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AJinNorCal
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04-01-2006, 12:52 AM
Post subject: Short Buying
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#1 (permalink)
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Berkeley
Posts: 16
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A friend of mine who is a really solid internet poker player (+$30,000 in the last 9 months) advocates half buying, especially as a beginner. What are your opinions on this?
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jackvance
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,910
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Well I do this too nowadays, imho a very good way to cap your losses and simulate a "double BR" (should you be short on that like me), and basically learn that "that was a sucky move" for half the price.. although the people on this forum will no doubt tell you you should buy-in full all the time because it will maximize your profit.
Btw, I'm a bit interested in what you said about that friend of yours. 30k seems like a very nice income to get off of poker. You have any idea at what stakes (or tourneys?) he plays, and how much he plays per week? Maybe also how long he plays poker? Just for reference.
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Sarcasm is your body's natural defense against stupidity
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Iwind
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Flush
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Norway
Posts: 436
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Well there are several plays that are not as effective if you sit there with a short stack, reduced implied odds so you can't make the same calls and raises a full stack can. You also have less folding equity with just a small stack behind you, etc... Good thing is that you might get lots of players to make loose calls against you... I make loose calls against short stacks all the time cause I don't like them I am sure that if you play well having a full stack gives you much nicer profit though.
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Renton
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Straight Flush
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
Posts: 5,981
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you can't set hunt, which is the majority of profit at low stakes.
So its a horrible move.
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jackvance
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,910
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Hm, why not? If you're sitting on 50BB and the normal raise with a top hand is 2-4BB, you should still be good right?
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Sarcasm is your body's natural defense against stupidity
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Renton
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Straight Flush
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
Posts: 5,981
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by jackvance
Hm, why not? If you're sitting on 50BB and the normal raise with a top hand is 2-4BB, you should still be good right?
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no the 10x rule is all lies
15-25x is much much better.
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ed
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 21
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by jackvance
Hm, why not? If you're sitting on 50BB and the normal raise with a top hand is 2-4BB, you should still be good right?
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If by being good you mean being able to break even on low pocket pairs... sure you'll be good. Wouldn't you prefer maximizing profits with what's the easiest hands to make money with at these stakes?
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ed
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 21
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Renton
Quote:
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Originally Posted by jackvance
Hm, why not? If you're sitting on 50BB and the normal raise with a top hand is 2-4BB, you should still be good right?
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no the 10x rule is all lies
15-25x is much much better. |
My experience of 10-25NL tells me 10x definitely is lies if you go heads up, but I'll take it any day in a multiway.
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Renton
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Straight Flush
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
Posts: 5,981
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ed
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Renton
Quote:
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Originally Posted by jackvance
Hm, why not? If you're sitting on 50BB and the normal raise with a top hand is 2-4BB, you should still be good right?
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no the 10x rule is all lies
15-25x is much much better. |
My experience from 10-25NL tells me 10x definitely is lies if you go heads up, but I'll take it any day in a multiway. |
ov course.
Also if you have a convincing tell that your opp has AA/KK, then you can easily call with 8-10x
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jackvance
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,910
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ed
If by being good you mean being able to break even on low pocket pairs... sure you'll be good. Wouldn't you prefer maximizing profits with what's the easiest hands to make money with at these stakes?
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Well. It would be easier if I knew I was in fact a profitable player. When you have no reason to believe you are, it's more about minimizing losses than maximizing profit until you get the game down. Besides, half of the people at 10NL on unibet buy in below 50BB, no kidding.
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My experience from 10-25NL tells me 10x definitely is lies if you go heads up, but I'll take it any day in a multiway.
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The plan was to play em in 3-ways or more yesterday. I think I played for 4 hours but no set ever came. Tough luck (average is one set per 2.5 hours I calculated). A fair amount of other things - TP (a little), straights, especially flushes and the occasional boat - paid off though. I'll hope for a set or two today.
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ed
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 21
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A set a day makes your money problems go away.
If you bought in for the maximum that is 
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sejje
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Full House
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 883
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I'd rather play half the stakes at a full buy-in.
NL is about deep money. Why would you want to play it short? I think it's a stupid game that way, and I think you minimize your profit unless you're only playing other short stacks.
And I like 15x also for a set. I'm not gambling to try and break even.
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jackvance
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,910
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Boy are you guys ever persistent. Ok quick report. I sit down with $5. Table is full. There are two guys with higher stacks than me. One is at $5.5, the other at $6.45. And then 10 mins later I have removed 2 guys from the table and am sitting on $14. Now let's hope one of em destacks another one so I can set-hunt him.
(btw I still suck at poker, these guys were just beyond horrible)
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ed
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 21
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by jackvance
Boy are you guys ever persistent. Ok quick report. I sit down with $5. Table is full. There are two guys with higher stacks than me. One is at $5.5, the other at $6.45. And then 10 mins later I have removed 2 guys from the table and am sitting on $14. Now let's hope one of em destacks another one so I can set-hunt him.
