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

[BelgoSuisse]

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.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

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.

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.

 

[BelgoSuisse]

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.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

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?

 

[BelgoSuisse]

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.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

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.

 

[fx20736]

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.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

@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.

 

[BelgoSuisse]

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.

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.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

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.

 

[BelgoSuisse]

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.

Well, if in practice people will make mistakes at this 60bb deep game, i want to play it and take their money.

More specifically refering to the OP, if people will apply a really good 100bb strategy no matter what depth they play, I want to play them at any depth that is NOT 100bb. Ideally i'd prefer 500bb deep, but since I can't force them to play that deep, 60bb will still be a hell of a lot better than 100bb against those people. DUCY?

 

[Stu_Ungar]

Well, if in practice people will make mistakes at this 60bb deep game, i want to play it and take their money.

More specifically refering to the OP, if people will apply a really good 100bb strategy no matter what depth they play, I want to play them at any depth that is NOT 100bb. Ideally i'd prefer 500bb deep, but since I can't force them to play that deep, 60bb will still be a hell of a lot better than 100bb against those people. DUCY?

OK .. state a range that you would play 100BB deep on the button against an average opponent opening UTG:

now state a range you would play 60BB deep.

Notice that your stacksize has zero effect on his opening range preflop as he is still concerned with the other players at the table.

If the two ranges are equal then there is a problem.

 

[BelgoSuisse]

It might surprise you, Stu, but my game plan is not exactly based on making a profit versus UTG open-raises from nits. I don't know why you are monomaniac about that.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

It might surprise you, Stu, but my game plan is not exactly based on making a profit versus UTG open-raises from nits. I don't know why you are monomaniac about that.

Which is why I said this would be more suited to 6max than FR.

If you are going to play stack sizes that are difficult to show a profit against EP raises in FR.. why play FR?

 

[BelgoSuisse]

If you are going to play stack sizes that are difficult to show a profit against EP raises in FR.. why play FR?

Whatever form of poker I play, I play it because I believe my opponents will make more mistakes than I will, and therefore I will show a profit.

Hopefully that means a game that is hard enough for fishes to make mistakes, yet easy enough for me not to spew all of it back to better regs. 60bb deep 400nl FR might very well fit that description.

One good reason to play FR would be that villains overestimate the range of hands they can flat call with when I open UTG? If that's a common enough mistake, I'll make money.

 

[fx20736]

I think this reply got lost in the fusilade between Stu and Belgo. Would someone mind looking at my EV calculations and tell me if I am off or not?

Thanks

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.

 

[BelgoSuisse]

assume for this argument villain has flopped a set or 2 pair

You can't play 60bb poker and assume people have a set or 2 pairs whenever they shove over you.

 

[fx20736]

You can't play 60bb poker and assume people have a set or 2 pairs whenever they shove over you.

I'm not, I'm just saying, from an EV standpoint, if you couldn't assume the A & the K were outs in this scenario would my calcualtions about calling an All-in as a short stack be-EV and raising, and shoving over a re-raise with 100bb effective stack sizes preflop in the scenario I described be +EV. I am also wondering if I had to account for Fold equity or the nuimber of times he folded immediately to the cbet on the flop and if he just flatted the re-raise how would that change all this. I know this is alot of questions but I am trying to figure out how to play nut flush draws most profitably.

Thanks

 

[BelgoSuisse]

Computing EV to the 10th digit won't make you a better poker player.

With a nut flush draw and overcards that will sometimes be good and sometimes not, you typically want to get it in on the flop because you have roughly 50% equity versus any reasonable range of hands willing to play for not too deep stacks . But you also want to be the one to put the last pottish sized bet in, because your profit does not come from your 50% equity when you do play for stacks, you profit comes from all the times villain folds his share of equity in the hand when he folds to your raise. And typically, you rarely have a lot more than 50% equity either, so getting a fold is really nice.

So stop focusing on EV computations and start thinking of the line you want to take and the bet sizes you want to use in order to be the one to put the last bet in.

 

[WVHillbilly]

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.

Yeah my post wasn't meant as you need more money to play 60bb deep than you do 100bb. I meant is that I would want more BIs. So if my BRM dictated 50BIs to play 100bb deep, I might want 70BI to play 60bb. Fewer $$s, more BIs.

Jim plays an unorthodox style in other respects as well. See https://www.cardschat.com/forum/cash-game-hand-analysis-50/2-nlhe-full-ring-crazy-play-186795/ for our discussion on open limping and limp/3betting.

I'm not saying what he's doing doesn't work or that it's somehow wrong, his results are very good. I'm saying that he's clearly not playing a standard style with his 60bb - 75bb stack so making assumptions about ranges based on a standard TAG are pretty worthless.

 

[fx20736]

Computing EV to the 10th digit won't make you a better poker player.

