Auto top up

I have seen a few people to recommend having the auto top up enabled to increase your effective stack size against deeper stacks on the table but wondered what the general consensus is on this? Personally, I like to see how much I have lost and if I lose a buy-in, and feel it was because of a cooler rather than bad play, I would buy-in again. When the auto-top up is enabled, there's no way of easily knowing how down I am for that session - is this the right to think?

Yeah it is correct for pro players or even for stable players ..it can be dangerous for your bankroll if you play with emotions and when u are so tilted. I think first experience and then auto top up comes to the line

If I'm grinding seriously, I use auto top up. If not, I just top up when I feel like it.

I don't like auto top off. I like to know where I'm at in a session in terms of whether or not I lost a chunk due to a simple cooler or a bad play on my part. I top off as needed manually.

You ask for the general consensus of auto top up: It's basically because you want to be able to win as much as possible when you have a good hand.
Ex. You don't have auto top up enabled and get dealt AA when you have 27bb. You open, get 3bet, you 4bet all-in and get called by KK, your Aces hold up and you double up. Great! Or is it?

Cause if you think about the same scenario but you had 100bb effective stacks, you probably would've gotten it all-in in that situation as well, winning a lot more because you had bigger effective stacks.

Obviously it goes both ways, since you could very well have been the other guy, who lost his 100bb with KK against AA. But the principle is this: The deeper the effective stacks are, the more skilled player will have an advantage. So the shorter the stacks get, skill plays a smaller part in your game.

Ultimately why we want to have deep stacks is because that's where the skill comes in. If we can be at a table where we are the best player, we want as deep stacks as we can get. If we aren't the best player at the table, we should avoid as much as we can to play against the better players, or just leave the table in the first place and find some softer competition. So while playing deep stacked might not be very favourable for you at a certain table, it's still important to learn how to play with deep stacks, since it pretty much gives you the strongest base, and you will actually learn to play poker "for real".

Starting out in poker by playing cash games is a great idea. When you learn deep stacked poker from cash games, it's easy to make the transition to tournaments, since playing with shorter stacks is easier. But to go from long time tournament grinder to cash games can be a lot tougher.

If you want to keep track of your winnings and losses in a session you can get something like Holdem Manager or PokerTracker. I don't like looking how much I'm up or down mid session though. If I see I'm up a lot it makes me play more passively to try and protect my winnings, which isn't optimal.

So I would say use auto top up if you are looking to improve your game. It's going to be way better for you long term.

It depends on your stack on the table and the anmount of money you have in your bank roll !!

i hate it

Agree with Tricky123.

You should always have auto top up enabled, because you should be playing a game where you are +VE to win against the other players at your table and the bigger your stack, the more you can win, assuming the other players have stacks at or around the table max.

If the table dynamic has changed and the fish have been replaced with sharks, you should move table rather than play with less than a full buy in.

If your bankroll means you are playing with scared money, move down in stakes.

My philosophy is do whatever you feel comfortable with and whatever works for you. When you start thinking you SHOULD ALWAYS do this and do that, I don't think that's a good thing.

The goal of playing poker is to win money. Try different things out and stick with what works.

I personally play with less than a full stack because I like that it gives the other guys worse implied odds to chase.

Rarely do you really get the stack all in anyway. And coolers can run both ways.

This method is very suitable for the game of zoom. when the opponents are constantly changing, and they can not understand how much you have a dynamic situation, and you can always win the maximum number of chips from the enemy.

The general consensus is that auto top up is practically a must, the depth of your stack can have serious implications on how you should play pre flop (ie set mining and implied odds) and even post flop.

Although there a players who play well short stacked it is still recommended that you stick to one stack size and learn it well, standard is 100BB.

This thread is 3 years old, so perhaps it would have been better to start a new one. Anyway I am always using auto top-up, when I play cash games. The reason is, I want to always have at least 100BB, so that I can win as much as possible from bad players, and so that I dont need to adjust to short stacked play, unless someone else is short.

As for keeping track of my session results I prefer to not do that all the time, because it makes me become more results oriented. And really the only thing, that matter in poker, is the decision, you need to make right now. It does not matter, that your AK ran into AA a few hands ago on another table, or that you were semibluffing with a draw but whiffed.

It is however reasonable for especially new players to use some kind of session stop loss like for instance 3 BI´s or 300 BB. But if you use a program like PT4, it will show your session results, and this is, where I look, if I really want to know.

For example, I turn off automatic deposit to see how much I lost per hand

For me I like the top up option because villain nowdays 3bet light in some spot (GTO assumes that he has to 3bet with some bluffs to be balanced), if I have a read on him and I want to 4bet with a stack less than 60bb I'm pot commited, however with 100bb I have rooms to manoeuver.

rastapapolos said:

For me I like the top up option because villain nowdays 3bet light in some spot (GTO assumes that he has to 3bet with some bluffs to be balanced), if I have a read on him and I want to 4bet with a stack less than 60bb I'm pot commited, however with 100bb I have rooms to manoeuver.

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I agree. As well as being able to win the max by auto top up, playing 100bb or more allows a 4bet non all-in range, rather than having say a wierd 71bb etc. Similarly no need to change starting hands for different stack depth etc. Its alot simpler having 100bb or more every hand. Though of course main reason is you can win max when have a big hand and secondly if you are a good player you will have an edge playing deeper.