PokerWorks

Not to sound like Doyle Brunson, but back in the good old days of online poker - like, three or four years ago - there were more fish than Sea World.

It was easy to find them. All you had to do was sit down at a table.

These days, we know it's a lot tougher. The players are better, and they're much harder to find. You have to look hard for the one fish who might happen to be at your table.

But you can find them, through careful observation of their betting patterns, starting hands and whatever tells you can pick up.

I believe I've found another way as well.

Look at their stack sizes.

For these purposes, I'm talking about cash games because that's what I usually play, although you could use some of these tips in tournaments as well.

I'll also use the level I generally play, .50/$1 NLHE, for my examples, although I will try to give big blind amounts as much as I can to make it easier on you.

The good news is these tips don't seem to hinge on what game is being played. After all, stack sizes vary in any game, whether it's Razz, Omaha, Stud, Hold 'Em or Five-Card Draw.

Finally, these are just general observations I've made by watching players with big stacks, small stacks and stacks of all the same size. As with any stereotype, sometimes they are wrong, so as always, careful observation of an opponent's play is the best way to tell if you should target them or not.

But these tips may help you initially target some players as soon as you sit down, and you can go from there.

• Big stacks - I watch any players with 2.5x the maximum buy-in or more, and if they have 3.5x or more, all the better. I love having big stacks at my cash tables.

This may seem contrary to popular opinion that big stacks are dangerous. That might be true in a tournament, when they can knock you out, but generally I disagree with popular opinion here. The more chips that are at my table, the better. In fact, I'll seek out big stacks when I'm deciding what table to play at as I'm scrolling through the selections.

Why? It's simple. They're usually good targets. There are several reasons for this.

The first is there's such a thing as winner's tilt, and players with huge stacks start to feel invincible. And when they do, they overvalue their hands, chase way too much,  make stupid calls and try to push you around with all their chips by making horrible bluffs that are easy to read.

Just like they do when they're losing, in other words.

Another reason is getting a huge stack is hard to do when you're playing tight-aggressive poker like I do, like the way, quite frankly, that most do these days online. It's certainly possible - I've done it before - but it's definitely hard to do. So most of the time, a player with a big stack is taking some chances.

They're calling from behind and sucking out. They're chasing draws and hitting them, whether they had odds or not. They're getting lucky, and lucky players generally are not good ones.

Finally, big stacks will often call with mediocre holdings just because they can. They have a lot more disposable income. When people have disposable income, And some of that income is yours for the taking. Take it.

Oh, and one final tip: If you do get a big stack and find yourself playing the way I've described above, book your winnings and leave the table. You don't have to stop playing. Sometimes just putting that big stack away is enough to make you tighten up and play well again.

• Short stacks - Tiny stacks, small stacks, dime-sizers, whatever you want to call them, usually are in front of a loose-aggressive player who wants to gamble.

Usually these players buy in for one-fifth, or 20 percent, of the maximum buy-in. That's usually $20 at my tables. They might buy in for as much as $40, but shortstackers won't do more than that, and if they do, some of these rules no longer apply.

I widen my range against them, just as much as I do with the big stacks. I do make exceptions to this, like if I have to call his big raise with a small pair and he's the only one in the pot, I might fold because the set-mining odds just aren't big enough for me.

But if I've got, say, top-pair, top-kicker (TPTK), I'll push with it harder than I might against a deeper stack because TPTK is usually good against a shortstacker. So are overpairs or sometimes even second pairs with a great kicker.

Shortstackers love to jam with flush draws, straight draws, overpairs or top pair. They're looking to double up and get out, even if they lose their stack several times to do it. Make sure you're one of the ones helping them lose it.

And if you're wrong? Well, they can't really hurt you. They're like those little ankle-biting poodles that snap at you when you're on a run. Even if they do manage to get you, you're barely bleeding, and you can make them pay later.

• Stable sizes - Generally these stacks hover around the maximum buy-in, so for my tables, they'll float around the $85-$97 range. If their stacks stay this way, except for the occasional top-off, they're probably a tight player. I know because that's what my stack generally does in a lot of games.

• Players with the same stack sizes - Usually this means four or more have the maximum buy-in. So players with four or five stacks of $100. This may not mean much, given that many sites, like Full Tilt or PokerStars, have an auto-top-off as an option these days, but I've still found that it does mean something.

And usually what it means is the reason you wanted to play at that table, like a high percentage of players playing before the flop or a high average pot size, may no longer apply.

These players, like you, have just bought in for $100, hoping to take advantage of all the fish that must still be around. They, like you, are wishing for the good old days.