What percentage do you sit down with at a cash table?

Right now I have set aside a small amount of cash at FTP for playing mini-stakes cash games. I have been doing well in the last week, and I am hoping throughout this weekend I can grind out some non-regulars.

Since I work overnights I find myself playing at 6am - 12pm after a 8 hour shift.....assuming at that time that the only people that are playing are grinders, I hope that the field will be weaker today.

I have been sitting on 2-3 tables with 5% on each table. Do you feel I should decrease this amount?

5% is fine as a general rule.

However, if you are multi-tabling, keep it modest and remain well within your ability to monitor the play on them all. Take care not to open too many tables and lose focus so that you start losing on all of them. Your BR could take a big hit quickly that way.

Thanks ET.

I don't always use 5% of the remaining bankroll.

Do you prefer to buy in for the max, or 1/2?

once you're bankroll is irrelevant to your limit level.

I have been testing out playing aggressive with low stacks...seems to get callers with the widest of ranges. Allows me to risk less too.

Ill sit with 3% or 3.5%, just to see how the action differentiates.

Seems you seem more opposing KJ-66-A9 Hands like that...only a small sample size though...

Always buy in for the max at a table. Don't go in assuming you can risk less. If you get a monster hand and flop you can only win a small amount with a short stack. Your chip stack in a weapon, even in ring games. If you buy in for half a buy in you are only hurting yourself.

There are two viable ways of approaching this. You should either buy in for the maximum (for normal play) or for just 20x BB if you are intending to play short-stack (which requires a different strategy and hand selection).

There is no benefit in buying in for half. That would fall between two worlds and give you the worst of both. As Trigga says, it would limit your winnings when you hit a big hand playing deep-stack. On the other hand, it would be too deep for playing an effective short-stack strategy.

Unlike triggalos i,m a very conservative player...i dont look for the one good kill...i look to constantly,and slowly improve my positions on various sites,i,m not saying there is anything at all wrong with his stategy..it just isnt the one i employ.I look long before i sit,i,m looking for a table with a majority of stacks larger than what i will enter with.I have preset the amount i,m looking to take from the table..usually double or triple my buy in....once i hit this mark i,m gone.I dont get involved in many hands...if the the few i elect to play dont pan out i leave....my winnings usually unremarkable and the same with my losses...i try to improve each site by 10-20% a week...i,m 3 for4 this week using the good old patented short stack stick n move strategy...hope it helps...oh i typically buy in for 25 big blinds.

I use a rule of thumb of no more than 5% of my entire bankroll.

If you are doubling up and gone, this is called rat holing and very much hated by regs lol

Your strategy says, I'm a weak player. My post flop play is terrible, if I'm lucky enough to double up or tripple up, I must leave cause I will give you all my money back.

It sounds like you are waiting for priemium hands, and if you are like most short stackers you just go all in preflop and hope you win the race. Learn to play with a stack and you will make more money, more quickly on a more consistant bases. Your strategy is like playing tag with a 4 year old, everything is the base when they are about to get tagged. Learn to play with the big boys!!!

Hahaha, I agree. But it depends on your situation.

Chris Ferguson says that if you double your buy-in you should wait till your blinds come around and then leave.

But I also do agree with trigga in a way, it kind of symbolizes that you are a weak player and is afraid to lose your money back.

Personally I always buy in for the max.

Ed Miller does make a good case for not buying in for the max on a table with 100BB limit as it makes TPTK harder to play. He prefers buying in for 80BB on those tables. Once the stack is over the 130BB mark, TPTK becomes harder to play as a stacking off hand but far easier to play as a small pot hand.... so so says mr Miller!! (the book in question is professional no-limit holdem)

I figure that if you are annoying the regs with your playing strategies, you must be doing something right! Regs always recommend beginners to play full stacks. Think about it.

thought about it.
So you can take 100BBs from them rather than 20BBs.

what good is 20BBs going to do? It doesnt matter if you annoy them cus your not going to see them again are you if you just rat hole and leave all the time.