(btw I still suck at poker, these guys were just beyond horrible)
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Hehe, well if everybody else have short stacks you don't have much use for a full buy in unless you wanna pretend you're "Mr. I bet a million".
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jackvance
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,910
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The irony.. 10 mins ago or so.. I folded a set! Why? No idea. And then the two other guys in the pot started to battle it out over their TP/MP. Good god, if I'm in such a dull that I can't even notice that a board pair to my hand gives a set.. yeah, that was my cue to quit playing. Shittiest 30 mins of poker ever. (even though I made $7) You know that over the past 3 weeks that I've been playing and studying poker, one girl invited herself to come sleep over, and two others came by and invited me to pay them a visit (and one of them, I didn't even know who she was, what the hell is that?). And I ignored them all. I think Jack needs to take a lil' break from poker cuz he's obsessing..
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Sarcasm is your body's natural defense against stupidity
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jackvance
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,910
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Ok.. I've calmed down. After my brain went into overdrive from too much poker analysis (spent hours on that earlier, starting from the basic rules that govern the poker game, and with some math I worked my way up to figuring out what the best strategic and tactical approaches are - ofcourse keeping in mind the many things I learned from here and my previous games) I laid down on my bed, rested a bit. But then I had to try my findings out in practice, you know. So I revised it again, now knowing WHY I am doing things, instead of just following some guidelines without really understanding them. So I had also redesigned my starting hands a bit, and the basic gameplan was simply to use the strong court hands to hopefully make a little profit, but mainly keep from dropping low, while I wait for my pps/connectors/gappers etc to hit for big destackings.
It turned out a bit different though. Never got any sets/straights/flushes off (unlike yesterday).. everything came from TPs. Sat down with $6. Made it up to $11. I felt a lot more on the ball now that I knew more what I was doing. Table went dead after the low-stack guys were drained. Moved to another table, sat down with $7. Again only TP action happened. Did get a lot of power court-high hands that hit something I must say. After about an hour play I sat out with $21. So a total profit of $19 for this session. I think I'm gonna cool off now, rerun my findings in my head. In the past I always lose focus of how to play so easily. So now I want to solidify it a bit better.
Felt a bit like a cold-blooded asshole at one point though. I had doubled up on a guy for $8, while he chased an 8-out straight (against the odds) with TT in his hands and I had flopped TPTK with AQ. He went on tilt (if he wasn't already tilting come to think of it), doubled his remaining $1 up to $2. Then threw me all-in on a raise. My KQs vs his A6o and he won and was up to $4. At that point I was thinking to myself: "good for you, now I'll just wait for a big hand, throw a big raise, wait for that all-in and take your stack." Folded a few rounds, then into my hands came AA.
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Drewbie
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 88
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Quote:
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Felt a bit like a cold-blooded asshole at one point though. I had doubled up on a guy for $8, while he chased an 8-out straight (against the odds) with TT in his hands and I had flopped TPTK with AQ. He went on tilt (if he wasn't already tilting come to think of it), doubled his remaining $1 up to $2. Then threw me all-in on a raise. My KQs vs his A6o and he won and was up to $4. At that point I was thinking to myself: "good for you, now I'll just wait for a big hand, throw a big raise, wait for that all-in and take your stack." Folded a few rounds, then into my hands came AA.
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Thats what it's all about friend
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AJinNorCal
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Berkeley
Posts: 16
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by jackvance
Btw, I'm a bit interested in what you said about that friend of yours. 30k seems like a very nice income to get off of poker. You have any idea at what stakes (or tourneys?) he plays, and how much he plays per week? Maybe also how long he plays poker? Just for reference.
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Well, damn right its a nice income, especially considering he's made almost $10k more playing live in the same time. He plays party and I think he's playing the $400 no limit tables now. As far as how much he plays, most of those profits actually came in his first three months (last summer) while he was playing about 14 hours a day 7 days a week. Heh, no one said it was easy.
Thanks for the advice all, with all of this in mind I'm going to play really tight and full buy from now on.
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ekillian
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Straight
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 235
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by jackvance
Boy are you guys ever persistent. Ok quick report. I sit down with $5. Table is full. There are two guys with higher stacks than me. One is at $5.5, the other at $6.45. And then 10 mins later I have removed 2 guys from the table and am sitting on $14. Now let's hope one of em destacks another one so I can set-hunt him.
(btw I still suck at poker, these guys were just beyond horrible)
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Results oriented way of looking at it. Theoretically this does nothing to say that having more money on the table isnt better. Success stories don't change the fact that, IN GENERAL, you're costing yourself money.
