What stack size actually means

R

Rational Madman

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I know that bigger stack is better, but I think that people are often too afraid of being short-stacked thus they make decisions when nearing short-stack to shove or fold rather than risk losing a bit.

As a fan of a looser-than-most-sharks playstyle that still is on the tight side I like to lose chips < yes you read that right. If you keep losing up to 9 M-zone and just keep losing, it is totally fine as long as it was many losses rather than a big one as that doesn't help you at all. You see when you play in a way that's willing to become short stacked gradually and coolered over and over if the bets stay small, people learn that you are not going to just fold and it SUBCONSCIOUSLY and ALSO HUD-OBJECTIVELY will mean that not only do people bluff you much rarer but also means that people will more likely check rivers with a semi good hand as they are sure you'd call both with better or worse and are confused where on Earth you stand strength-wise.

My playstyle works MAJORITY OF TIMES and I will begin to prove it with progress graphs later on (in a month or so when I am truly efficient).


You need to understand that even being in 1 or 2 M-zone is not the end of the world. You just wait for semi-good hand and all-in. If you make a remote comeback, your table image is far far stronger than before. If a LAG bully or many donks keep overbetting into you despite this table image that is still fine, you play tight while they are around no problem but if people aren't being so ready to hand you chips, you need to loosen them up by being looser yourself.

I have a very differing view to most tournametn strategists. I believe that you should constantly be wavering between tight and loose, agg and pass. You should of course be rigid in that the bigger the pot bigger your bet or vice versa because pot odds are about making the most out of a high risk scenario where you ended up on upper end but other than pot odds, no concept should be rigid in your play.

When you get bigstacked why should you suddenly become LAG? I think that's stupid. Of course steal blinds if their FST is very high ( FST = fold to steal stat, Jivaro HUD has idk if others do) anyway, if they often fold preflop to raises while in blinds go ahead and steal it. On the other hand, you are bigstacked, RIDE THE TOURNAMENT WAVE, SURF THAT SH** YOU ARE BIGSTACKED... Why do people feel the need when they are big to get bigger, it is so suboptimal until the latter half of the mid-game where you need to start preparing your stack for the high swing lategame.

You should be MOST TIGHT WHEN YOU ARE BIG... I just can't understand why this is a concept said the opposite.

You go all-in with semi decent hand if excruciatingly low and only enter hands you really should be entering until you are no longer the big stack but a medium one again... Simple concept really.

Do what you want, this is just my advice: Don't fear being the small stack you can be desperate as you want then; only feel fear when you have a stack so good you wouldn't want to lose it.
 
Amanda A

Amanda A

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I kind of agree but I don't like getting down to 1 or 2 M. You just lose any fold equity, I'd rather shove at an M of 5 and start looking for that opportunity a few rounds earlier. Then you have 2 ways to win people fold or you win the hand. With an M or 1 or 2 you are almost certainly going to have to win the hand.
 
bmw13

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why are you trying to discover mtt? when you are an cash game player..
 
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emil4707

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dont afraid to be short stack , in poker everything might change in a couple hands . once i won a tourney with 50 chips(start stack 1500 chips) behind after bad beat .
 
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Forbesy604

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playing as short stack can be kind of fun in its own way
 
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Quads2017

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Interesting .... am looking forward to your progress stats as it sounds like you advise to play like a fish until you are so small that you need to go all in :cool:
 
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AlexTheOwl

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As a fan of a looser-than-most-sharks playstyle that still is on the tight side I like to lose chips < yes you read that right. If you keep losing up to 9 M-zone and just keep losing, it is totally fine as long as it was many losses rather than a big one as that doesn't help you at all. You see when you play in a way that's willing to become short stacked gradually and coolered over and over if the bets stay small, people learn that you are not going to just fold and it SUBCONSCIOUSLY and ALSO HUD-OBJECTIVELY will mean that not only do people bluff you much rarer but also means that people will more likely check rivers with a semi good hand as they are sure you'd call both with better or worse and are confused where on Earth you stand strength-wise.

My playstyle works MAJORITY OF TIMES and I will begin to prove it with progress graphs later on (in a month or so when I am truly efficient).


You need to understand that even being in 1 or 2 M-zone is not the end of the world. You just wait for semi-good hand and all-in. If you make a remote comeback, your table image is far far stronger than before. If a LAG bully or many donks keep overbetting into you despite this table image that is still fine, you play tight while they are around no problem but if people aren't being so ready to hand you chips, you need to loosen them up by being looser yourself.

So if I understand correctly, you like to lose chips because of the effect it has on your table image.
This is like a heavy person swallowing a poison to lose some weight. It is good to lose some weight, but the poison is killing you.
 
vinnie

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My playstyle works MAJORITY OF TIMES and I will begin to prove it with progress graphs later on (in a month or so when I am truly efficient).

You played 8 tournaments yesterday, and you min-cashed in exactly one of them. 1/8 is a "MAJORITY OF TIMES"! This must be a different definition of the word majority than most people use.

