The Dollar Value of a Stack

Dollar value is an analytical tool. To determine the dollar value of your stack at any given instant during a tournament, ask yourself what's the most you would pay for your seat, and that's the dollar value (DV) of your stack.

. . . The dollar value of a stack is affected by its size and by the number of players remaining, and also by non-quantifiable factors such as tilt, desire, and playing ability. For now, in the examples, for the purpose of examining only the effects of stack size and tournament conditions on dollar value, I am going to pretend that all players including you have no tilt, no desire, and no playing advantage. We'll come back to those variables at the end. … When the size of a stack doubles, its dollar value less than doubles, and when a stack is cut in half, its dollar value falls by less than half. There is tempering.

. . . Before a key decision - or when analyzing a decision after the fact - look at your possible paths, project what the dollar value of your stack will be at the end of each path, and compare.