Stack size on ring game

I read couple of post where Savage Penguin was "complaining" of players playing short stack

On PokerStars, at the 0.01/0.02 nl, when you enter the table, the software offer you to entrer with 3$, or the maximum 5$.

So, With how much should i enter.
You may answer, depends of what s on the table, let s say e bunch of player with 1-2$, a bunch at 3$, and 1 at 5-6$

I loose a little bit of money in a Hand, should I always put money back, to re-fill my stack ? like I start with 5, each time i go under 4, I put money back to come back to 5?

Why doing that ?
It s harder to follow how much you loose or win ?
I can understand the fact that if you have a bigger hand, you may make more money... is that the justification ?



i jsut think if you re-fill your stack all the time, you do not know if you are lossing or winning during this session at this table.. (and do you you need to know ?)

Always play the table max. If it is 5 bucks, play 5 bucks. The idea is if you get allin with a like sized stack you can double up. If you only bought in for 3, you could only double up to 6... losing 4 dollars with the same hand.

You talked about stacksizes also. If you are at a table with short and medium stacks you are at the WRONG table... find another with big stacks to make it worth your while.

And if you don't have Poker Tracker to help you track your sessions as far as winning/losing, use a good 'ol pen and paper.

I always buy in for the max. I personally only buy back if I've lost more than 50% of my stake. Too many times I've suffered a bad beat, then hit a run of cards and only won a few dollars because I was short-stacked.

But, if you're rebuying before you lose everything in a ring game, be sure to keep track of it. It's really easy to lose a couple buyins without realizing it, a few dollars at a time.

One of the most profitable thing you can do at full ring is play for implied odds. Making sets, straights, ect. when your opponent has a decent yet not great hand is how I make most of my money.

In order to play for implied odds, both you and your opponent must have a big stack.

The only reason I can see the buy in short is if your postflop play is really bad.

Stated as simply as possible, if you're a winning player you want as many chips in your stack as possible to increase your potential winnings.

If the max is $5, and everyone only has $3, still buy in for $5. Still reload every time you lose money to blinds to keep your stack as big as possible. Sure, it doesn't matter at first as none of them can *currently* bet more than $3. But let's say that you buy in for $3 as well, then win $1 or $2, then one them double's up through someone else. Well, now that person has $6 and you only have $5. You could have had enough to match him, but you didn't. Then if you go all-in with the chip leader you you just decreased your potential winnings by $1, and that is pretty significant at that level.

This may seem small, but even an extra nickle here or there will really add over the course of your career.

Yes, always rebuy. I get lazy and might wait a round or two more before rebuying, but theoretically it's best to rebuy after every blind.
You do this for the scenario I mentioned above. Basically, you want to maximize your potential.

First off, technically it shouldn't matter if you happen to be up or down at any certain point, as you should be concerned about playing the best poker possible, and the results don't always reflect the quality of your play.

However, we're all human and psychologically it does matter to our egos. I peak all the time.
If you have PokerTracker 3 you can just click you stats to see exactly how much you are up or down. If not, you'll have to do it mentally, or write it down, or whatever.


Edit: I want to add that this assumes you're playing to win the most money possible. If you are under-rolled for your game you need to play more conservatively then it's understandable to buy in for a smaller amount, to diversify your chip portfolio over multiple games rather than putting all your chips into one basket. That is, you want to minimize your potential loss, so you play to win a lot of small victories and rely on your advantage over a longer period of time to build your bankroll.
For example, I never made a deposit on Full Tilt, but have been building $2 I won in freerolls up. I'm still under-rolled for their lowest ring games, so I go into them with only $2 or $3. I'm more concerned about *not losing* than I am about winning. When my bankroll is big enough (and I can handle a downswing) I'll start buying in for the full amount and play to win rather than play not to lose.

ok I will try that.

