Playing 60-75BB buy-ins in Full Ring NL

Hey guys,

One of the main reasons I joined Cardschat was to break down some of the habits I've developed playing poker semi-professionally, in order to elevate my game to the next level.

I make most of my money playing 6max SNGs, rebuy MTTs, and NL200/400 Full Ring NL Cash Games.

For cash games, I've found the most effective strategy to be buying in for 60-75BBs instead of 100BB because:

- reg 100BB opponents underestimate my abilities, because I'm not buying in for a full stack.

- regs stack off lighter for 60BB, than they will for 100BB

- it's easier to manipulate my stack size to a pot-sized shoving size on the flop or turn, based on earlier street action

- I can bluff more effectively using floats, light 3bets and light 4bets, because of the implied threat that I'm pot committed

- I can play NL200 and NL400 effectively on a much smaller bankroll

- I earn more rakeback by playing the higher limits, than I would if I played lower limits with 100BB buy-ins.

So, what do you think. Are these actually good reasons to play with 60-75BB buy-ins, or should I adapt the standard, "if you're not playing 100BBs your a fish" line?

I think most of your points are very valid except the bolded one. I'd imagine that you'll likely experience greater variance with a 60bb stack much the same way a 20bb short stacker does. I'd want my BRM requirements to be the same or greater than if I brought in for 100bb. Do you have any rules about staying at the table if you say double up?

Keep in mind you're losing a lot of value by not buying in full. I.e. if you hit a set with 77 on an A72 board and you're against a player who's willing to stack his AQ there, you're forfeiting 40bb's of value.

I know it's frowned upon around here but I actually think shortstacking can be an effective strategy at micros when you're just learning the game, especially if you're converting from being a donkament player.

I find it hard to believe you can beat NL200 or NL400 playing 60 BB stacks. NL200+ is an unbelievably tough game; many many of the regulars in these games played much higher before the U.S. ban on Internet gambling. Someone playing NL10 might call off your 3-bet shove after they open A9o but you're not going to get good regs at higher limits to stack off light for 60 BBs.

Yea, and if he rivers his backdoor flush draw you save 40bb's of value....

lol

yup, the whole 4% of the time that happens, you're right. thanks...

(I guess I shouldn't be too snarky, I don't think you're being serious, at least I hope not lol, but still it's pretty much irrelevant )

There are a handful of regs in those games who BI for 60-70bbs and do quite well with it. Not sure it's for everyone but it can certainly be a winning strategy.

I'm from Canada, but have lived in Asia for the past 7 years. As such, I can play on non-US friendly sites, which I've found to be much softer than FT, PS, etc.

You lose value against the fish who stacks off with AQ or AK on that board for 100BBs, but how much value do you gain against a reg who would never stack off for 100BBs on that board, but figures it's worth the call for 60BBs.

Been playing those stakes since 2005 and have always beaten the game with a decent winrate using this strategy. I only 4 table at the most though, which limits my abilities to go pro I think.

Looking for some other reasons why this strategy is inferior to 100BB strategies though, as it seems to be generally frowned upon.

ok, i don't understand. you're talking about doubling up with 60 BBs off regs who aren't folding TPTK. this seems to imply you're setmining? how can your profitably set mine on 60 BBs?

60bb would be about the min for set mining profitably actually. If you call a 3x open with 60bbs you still have 19x the amount of the call for your implied odds.

ok i was thinking most pots with AK vs. a pp is going to be 3-bet, wasn't thinking of calling the pfr. still seems like the thinnest of margins, i could see it working at 75 bbs.

wouldn't this strat work better in 6-max games?

Set mining in 3bet pots with a 100bb stack is no good either, so he's not really missing out on anything there.

As for 6-max vs FR, not sure if one would have an advantage over the other but I would actually think just the opposite. I would think 6-max players are more willing to stack 100bbs than FR players so you'd likely lose the chance for those 40bbs more often with the same holdings. FR nits might be persuaded to stack 60bbs in a lot of spots where they would give up to a turn bet from a full stacked opponent.

No, not serious at all.

Always buy in full...

When you buy in short you still lose the same amount in small loss pots. Which are the majority of your losses, so when you are missing that 40BB value from double ups it seems the variance would be much higher.

Actually I win more money without showdown using this strategy than I do at showdown.

Not sure if that is indicative of my style, or the fact that I'm able to win more small pots because my opponents become afraid I'm pot committed more easily due to my stack size, give me credit for a hand more often or are less likely to bluff me.

I generally put a win cap of $400-500/session while 4 tabling and will usually leave the table when I hit 150BB. Not as bad as a 20BB ratholer (they piss me off too), but I'm sure most regs see me as a recreational noob at first because of my buy-in size. My general strategy was 75BB in NL200 and 60BB in NL400, though I generally have a higher winrate at NL400.

okay just making sure

If you believe you have an edge over your opponents buy in for the full 100bbs or you are losing value against people you can beat. If you think your opponents are better than you buy in for less, this way you will be making less mistakes post flop for them to capatilize on, and when you do make them you will lose less.

