I've decided to play 10,000 hands buying in at 20bb and leaving when get over 35bb. After a few days I'm starting to see some places where I think I'm making mistakes.

I'm gonna post the whole hand because I'm not sure which decision I should stop at. In retrospect this seems obviously bad, but at the time I felt lost.

When that turn card hits what should I be thinking? Is check/folding out of the question here? How about if it was heads up (assume I'm still oop)?



Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (8 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

SB ($36.60)
Hero ($4)
UTG ($22.40)
UTG+1 ($7.70)
MP1 ($44.40)
MP2 ($25.70)
CO ($44.45)
Button ($11.15)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q, 6.
2 folds, MP1 calls $0.25, 1 fold, Button calls $0.25, 1 fold, Hero checks.

Flop: ($0.85) 9, 5, 5 (4 players)
Hero checks, MP1 checks, Button checks.

Turn: ($0.85) Q (4 players)
Hero bets $1, MP1 folds, Button raises to $2, Hero raises to $4.75 (All-In), Button calls $1.75.

River: ($9.35) 9 (3 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $9.35

First off WHY?????? This strategy makes no sense.

Second you are beating nothing when he raises you. When the turn card hits I would be trying to show it down as cheap as possible. I would just check it down, probably fold to any pot sized bet. Any hand you beat isn't going to bet, and is drawing pretty slim. There is no reason to lead here to "protect" top pair bad kicker and betting it for value is horrible. Buy in for more than 20 BB then you won't have to stack off in this spot, and can play actual poker.

Yeah, the first mistake can be found in the sentence before this one.



This is such a horrendous idea for so many reasons that I can't begin to name them all. I'll do the first 5 that come to mind.

1. You can never get full value for any hand like a set because you'll have no money behind
2. If you flop top pair and someone has a better kicker or 2 pair, you're gonna go broke becuase you can't afford to find out where you're at
3. You probably will not have the chance to flop sets (without making serious preflop errors) because your short stack will not have the proper implied odds to be playing small pairs
4. If you flop any kind of draw, you're probably going all in with it
5. You'll develop terrible habits that have no place in the poker world becuase no games are played with stacks that are 20 BBs deep.

I'm almost positive that it's impossible to play a longterm winning game with 20 BBs or less, especially in a game like 25NL where rake is a significant factor.

Bet/fold the turn. Please buy-in full.

You must not be familiar with the exciting world of $40 fixed buy in $1/$2 No Limit that is Los Angeles.

You guys weren't around for the short buy-in strat, I suppose. There's a thread around here (probably in Gen Strat) from long ago that talked about buying in for 20-35bb. I've never been a proponent, but it actually had some decent support. I think it can be a profitable strategy for some people. It might not be the "most" profitable, but it's "simpler" (while being somewhat high variance). Essentially, you're trying to get all of your money into the pot pre-flop or on the flop. It relies on forcing "big" stacks to make mistakes that they normally wouldn't since you're "so short". While it kills your implied odds, it also kills their ability to get implied odds off of you.

I guess what you're basically doing is adapting tournament strategy to cash games...and there's certainly strategy involved in tournaments.

There are also different incentives forcing people to play pots with you in tournaments when you're short which don't exist in cash games.

We don't need to revive that discussion, but I'm just saying...

OK, here's my opinion and some people are going to hate it. Buying short is good for players who don't play post-flop well consistently or can't beat a level over time. So they take stabs and bites. I've also noticed that SS buyers ALMOST ALWAYS leave the table when they win a pot.

i will post my stats when i hit 10,000 hands so you can all see you are wrong about the profitability in playing like this.


it is actually hard to counter a player playing like this. if you are always folding to my preflop raises i will start raising your limps a little more and stealing money from you. but if you are calling then i will raise amounts with good hands such that if you call it is impossible for you to show a profit in the hand no matter what you do.

....although since you are all so sure if you want to wager on it let me know....

I'm interested in how you do. Maybe there's something about this for me too since I'm so used to playing as a shortstack in sng's I might wanna give this style a shot. I completely blow in cash games when I buy in full.

Counter Strategy: I call everyone of your raises and lead any flop that I feel helped me or didn't help you. Then you have to constantly be deciding if your KQ is worth your stack on the board of 356 rainbow or TT5. There are so many ways to exploit what you're doing. Granted, most of the players that you're playing with won't be able to figure them out, but I still think that you'll develop habits that are bad for your poker game.

Good luck all the same, it's not like I'm rooting against you or anything

kq is generally below the range that im raising with.


you limp with your normal range you limp with. so the pot is now 2.5bb. i have 20bb in my stack. i raise 6bb with aqs+, ak, 99+. you cannot call my raise because there isnt enough money left for you to make up what a dog you are against me. but they dont realize this. and they call with all sorts of crap, suited connectors, small pairs.

sometimes ill raise smaller, sometimes ill raise more. the goal is to get to the flop with more money in the pot than i have left in my stack. the closer i can get to that the better, because then i dont have to worry about occasionally folding a flop.

i will also play a broader range or a smaller range depending on the situation.

your idea of how to exploit me wont work because if we see a flop together the pot will be big enough that i dont have to guess anything. in fact, im happy when you want to put the rest in with me.

I guess that my problem is that you're forced to give up so many situations in which you (should) have great equity and huge implied odds becuase you are a short stack. If someone raies 5BBs up front and is called 3 or 4 times, having 20BBs and 89 suited on the button is not really a good spot anymore whereas if you had 100BBs, this should be an extremely profitable situation for you.

The problem is that you're just gonna be guessing more. Yeah, your opponents will be too, but I am just not a fan of the strategy that you're trying to employ.

http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-foru...c=30345&hl=

Good old Aseem.

Yeah, his quote "it rewards the best player or players at the table, the ones who play well in these tough spots for big bets" is why I like deep stacked NL. Most players make big mistakes and the more chips they have for me to take, the bigger the mistake I can induce them into making.

Not knocking anyone who likes playing the shorty, I'm just saying that for competent deepstacked players, their expectation is way higher than an expert shortstack player IMO.

bump antistuff how's that shortstack strategy coming along for you?

LOL man that thread annoyed me.

Notice me debating to the bitter end. lol good old 2005.

I personally think aseem is a horrible NL player. He's solid at LHE, but IMO. garbage at NL. If he reads this, HU right now.