Against similarly-skilled players, the smaller your stack size, the bigger your edge. Against worse players (hopefully you're playing against these), the bigger stacks will allow them to make larger mistakes and thus you'll have the bigger edge with a bigger stack. I disagree that there's no strategy for buying in with 50 BBs. If you can play with 50 BBs you will frustrate a lot of regulars who simply don't understand how to play against a 50 BB stack. Nowadays everyone knows how to play against shortstacks, and most solid regulars understand 100 BB play to some degree, but many end up lost against a 50 BB stack.

That said if you shortstack you end up in hell when you die, so just learn to play 100 BB deep poker .

The reason it's called ratholing, imo, is to discourage players from doing it. In a live game, this will make you very unpopular quickly, so it has more of a social disadvantage. Online there are so many games going at once that you can move about freely if you choose and people will have a harder time singling you out. Playing several tables at once, you won't even see their rude comments.

At microstakes, I don't see a whole lot of difference between playing 50 BBs vs. 100 BBs. The main reason I would play 1/2 stack is bankroll management and multi-tabling. You can buy into a lot more tables at 50 BB without risking your bankroll. Personally, I don't feel comfortable with less than 50 times the buy-in in my bankroll. If I want to play 10-20 tables at a time, I may not be able to afford it with a full stack.

Really short stacks (20 BBs) are easy to play for a beginner following simple guidelines and can help you with multi-tabling as well. I think it's definitely a good idea to get your feet wet before jumping in head first. Once you know what to expect you can start buying in for more and sticking around when you win, putting your big stack to use with experience under your belt.

I`d be interested to hear some details of your thoughts on that, Zach.


I am not convinved of that. I do, and I am sure you do, but there are still lots of players who react with confusion and dismay when faced with shortstackers.

I can`t recall having seen a sensible discussion of the matter here, either, because threads that start discussing shortstacking usually descend into wailing and moaning about it, rather than actually analysing. Example:-

^^^
QUALITY POST ???

Tbh, i very much doubt that the other regs are sad when i leave their table...

Also, there's a huge difference between ratholing 20bb deep and ratholing 100bb deep.

As someone who is on the verge of becoming much more familiar with ring games, I'm very interested in how to play against short stackers.

Would also love an in depth discussion about why ratholing is so despised.
Seems obvious to me that yeah, occasionally the rat holers would get away with a double up, more often they would drop their stacks.

Also, the whole notion of always playing fully stacked seems a bit unnecessarily dangerous.

But then I'm just systematically learning the ring grind, and currently am playing 6 max LHE at a level way above sane br management practices.

is playing short stacked(20BB) not better for clearing first deposit bonuses?

If you're a bad poker player, probably. Although you have to balance that with going to hell, which is actually only a very mild punishment for ruining the games, imo.

On the other hand, if you're strictly a bonus whore, you're probably better off learning how to play FL than shortstacking NL.

If you're a decent NL player, you want to play as deep as possible as the deeper you play the bigger your edge becomes.

Ratholers are just bad players looking for a quick 20BBs IMO and have no poker skill.

If i play multitabling, at micro limit (0.01/0.02), with short stack strategy, i still put 50BB (1$) just cause it's the stack's average at table. 20BB (40cents) is just ridiculous here. I'll put 1.50$ or 2$ there only if all players have that size stack.

The first reason is: All players have 1$ approx at those table, so i want to be able to knock out one or two for they entire stack...

And secondly, i dont want put the maximum buy-in (5$) if it have only one player at table with 5$ stack. He's probably the better player at table, while all donks and maniacs (or good grinders) have just 1$ anyway, am locking for those, not for the eagle with the maximum stack. A bad beat against him will not broke me

But, i adjust my betting size with my stack, to kill the implied odds for the set value of my opponent if i have a monster hand (i'll bet 1/4 of my stack). Then, if i have the small pocket, i call preflop only if i can expected to get approx 10x more money postflop, for my set value. So, with 44 and 1$ stack, i can call a 10cents preflop raise, 12cents with 1.20$ stack, 15cents with 1.50$ etc...