Basically buying in for less than a full stack will make everything post flop a lot easier, as you have said you are comitted either on the flop or turn so you have no mistakes to make.

With 100bbs you have enough for a standard raise, a pot sized bet on the flop, turn and river and it is on the turn and river where most mistakes are made and the most money is being put into the pot.

I used to agree with stubzy11, until a few days ago when a friend told me his winrate has shot through the roof since he moved from 100BB to 250BB deep.

He made an interesting point that everyone plays with 100BB stacks so everyone is very comfortable - I think mixing it up and giving yourself an edge may be +EV in some circumstances

Guilty as charged! Well, I used to stack off against shorties with medium pp's and AJs+ but after you've been burned several hundred times you eventually realize its' not good to play with fire.

I would say that playing FR with under 100bb is one of the most -EV things possible.

The reason being that FR ranges are tighter so when players stack off hand strength is more important.

What that means is that you have to fold more in margional spots as players are playing very tight in many post flop situations.

Most people are not adjusting to the fact that you have under 100bb so when faced with an all in decision.. you arent really limiting losses by starting with 65bb because if you are in a game full of nits and someone wants to stack off.. your TPTK is worthless regardless of your stacksize.

The reason it becomes so -ev is that when you do have a big hand.. you cant recap the losses to incured from all of the folds.

Interesting post, OP. Obviously you're gaining some edge by buying in somewhat shorter than the rest of the table and playing 2 streets poker instead of 3, but on the other hand 60bb is still a lot more fun to play than real shortstacking.

What kind of vpip/pfr/3bet do you run?

Meh, this is not entirely false, but not entirely true either. I'd need a much larger bankroll to play 1000bb than I would to play 20bb deep, isn't that obvious? Probably not 50 times bigger, though, but still. No way I'll do the math here, but i wouldn't be surprised if you could get a similar risk of ruin playing 60bb deep with 80% of the bankroll of someone playing 100bb deep. So you'd need more in terms of 60bb buy-ins, but less in terms of dollars or 100bb buy-ins.

Nonsense.

Well, if you're Phil Ivey, you'd obviously prefer to play as deep as possible all the time. For any other player, you're never sure that you are the best player at the table, so you always have to make a trade off between the stack size you'd like to have when playing pots against the fishes, and the stack size you'd like to have when playing pots against the other regs, some of which might be smarter than you. That, and the effect of position.

I have no trouble whatsoever accepting OP's assumption that the best trade-off for him is 75bb at 200nl and 60bb at 400nl. That's entirely reasonable.

Ideally, we should always decide on the appropriate stack size when sitting down at a table. Typically it would either be the same size of the fish's stack, or the same size as the first player on your right. Going for 100bb all the time like most regs do is convenient, but i very much doubt that it's optimal EV-wise.

I've just read a HH where AQ bakraises from MP2 and plays for 200bb stacks preflop at 400nl FR, so I'm not sure what you are talking about, really.

Actually this motivates me. I might decide buy in for 70bb when I move back up to 200nl rush FR next week.

I'm not exactly sure JMcabes point is about him finding the balance between better players and fish, but rather making the players (worse, better or the same regs) make many more mistakes against him. Presumably this stack sizing will make them treat him more like a fish which means they will be trying to iscolate and possibly get it in slightly more marginally than verse a 100 bb regular.

Well, i'm not sure how true that is. Sooner or later the other regs will know that he's a reg too just by the shear volume of hands he plays against them anyway.

Although on the other hand, there used to be a red pro named Vitaly Lunkin who was playing the 100nl FR tables with 50bb at FTP, and every other reg was making fun of him until he luckboxed $1,891,018 at the wsop $40k event last year.

I think buying in for under 100bb would be more suited to 6max than FR. The tighter FR ranges mean that its much more important to get as much valuse as possible with your big hands.

You still don't make any sense, Stu, I'm sorry.

You know, if we played heads up, it's entirely possible that between 0 and 15bb deep, none of us has enough of an edge on the other to beat the rake, then from 15bb to 80bb I'd have an edge because i know more about short and medium stack play than you do, then from 80bb to 120bb deep you have an edge on me because you're so used playing with about 100bb stacks while i'm a bit of a calling station 100bb deep, and finally for 120bb and above, I have an edge again because I'm cool like that.

If the above is true and we were to play heads up, the proper choice of stack size would obviously be different for both of us. The only difference would be that I could force you to play 50bb deep by buying in short. the same thing goes for a FR table, although edges between 9 players are more complex to figure out.

A few things are obvious:
[*]you don't play the exact same strategy when you play 60bb deep and when you play 100bb deep. (but obviously you can adjust)
[*]if you're Phil Ivey, your win rate will increase as you play deeper and deeper. (for anybody else, it depends)
[*]Even Phil Ivey can't beat the rake if he plays extremely short, say with 1bb stacks for instance.