Come on man, you have an ROI of -80.3% and you really believe you should be offering advice?

PS: Still waiting for those cash-game graphs. :p


Edit: In the 35 games since you started your tournament challenge, your ROI is -45.4% and you have cashed 11 times (31.4%). This is hardly a majority nor does it inspire confidence in your ability to offer winning advice.
 
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vinnie

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It is. But his results before those games were even worse. That is just when he started making statements about his awesome abilities. He has never been a winning tournament player, but he claims he has it all figured out.
 
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AlexTheOwl

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It is. But his results before those games were even worse. That is just when he started making statements about his awesome abilities. He has never been a winning tournament player, but he claims he has it all figured out.

He mostly spouts nonsense, and certainly suffers from delusions of grandeur. The good news is that his thinking seems to be evolving, although so far it mostly evolves from nonsense to other nonsense.

Still, small sample sizes are deceptive, and since he is a beginner we should expect his early results to be poor.
 
R

Rational Madman

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You played 8 tournaments yesterday, and you min-cashed in exactly one of them. 1/8 is a "MAJORITY OF TIMES"! This must be a different definition of the word majority than most people use.

Come on man, you have an ROI of -80.3% and you really believe you should be offering advice?

PS: Still waiting for those cash-game graphs. :p


Edit: In the 35 games since you started your tournament challenge, your ROI is -45.4% and you have cashed 11 times (31.4%). This is hardly a majority nor does it inspire confidence in your ability to offer winning advice.
Through the errors of my ways has come the wisdom of the madman.

You can play your way vinnie we all love your graphs thank you for your great advise I am so appreciative of your dedicated loyalty to following my threads.
 
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ph_il

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He mostly spouts nonsense, and certainly suffers from delusions of grandeur. The good news is that his thinking seems to be evolving, although so far it mostly evolves from nonsense to other nonsense.

Still, small sample sizes are deceptive, and since he is a beginner we should expect his early results to be poor.
Beginners usually don't claim to know be amazing players either.

Honestly, it sounds like RM isn't speaking from self experience, but experience of others he's read about or seen. I think he's convinced himself he a great player or he LAG, but really isn't. I think his LAG still is probably just a very loose, losing style as far as his MTT results show, but he feels the need to convince others he knows what he's talking about.

To be fair, some of the stuff he says isn't half bad, but then a lot of it is. Or it's a lot of empty brags and boasts. Not saying he can't be a good, profitable player but he just isn't there yet. At least not to the level he thinks he is.

Then again, this is coming from a micro stakes MTT player, so what do I know?
 
R

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Beginners usually don't claim to know be amazing players either.

Honestly, it sounds like RM isn't speaking from self experience, but experience of others he's read about or seen. I think he's convinced himself he a great player or he LAG, but really isn't. I think his LAG still is probably just a very loose, losing style as far as his MTT results show, but he feels the need to convince others he knows what he's talking about.

To be fair, some of the stuff he says isn't half bad, but then a lot of it is. Or it's a lot of empty brags and boasts. Not saying he can't be a good, profitable player but he just isn't there yet. At least not to the level he thinks he is.

Then again, this is coming from a micro stakes MTT player, so what do I know?
You know enough to profess your opinion as if it were gospel truth.

Don't hate me for my arrogance hate yourself for your lack of it.
 
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AlexTheOwl

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Beginners usually don't claim to know be amazing players either.

Honestly, it sounds like RM isn't speaking from self experience, but experience of others he's read about or seen. I think he's convinced himself he a great player or he LAG, but really isn't. I think his LAG still is probably just a very loose, losing style as far as his MTT results show, but he feels the need to convince others he knows what he's talking about.

To be fair, some of the stuff he says isn't half bad, but then a lot of it is. Or it's a lot of empty brags and boasts. Not saying he can't be a good, profitable player but he just isn't there yet. At least not to the level he thinks he is.

Then again, this is coming from a micro stakes MTT player, so what do I know?

I play the micros too. All thoughtful opinions are welcome, I think. But neither of us has claimed to be anything we aren't, as far as I know.
 
R

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I play the micros too. All thoughtful opinions are welcome, I think. But neither of us has claimed to be anything we aren't, as far as I know.
Then you are conceding that you are not the best.

For you to become the best you first need to say you are to yourself at the very least but also to others to make you have to live up to it.

I use this forum and the nonsense I say to really mean I have to live up to it.

If it wasn't for my ego and the need to prove people like vinnie and Keith MM wrong i'd probably have dropped poker altogether around march because I truly was growing sick of poker and had developd a sever rock TP playstyle that specialised in baiting and well sorry to be so poetic but 'waiting'.

Wait n bait... lost blinds... too late ;)

I evolved so much in the past 3-4 months as both a human being and poker player and it's all because I began to give myself something to live up to.

You can't beat up the bully unless you really get him to take you on in a fight and tell him how much better you are than him. If you lose, you will feel even more of a victim than before but if you win finally you can feel some real joy in life.