One thing am looking at table, before sitting or while waiting my BB, it's the average of preflop raise amount, to be sure i have the stack (good odds) to call a raise there for my floped set value, cause with an average of 40cents preflop raise, i need 4$ there to keep my implied odds for my floped set value

With the same (short stack) strategy, i put 2$ (40BB) at 0.02/0.05 and 3$ (30BB) at 0.05/0.10, so more high is the BB, more closer i am from the 20BB.

And yes i sit down after double up or treble up my stack and am not shy to do this lol

But if table is very juicy-loose, i'll stay there more longer, and i'll adjust my play with my stack, but i'll leave if 2-3 big stack take a seat after 2-3 monkeys knock out. No matter what they'll think about me...

If with 3$ stack, am the chip leader at table and stack average is about 1$, i have no reason to stay there, cause i have no implied odds...

This strategy is good for multitabling, less tough decisions, easier to follow the game. Yeah big stack is a good weapon, but only against good players...

It's too much, BR management suggest max 5% of your BR at table at same time, all table combined.

Probably needs a thread of its own. Here is an introduction to the topic:

Distinguish between players buying in short because they have no funds and know no better (the majority) and those who have studied the strategy and maths of short-stack play. (Pros Ed Miller {Getting Started in Holdem} and Rolf Slotboom {Secrets of Professional Pot Limit Omaha} have written about these, and are worth reading if you are interested).

The fish may be doing just about anything, but should be easy to counter. The serious people will be buying in for ~20x BB and topping up their stack when it falls by 25%. They will be uber-TAG, playing less than 10% of hands (sometimes less than 5%) and always raising pre-flop (except perhaps from the blinds).

Their basic aim is to play monster hands only and to suck deep-stack players with lesser holdings into all-in confrontations. Often, deep-stackers will call them light out of frustration with their style of play (which traditional players dislike) and because the amount needed to call is not a great part of the deep player`s stack.

Solution - when you identify a player using this style, these are the main countermeasures:

1. Remain calm. Short-stackers thrive on players who get annoyed with them and try to knock them out.

2. Never call his pre-flop raise unless you have a big pocket pair. That is what he wants you to do.

3. Raise his blind from late position with any decent holding and deny him a cheap flop. Short-stackers can`t play more than about three rounds of blinds without needing to top up. If he continually has to top up and can`t get action on his big hands, he will have to give it up and move to a softer table.

Man, what's with all the short-stack hate? I love playing against short-stackers, especially multi-tabling, because it makes my decisions that much easier. It's difficult to play short-stack correctly, which is why most of them are just bad players. But, if you know what you're doing, I'm sure it can be a good way to build a weak bankroll.

As for ratholing, if a short-stack comes in, doubles or triples up and leaves, I really don't care. There's always another one to take his place. In a casino, it's a different matter, but online I wouldn't worry about whether others are bitching about you in chat. If it makes them play worse when you eventually run into them again, all the better.

Are you playing deep tables? No limit or pot limit?You really should have the max in case you hit a monster hand. I usually look for tables that have stacks around the max. If the max buy in is $5 then I don't want someone in there with $20. I also like to watc h the table for a few minutes to get a read on the players-see who is aggressive and who I can exploit.

I don't believe this is correct. The amount should be per table, not all of them combined. I like no more than 2% per table, and then play a lot at once. That seems safe.

Short stackers used to bother me because every hand they were in had the possibility of them pushing no matter what they had. After a while I learned that as long as you be patient and stick to good solid poker decisions, then it doesn`t matter who you play against or how much they have in front of them. If you concentrate on making the correct play and if you take the correct line of thinking as it pertains to each situation, then the odds are in your favor in the long run. Short stacks are just another variation in the game that you must take account of, just like position, type of player, size of bets and such. In other words just learn to deal with it.

2% sounds alright.

You need less than 5% because you may be having an off day or get tilted and not realise it.. with 5% and 10 tables thats half your BR at stake.