BTW, I double on 2 table, 30 min appart, and "hopefully" I was at the maximum

I some kind of understand what you were saying on Every nickel count

I use pt3, so I have record of what I loose and win... it s jsut for my mind
Still haven't succeed to detach my mnd from loosing/winning and just play the best I can

In PT3 your stats for that table will often disappear. If you want to see them again, click the small, yellow, round Poker Tracker icon at the top and select reset and it will pop your stats back up.

Its LOSE, btw. Not loose.

Just to add-on to what others have said:
-Buy in the maximum amount that your BR allows you do so. This will guarantee that you are get maximum return on your money.

-When it comes to reloading your BR, instead of keeping track of how much you buy in for each time, keep track of how much money you can bring to the table. Example: Say you have a BR of $200 and you allow yourself to only play 5% of your BR at one time. Thats $10. If you're sitting at .01/.02 NLHE table, that max you can buy in is $5. You know that you can use $10 of your BR at a given time, then feel free to keep reloading as often as possible but just keep an eye on the BR. Once it starts reaching the $190 mark, you'll have to slow down with the reloading. If you dont have the BR to buy in the maximum, then just buy in for the biggest amount your BR allows.

-For table selection, you always want to go after the tables with stacks are bigger than yours or at least equal. This way you know you are getting maximum return on your money. It might seem a good idea to go up against smaller stacks because if you lose to a [bad] beat, you dont lose as much money but actually you lose more money that you could have potentially earned by playing smaller stacks.

Example: You have $5 and a short stack has $1. A hand plays out where SS is all in and wins, you lose only a $1. Now lets say its a similar situation where SS is all in for a $1 and you win. Now in this situation, you only earned $1 where you could have potentially won $5 if you SS had an equal or bigger stack than yours. So, while you only lost a $1 on the beat, you're losing $4 on that hand you've won.

This isnt a plug or anything, but here is a little something I wrote on buying in for the maximum amount.
Max Buy-in for cash games

To add to my above post:

You might be thinking that you'd rather lose $1 than $5 on a beat, but you have to look at the long run of things. Lets take a look at this situation if it played out 100x, you have $5 and villain has $1. You have an 80% chance to win and villain only has a 20% chance to win. Keep in mind this is just a very basic example to get my point across.

After 100 hands:
-20% of the time you will lose $20 (20 x $1) and villain will earn $20
-80% of the time you will win $80 (80 x $1) and villain will lose $80.

Not bad considering you still make a profit, but lets look at if both of you had equal stacks.

After 100 hands:
-20% of the time you will lose $100 and villain will win $100
-80% of the time you will win $400 and villain will lose $100.

So, buy not playing an opponent with an equal or greater stack, you are actually giving up about $320 in profits.

I look at it this way. Let's say that you're skill gives you an advantage that will let you win an average of 5% more off your opponents than they will win off you.

Every time you get in an all-in situation with someone who has you outchipped, but you didn't have to be outchipped, you are losing an average of 5% of the difference between your stacks.

Oh, and I don't think we've mentioned the value of a winning perception. People are less likely to mess with someone who has a big stack of chips, as they're a winning player. In fact, a lot of my reads on newbies at the table are based on chip stack.
If I sit a $25 NL table and someone with $3.75 shoves, I'll call with J/J. If someone with $25+ shoves, I fold my J/J.

I see alot of people lately coming in with min buy in and playing the same style, mostly only playing all in with pocket pairs, any 2 face cards or even just a A.

There is a website ( I think its) WWW.PLAYPOKERFORALIVING.COM about using this style of buy in and play.

I have recently been buying in for half or nearly half ( example $20 buy in at $50 table). I have only been playing for a couple of years and I think it helps me play a bit better and cuts my losses some as well.
Im not using the min buy in strategy I mentioned above.
If I can make $20 off a hand with a .25 -.50 blind Im happy, sure there are times I could make more but there are times when I could lose more as well. The half buy in slightly changes the deep stack dynamic.

I aslo have been playing different so its giving me a lower risk way to hone my new style.