For you 5/10 and up players
 

Bored at work today and decided to watch a 25/50 NLHE table. Full table. Highest stack was about 11K. the rest were about 5k or so with one guy sitting with min buy.

What do you all think about min buy people? They pretty much abused him off the table.

there is a write up by chris ferguson on the subject. He has some great points about it .Risk management:thumbsup:

Trust me when I say I have no intentions of sitting one of these tables.

I was curious because the table banter was pretty harsh in this guys direction. Probably due to past history but I was just wondering if players at this level see min buyers as an ATM machine, generally speaking of course.

Speaking of which - I'm watching a 10/20 table right now and just watched someone donk of 4 min buys in a matter of ten minutes.

Considering I've made about 50k shortstacking 25/50, I'm certainly fine with shortstacking.

I have a second request for you (the first was a video demonstrating )... Sometime when you have a chance, maybe you could post a thread explaining optimal strategy for shortstacking. I mean, I think I know what adjustments I'd need to make, but I'm not only curious about how you change your play, but also WHY you think it's more profitable than playing with a full stack (at a lower limit, if your response is the "taking a shot" thing).

i seriously think ive lost about 200k playing 25/50 and up its def the hardest level for me and i know ive ran way below expactation at it.

i think ill try shortstacking it if i ever rebuild enough

There has been a series of articles about playing with a short stack at a NL cash game in Card Player - but I think it was geared more towards looser, wilder games.

Yeah, I remember reading it... the general jist was wait for a big hand a shove.

This my new favorite past time here at work. Fire up Pokerstars and watch a 5/10 or a 25/50. I have 3 monitors setup here at work so I usually just leave PS up on one of them.

Just an observation - I am continuously witnessing min buyers at these levels donk it all off rather quickly. It is pretty sick at the 25/50 table. Not that I'm judging them, just an observation. This leads me to think that regular players at these levels welcome it.

I keep waiting to see a TPF member screen name pop up there.

Short stacking is most effective in a game of PLO. You're basically never really dominated preflop. So you will often get better than pot odds when you are all in.

Eg. If you're in the BB, and it's been raised preflop with multiple callers. You can push with a huge range and still should have the proper pot odds in the hand. Assuming you have a min buy in and the rest of the table are deep.

I know why shortstacking PLO is probably better than NLHE right now, but that is most definitely not the reason why. If anything, that would be a detrimental effect of shortstacking PLO since your preflop edge isn't as great as in NLHE.

The main reason why shortstacking is effective, at least in the way I see it, is that it takes advantages of people playing too loosely against someone with 20bbs behind them. Basically, people just play as if everyone had 100BBs+, wherein this lies the profit for the 20bb stack.

I have to go back and re-check the articles (i think it was a series of three of them), but i believe that was part of what he was talking about. With your short stack (i.e. 20bb) you are basically forcing the others to play with that stack against you. But they do not adjust/think like that.

I think there was also some stuff in there about how you can control the math/pot odds to give you an edge with your short stack. But I think that dealt more with a looser game (more loose money in the pot).

It was interesting reading if anyone gets a chance. Not sure if its in the online version

In Rolf Slotboom's PLO book, he talks about shortstacking. The key point he made is being sure to sit with a known LAG on your right.

I believe it's the opposite... a known LAG to your LEFT... because (i havent read the book but im familiar with the PLO short stacking concept so Im assuming this is it) the point is to limp have a LAG raise, squeeze in a few calls and then pot reraise to the point where you're all in on the flop when you bet.... thus you're always getting +EV on your hand and can never be outplayed/pushed off a pot

about the players in the first post, they may be veiwing the situation as " i have this much at risk, so should he" or thinking that the guy is going to hit and run...

as far as live play, i always buy in 2x min, unless i am just trying to kill time, then ill buy $50 into a 5-10 limit game. the place i play uses a single $5 blind, so you can be dealt 100 hands at a full table before you bust