But none of these mean that playing 60bb deep is not the right decision for a given player, and a +EV one compared to 100bb deep. Especially when you play 400nl where the rake is much less of an issue, which makes shorter stacked play a lot more reasonable.

The reason I am saying FR is not suited to mid stack sizes is this:

The difference between FR and 6max is the presence of the first 3 positions.

These positions play extremely tight by 6max standards. (Interestingly enough if you consider all opens as steals and look into defensive stealiung stratagies, the standard ranges can be derived mathmaticaly to within a couple of % and FR is definately tighter than 6max)

Now when someone opens UTG you are looking to crack that big hand.. its easy if you hold AA / KK but what if you hold something more speculative like Axs? Here you are looking to make a really big hand, so you will fold often if you dont have a big hand / big draw, so when you do hit your hand you must get paid and get paid big!.

So its akin to setmining, you need large impled odds to play any hand that isnt ahead of an EP range because your initaial call is always against a range that beats you and your flop call will often be a marginal call with a draw.

So by having a medium sized stack you prevent yourself from playing a respectable range of hands against EP opens.

FWIW I dont think 100bb is the magic number at FR, I think FR is better suited to stacks of 200bb+

Now obviously when EP all fold, FR then plays very similar to 6max, so yes you can play 65bb in a FR game provided you fold to any EP raise without the NUTS, but if you are going to do that, why not just play 6-max?

You know, Stu, if nobody makes mistakes at this game, it does not matter how deep you play, nobody wins any money either. What the mistake-less strategy is is entirely irrelevant if everybody plays optimally, nobody wins.

The only caveat is when people have stacks of different sizes, because now the smaller stacks can play the perfect stategy for their stack size, while the larger stacks need to play mixed strategies versus a disparate field, which is sub-optimal.

Obviously people are not perfect, and typically they will make bigger mistakes 200bb deep than 60bb deep, so if you're good enough to exploit it and not make huge mistakes yourself, your win rate will be better. But your point seems to be that people will all play mistake-free when you play 60bb deep at FR, and that is clearly nonsense.

[quote=BelgoSuisse;1607164
Obviously people are not perfect, and typically they will make bigger mistakes 200bb deep than 60bb deep, so if you're good enough to exploit it and not make huge mistakes yourself, your win rate will be better. But your point seems to be that people will all play mistake-free when you play 60bb deep at FR, and that is clearly nonsense.[/quote]


If you call a 5bb raise with a speculative hand against a tight range then you are the one making the mistake, because you never get a good price on hitting a hand.

If you dont play any speculative hands then you become very easy to read postflop.


60bb deep setmining looses much of its value.

I'm wondering if you could play nut flush draws aggressivley at 60bb effective stacks?

and please correct me if my thinking is wrong.

You are in EP with AKs. You raise 4xbb, button calls, so the pot is 9.5 bb.

Flop gives you a naked 4 flush draw (assume for this argument villain has flopped a set or 2 pair and the AK are doubts at best). you make a pot sized bet (9.5bb) leaving you 46.5bb. Villain who has you covered shoves. Pot is now 65.5bb. You would need to call 46.5bb to win a pot that is 65.5bb. So 36% of the time you win 65.5bb or 23.58. 64% of the time you lose your remaining 46.5bb or -29.76 for an EV of -6.18.

If you had 100bb stacks and villain has you covered, so instead of shoving he makes a pot sized re-raise (38bb) pot is now 57bb and you have 87.5bb remaining. If you shove here and villain folds here you show an immediate profit. If he calls your EV is ((57.5+87.5+87.5=232.5)*.36) = 83.7 (- (87.5*.64=56)) = 27.5bb EV.

@belgio and JMcCabe

I think the reason you think that playing shorter stacks at FR has no -ev effect on you is that you are imaging the EP ranges will widen due to your smaller stack size. I would say that it wont. HU, 3way etc ranges would change, but FR when EP opens, they open a range that stands to be good against 8 other players.. meaning that it cant really wien due to 1 or 2 shorter players.


So EP would be making a mistake by trying to widen ranges to specifically target the shorter stacked player at the expence of all the other deeper players yet to act with position.

At no point in this thread have i argued that you should play tight/loose/set mine/not set mine/...

If people make mistakes by calling a 5bb raise with a speculative hand versus a tight range, I'm perfectly fine with that. If people make that kind of mistake versus me and I don't versus them, i'll make a profit.

The only way your argument could make any sense is if you were able to show that 60bb poker is too easy and nobody makes any mistake. In my experience - and I do have a lot more experience at these stakes than you do - that is very much not the case.

What Im saying is that in practice, most people will not play tightly enough preflop with a 60BB stack against EP raises. The reason being this extreme tightness is in direct contrast for their reaaons for wanting to play shorter stacks.. namely that they can play looser postflop.

IF you want to play looser postflop, you will naturally incorperate more drawing hands / speculative hands.. which are at loggreheads with whats going on preflop.