Unless you feel like you get run over by other deep stacks, feel uncomfortable playing deep or find yourself check folding on the river after having called flop/turn or bet flop-called turn a lot etc or calling on the river with the worst hand often (read more than ~70%) in big pots when your stack is above 300bbs (if not all of the above) I would think it's more likely that it's your focus rather than your deep stack play that's causing a decrease in your winrate.

Most people can not focus effectively for more than 45-90 mins. Since you're a poker player that could very well be higher in your case, but often a live session goes on for 5-12 hours so unless everyone in your game has played as long as you have it makes sense that your winrate drops as the hours go on.

It took me years before I realized my winrate was basically cut by 50% hour 3, almost 0 after hour 4, so these days I'm very careful about playing longer than that in one session (there has to be a big fish just giving money away most hands).

Take a walk, get some fresh air, do some pushups in a place we're you dont look like a psycho or freak out the fish and that might help you get back to at least 90% of A+ focus.

Meditation and working out as well as cold showers are great to recharge as well if you have access to a quiet place in/near the poker room.

If that sounds boring or weird, you could try to add 10 mins to your sessions every week and thereby get a slow incremental increase to your playing time as well as your mental stamina/focus training. But taking a 10-15min walk outside and getting some fresh air should be doable.

Chris Primmer and Tommy Angelo have some great videos on the topics of meditation/recharging so I would check them out if you haven't already.

You bring up a legit point, OP. A few things you might want to consider are:

a) Do you become more conservative when stacks get deeper? There's nothing wrong with this, it's just human nature (risk aversion) and a lot of people play more conservatively when deeper stacked. However, if you are overdoing this and costing yourself some EV, you should think twice about playing deeper.

b) Do you adjust your play as stacks get deeper? Especially, do you adjust your IP/OOP 3betting range, 4b range, IP/OOP 3b calling range, etc.? This is important.

Just because you're 200bb deep doesn't mean you are at the risk of getting stacked (or stacking someone) every time you play a hand. Actually, in a single raised pot, the maximum you can win/lose is usually right around 100 bb. But, the chances go significantly up when you get involved in 3b+ pots, and if your 3b+ ranges are weak or suboptimal, this can cost you a lot of money.

c) In live poker, people often overlook the seat selection. True, often times they'll just tell you to go to Table 5 Seat 4 and you won't be able to pick a seat, but sometimes a seat will open up at your table and you have an option of moving around. Anyways, having a deep stack is not a problem at all by and of itself; it all boils down to who else is sitting where with how much money.

If you can, avoid having a good reg with deeper stack to your left. Even having an aggro fish to your left can be pretty bad for your winrate, although most people might not think this way. There's absolutely no shame in quitting with a 200bb stack if the guys to your left are making your miserable by flatting and 3betting a ton.

Staying at the table with a deep stack, instead of quitting, is a decision that you keep making at every moment. That's fine, but you just have to realise that you are also tacitly agreeing that you can lose it all at any moment.

There might be a few more factors, but the bottom line is that your play should change along with the (effective) stack depth, and that includes a lot of things such as preflop ranges, seat selection, mindset, etc.

-- midori