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jackvance
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,910
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Ok theoretically then. If you're a +EV player with the BR for your stake, buying in at full is the best way to go.
If however, you have noticed this weird tendency to at certain times drop out of your normal game, blow 1-3 buy-ins before you realize it's "that time" again and quit, then it's a different story altogether. Capping my buy-in is my way of catching these "downstreaks" without excessive losses.
I think I also finally figured out why the hell that keeps happening. The symptoms are always the same: I start slouching down in my seat. I stop doing those card and odds calculations. I don't really care anymore. Instead of the normal "he could have X, Y or Z so I should raise this much" it becomes "pff.. dunno.. maybe I'll get lucky" [raise random amount with TPLK].
Up until today I thought that it had to do with winning money putting me in a state of overconfidence. But that just doesn't add up anymore. I now think it's simply mental exhaustion! Right now I'm in this exhausted state. I guess poker still requires me to do so many calculations that after a few hours my brain has had enough and refuses action. It should ease out over time when experience kicks in and makes it all a lot more routine. For now I'm just not playing when I feel like that anymore. Like now, I really wanna play.. but it'll just be wasting money needlessly. So I wait til I get fit again (tomorrow?) and then give it another go.
Today it actually stung a couple of times when I couldn't play a connector, or hit something and couldn't fully take their stack. But a bit later the reason WHY I do this showed itself again. Called an all-in with KJ thinking "ah what the heck". $6 gone in 5 minutes play, cutting my profit for today down from $11 to $5. Yesterday was even worse. Two $7 buy-ins all-inn and out the door in the span of 3 minutes! (shut down the computer thereafter when I caught myself thinking "oh there was a flush possible on the flop..")
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Big Dazz
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Portsmouth, England
Posts: 45
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Hi - I always play with nothing less that three quarter stack - if i get hit and go down to say half stack, i then go to the account and top back up to maximum buy in. I feel as though i should always be full stacked - just incase. . .
If im wrong - please let me know
cheers
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Pelion
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 3,206
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Big Dazz
Hi - I always play with nothing less that three quarter stack - if i get hit and go down to say half stack, i then go to the account and top back up to maximum buy in. I feel as though i should always be full stacked - just incase. . .
If im wrong - please let me know
cheers
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Ive taken to rebuying when i get below 97BB ($9.70 at 10NL)
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gabe: Ive dropped almost 100k in the past 35 days.
bigspenda73: But how much did you win?
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Renton
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Straight Flush
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
Posts: 5,981
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NL Cash games strategy relies heavily on stacking people. If you get into a favorable stacking scenarior with ANYTHING less than a full buy, then you are literally losing money.
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Warpe
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Moderator
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Canuckistan
Posts: 3,905
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Pelion
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Big Dazz
Hi - I always play with nothing less that three quarter stack - if i get hit and go down to say half stack, i then go to the account and top back up to maximum buy in. I feel as though i should always be full stacked - just incase. . .
If im wrong - please let me know
cheers
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Ive taken to rebuying when i get below 97BB ($9.70 at 10NL) |
Same, one decimal point over. It gets noticed at the table, too. "That guy is really waiting to get full value out of destacking someone. I better be careful."
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andy-akb
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Maine
Posts: 1,832
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Yea, I typically always have atleast a full stack. If I get below 100BB I will rebuy, it isnt usually a set number, just usually after Im in a pot that causes my stack to go down.
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jackvance
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,910
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Now that I'm pretty much rolled for 10NL (16 buy-ins atm) I've refilled whenever I fall below $9 the last couple of days.
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Sarcasm is your body's natural defense against stupidity
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salsa4ever
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Full House
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 1,073
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playing with a half stack can definitely be profitable.
you need to be playing a lot more 99-JJ hands strongly and be willing to go AI with TPGK type or even 2nd pair hands. You play less implied odds hands like low PPs and SCs and generally you're less aggressive. Position is less important so you more loosely from EP and tighter in LP.
I don't actually play with a half stack and this is from my correspondence with those who do.
But if I played the way I played with a half stack i would be breakeven at best. It's a lot easier to learn how to play profitably with a full stack. Most of the advice you get comes from players with a full stack. What you don't want to be doing is to "test" your (full stack) strategy by playing with a half stack.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by bigred
Would you bone your cousins? Salsa would.
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Originally Posted by salsa4ever
well courtie, since we're both clear, would you accept an invitation for some unprotected sex?
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JeffreyGB
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Jenks, OK
Posts: 3,477
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Playing with any size of a stack can be profitable. I started off playing ring, buying in with a minimum buyin (and moving up in stakes once I had about 20x the min). However you do it, it will ultimately teach you different things about poker.
The shorter your stack, the more your game is about preflop play. Also, in a lot of cases you should expect to be called MUCH more frequently (which you can often use to your advantage).
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