Short Buying

[AJinNorCal]

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?

[jackvance]

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.

[Iwind]

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.

[Renton]

you can't set hunt, which is the majority of profit at low stakes.

So its a horrible move.

[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?

[Renton]

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?

no the 10x rule is all lies

15-25x is much much better.

[ed]

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?

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?

[ed]

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?

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.

[Renton]

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?

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

[jackvance]

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?

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.

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.

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.

[ed]

A set a day makes your money problems go away.

If you bought in for the maximum that is

[sejje]

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.

[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)

[ed]

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)

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".

[jackvance]

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..

[jackvance]

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.

[Drewbie]

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.

Thats what it's all about friend

[AJinNorCal]

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.

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.

[ekillian]

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)

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.

[jackvance]

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..")

[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

[Pelion]

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

Ive taken to rebuying when i get below 97BB ($9.70 at 10NL)

[Renton]

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.

[Warpe]

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

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."

[andy-akb]

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.

[jackvance]

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.

[salsa4ever]

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.

[JeffreyGB]

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).