With a nut flush draw and overcards that will sometimes be good and sometimes not, you typically want to get it in on the flop because you have roughly 50% equity versus any reasonable range of hands willing to play for not too deep stacks . But you also want to be the one to put the last pottish sized bet in, because your profit does not come from your 50% equity when you do play for stacks, you profit comes from all the times villain folds his share of equity in the hand when he folds to your raise. And typically, you rarely have a lot more than 50% equity either, so getting a fold is really nice.

So stop focusing on EV computations and start thinking of the line you want to take and the bet sizes you want to use in order to be the one to put the last bet in.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to determine the best possible flop raise to get villain to either fold or call off his whole stack so my call is +EV. Say I raised the flop by 1/2 of the effective stack sizes (50bb), he's probably only calling here with sets and maybe AA, KK. That way he folds out a huge part of his range which should show an immediate profit and if he shoves I'm calling off say 46bb for a pot that would be 159bb which looks very +EV.

 

[JMcCabe]

Nice to see this thread take off again and in such an intelligent direction.

Belgo, I've come across your posts in threads off and on since I've started reading Cardschat and have been quite impressed thus far. I've been playing poker for 15+ years and online for about 7+ now, so I like to think I know a little bit about what I'm doing.

It's going to be hard to cover the barrage of posts that have come up in the last 24 hours in one post, but I'll do my best.

@Stu: The reason my strategy works so well at FR is because a lot of the players think exactly as you do: mathematics of exploiting players who play "too loose" OOP, robotic play on too many tables, and trying to take 100BB stacks off fish. When a thinking player shows up with an unorthodox stack size, taking weird randomized lines with a variety of hands, and making correct decision more often than not, most of these regs have a hard time adapting.

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.

If I look back at my graph for the past 2+ years while I was building this strategy, I've actually made more money without showdown than at showdown. Over the past year, it's about 33% WOSD and 67% WSD. Why? Because I'm able to exploit the tight, nitty tendancies of FR players. I've tried doing this at 6max as well, but my results were not as great, mostly because 6max players are more likely to call you down light.

People always say, you can't setmine properly with 60 or 70BB stacks. However, if your strategy with small and mid pocket pairs relies solely on winning big pots with sets and folding whenever you miss a set, I'd suggest you are playing your small and mid pocket pairs suboptimally. Being able to take away the pot with these hands and win without showdown can greatly effect your BB/hand winrate with pocket pairs in the long run, both IP and OOP.

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

This fluctuates depending on the tables. Over a largest sample last year, I was running at 21/11/4. Over the past 2 months I've been running at 30/16/5.5. Seems laggy and spewy, doesn't it? But it still works, so long as you can outplay your opponents after the flop. A lot of my strategy involves maximizing fold equity and I find these stack sizers are easier to manipulate in what appears to be a pot-commited way.

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.

This is half true. The regs still consider me a fish at times and treat me as such, simply because I don't conform to the two "proper" ways to play: 100BB or 20BB buy-ins. The other factor is that the "fish" and "rec players" also view me as a fish and not a reg, which is good for exploiting them as well, especially since most of these players aren't buying in for 100BB on the main site I play anyways.

I need to go to bed, but I'll check in on this thread again in the morning. I don't think I've come close to answering all the questions directed at me, but that should be a start.

EDIT: Still weird being called "Jim", as it's not my name, and JMcCabe is a character from an Altman film with the name John McCabe.
EDIT 2: BTW, nobody opens for 4x or 5x in NL100 or above as far as I've seen over the past 4 years

 

[JMcCabe]

I think this reply got lost in the fusilade between Stu and Belgo. Would someone mind looking at my EV calculations and tell me if I am off or not?

Thanks


Quote:
Originally Posted by fx20736
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.

Problem with this analysis is

a) I would never take this line
b) Bet sizes are way to big for a typical table at NL100 and above

 

[WVHillbilly]

EDIT: Still weird being called "Jim", as it's not my name, and JMcCabe is a character from an Altman film with the name John McCabe.

Wow sorry. Guess my mind filled in the blank however it wanted.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

@Stu: The reason my strategy works so well at FR is because a lot of the players think exactly as you do: mathematics of exploiting players who play "too loose" OOP, robotic play on too many tables, and trying to take 100BB stacks off fish. When a thinking player shows up with an unorthodox stack size, taking weird randomized lines with a variety of hands, and making correct decision more often than not, most of these regs have a hard time adapting.

The thing is this:

So far the thread is has gone something like this.

"how do you like this strategy"

reply.. I dont because you cant play effectively against the first 3 positions in a FR game.

"well your too robotic and this works"

But you still havent actually tackled the issue of "how do you play against the first 3 positions?"

The only way I can see this working is to tighten up against them to such an extent that you basically avoid them and fold the hand range that plays well post flop against them.. which is a strategy.. but not one that really fits FR.

I think you are avoiding tackling this issue because your stratagy dosent really work at FR.. if you intend to avoid the really nitty FR EP ranges, a better strategy would be to not play FR and to play 6-max, where I think buying in for 60bb could work quite well.