5% is fine for a single table though

Can anyone comment on this strategy? I want to buy in for 5% of my roll at a game, let's say a .25/.50, and I have a bankroll of $800. So I buy in for $40... let's say I do that and blow it. I buy in for another $40... lose it again. Now maybe I just quit for a bit, maybe I buy in again- but my roll is now at $720.

Should I buy in for (720)(.05) = $36, so that I'm only in for 5% of my roll? Or should I buy in for $40 again (5.5%) or even the table max (7%)?

This is a spot where I think buying in for $36 is okay. It will mean building my roll back up a little slower, but will only put 5% of my roll on the table, rather than 6% or 7%. It allows you to play the same players, table, and stake.

There are a few misconceptions in this thread.

First of all, multitabling does not really affect BR management. As long as it does not degrade your win-rate, it does not matter at all whether you play a single table or 24 of them. You use bankroll management to protect against the variability of the cards, and that's independant from one table to the other, so really it does not matter if you are playing several tables in parallel or one after the other.

Secondly, you cannot cheat BRM buy buying in less than full at a table. The less big blinds you buy-in for, the higher the variance of your game will be, because it becomes correct to play for stacks with more and more marginal hands when your stack size decrease. So when we say that you need 20 buy-ins to play at a given stake, what we really mean is that you need 2000 big blinds.

Obviously this should be their long-term goal but perhaps they're not a strong player and are not comfortable playing deepstacked play. If so then why would they choose to play where they're not comfortable and will be easily exploited??
If you can adopt a decent short-stack strategy and it's working for you.. then great.. go for it.
Your orginal question seems a bit blurred to me. What is it exactly that you're asking here.... 'how much of my total bankroll do I want to be playing with on any one table?' (answer will vary.. but more often than not, you want to have approx. 40buyins at the level you're playing.. some say 20). OR is your question "how many bb's do I buy in for on a table?" If this is the question, than I'd heed the advice above... if you're going to buyin short.. then go with the min. at 20bb's, otherwise buyin for the full amount.
There are some decent articles written about playing short-stacked buyin for online cash tables. If this is your approach I'd suggest reading up on them.

I don't see any benefit in doing something like this at all... actually the opposite.
The BRM suggestions are to be rolled well enough for the level you're playing at but also to be playing at a level where you're playing profitably.
If the 'full buyin' on one table is just over 5% of your total roll.. no biggy. Don't keep this from having you buyin for the full amount.
If you want to drop down a buyin level until you have 20+ buyins, then do so.. but don't short yourself on a table just because you lost a buyin and now fall below the suggested 5% (or 20 buyins for the level you're playing at)

The hate is because good shortstackers exploit a mathematical edge. Sorry but most people in this thread haven't played against good shortstackers. They make their money from re-stealing mostly and if you're not calling them down with hands like A5o, 66, etc. either they're not a very good shortstacker or you're not making the correct adjustment, my guess is the former though.

The theory is this, that from the shortstacker's point of view, everyone at the table has 20 big blinds. From your point of view however if you have 100 BBs, some have 100, some have less, and the shortstackers have 20. Now think about how we play 20 BBs deep vs. 100 BBs deep, take tourneys for example. With 20 BBs we are restealing but in general our range should mostly be the top, because we're going to be getting AIPF a lot and there won't be much postflop play. With 100 BBs deep we want hands that can flop big and can flop big draws that we can play aggressively. One pair probably won't win a stack so we either need something like a set or a combo draw to be playing for stacks with. This leads to us playing hands like suited connectors. So say the 100 BB stack raises from the cutoff, we have 78s. This is a pretty standard call (some people like to 3-bet a bit here but I think default play in general should be a call). Then the shortstack from the blinds shoves his 20 BBs in. What can we do? He's shoving a very wide range, but our 78s doesn't even beat a range of ATC. Sure we have a very good hand to play postflop with lots of money behind, but the shortstacker by shoving wide negates that and picks up free money.