I was a depressed failing student of a computing degree and dropped out year one (I only began the degree age 20, call that redoing highschool 3 times except in UK version of community college for 2 of them. :) Get into a mediocre uni for foundation computing degree (foundation means 2 year course can be a technician at end but not anything like a developer or web designer) anyways... I hated it, I hate my whole life really. I was not and never will be cut out for exam-style things. I cannot just repeat things and get good at them to get a good grade I need the type of thing where there is literally not 'good enough'. I need to get better and better every day to the point of not just obsession but... Religion?

It won't surprise me if I genuinely dream of poker when I become a serious multi table grinder.

I am not at the stage of dreaming of actual poker bu tit has been a remote part of a few of my dreams recently.

Anyway, if you aren't ready to say 'I will make your jaws drop' then you never will have the real emotional need to not feel shame in that you must now LIVE UP TO WHAT YOU SAID.

I have that drive, and I improve because I always pretend I am better than I really am. When I really am amazing, I will say I am even more amazing and going to beat phil Ivey with 87% winrate if he faces me enough times.

I will do anything to make myself evolve. I will tell myself when at millionaire bankroll level that I will save all the poor kids and start a communist revolution against the capitalist illuminati of this world. I will do anything to make me need to wake up for a damn reason because if I don't I've been there, the suicidal thoughts the lack of passion... It's hell on earth.

You don't become great if you don't profess that you truly are that great deep down to begin with.
 
vinnie

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Then you are conceding that you are not the best.

For you to become the best you first need to say you are to yourself at the very least but also to others to make you have to live up to it.

I use this forum and the nonsense I say to really mean I have to live up to it.

If it wasn't for my ego and the need to prove people like vinnie and Keith MM wrong i'd probably have dropped poker altogether around march because I truly was growing sick of poker and had developd a sever rock TP playstyle that specialised in baiting and well sorry to be so poetic but 'waiting'.

Wait n bait... lost blinds... too late ;)

I evolved so much in the past 3-4 months as both a human being and poker player and it's all because I began to give myself something to live up to.

You can't beat up the bully unless you really get him to take you on in a fight and tell him how much better you are than him. If you lose, you will feel even more of a victim than before but if you win finally you can feel some real joy in life.

I was a depressed failing student of a computing degree and dropped out year one (I only began the degree age 20, call that redoing highschool 3 times except in UK version of community college for 2 of them. :) Get into a mediocre uni for foundation computing degree (foundation means 2 year course can be a technician at end but not anything like a developer or web designer) anyways... I hated it, I hate my whole life really. I was not and never will be cut out for exam-style things. I cannot just repeat things and get good at them to get a good grade I need the type of thing where there is literally not 'good enough'. I need to get better and better every day to the point of not just obsession but... Religion?

It won't surprise me if I genuinely dream of poker when I become a serious multi table grinder.

I am not at the stage of dreaming of actual poker bu tit has been a remote part of a few of my dreams recently.

Anyway, if you aren't ready to say 'I will make your jaws drop' then you never will have the real emotional need to not feel shame in that you must now LIVE UP TO WHAT YOU SAID.

I have that drive, and I improve because I always pretend I am better than I really am. When I really am amazing, I will say I am even more amazing and going to beat phil Ivey with 87% winrate if he faces me enough times.

I will do anything to make myself evolve. I will tell myself when at millionaire bankroll level that I will save all the poor kids and start a communist revolution against the capitalist illuminati of this world. I will do anything to make me need to wake up for a damn reason because if I don't I've been there, the suicidal thoughts the lack of passion... It's hell on earth.

You don't become great if you don't profess that you truly are that great deep down to begin with.

God, I love you RM. Seriously, it might be the wine speaking, but you never cease to awe me. :D
 
A

AlexTheOwl

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Then you are conceding that you are not the best.

I have a pretty good day job, and poker is a modestly profitable hobby. I'm more than happy to "concede" this.

It's good to have goals, and to believe that with hard work you can accomplish them.

It's not so good to proclaim your genius to the world when you are a beginner who has achieved nothing in poker. This is comic, and a bit sad. Do you see that at all?

I wish you well.
 
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ph_il

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You know enough to profess your opinion as if it were gospel truth.

Don't hate me for my arrogance hate yourself for your lack of it.
From what I've read that you've posted, yes, I have an opinion.

Could I be wrong? Of course, but I have yet to be convinced otherwise.

And I don't hate you. You should expect to be asked to back up claims of being a great player. Saying anything like that is going to be criticized.
 
R

Rational Madman

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I have a pretty good day job, and poker is a modestly profitable hobby. I'm more than happy to "concede" this.

It's good to have goals, and to believe that with hard work you can accomplish them.

It's not so good to proclaim your genius to the world when you are a beginner who has achieved nothing in poker. This is comic, and a bit sad. Do you see that at all?

I wish you well.
 
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