02- 7-05, LearnTexasHoldem:

Short Buy Strategy For No Limit

Question: Thanks again for the site - I especially found the "Am I a Rock" section to be quite good...After I started having a drink or 2 at the table, the whole game seemed to get a whole lot easier, and much more fun :) Anyway, Question: I have a friend who plays online poker, the $25, $50 or $100 NL tables - His strategy is to get on a table, buy in for about 1/2 the buy in ($14 on a $25 table, $21 on a $50 table etc.) and then win 1 hand and leave immediately...He likes this strategy because when he has a good draw, he just goes all in, or when he has top pair, he just goes all in, w/out having too much money at stake - If he doubles up, he will just leave and go to another table...He has been reasonably succesful with it - 1 thing he seems to notice is that people will call him a LOT, merely cause it usually doesn't cost them much to call him out..and there is something about seeing someone with a short stack, and thinking they are an idiot (he isn't, he's actually a pretty solid player)...What do you think of a strategy like this? He feels that he avoids a lot of bad beats, since he only has a certain amount of money at the table, and when he has a good hand he gets paid off usually since nobody seems to believe him - The one problem I see is that he could get REALLY paid off if he had more money to put in. And he doesn't get any kind of a read on anyone at the table, since he's at a table for like 15 min's tops -

Thanks,

Paul

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Answer: When you buy-in to a table for less than a rack in limit holdem or for less than the full buy-in in no limit holdem, it is called a "short buy." People do short buys fairly often but normally when they do them they hope to get the ball rolling with less than a full buy-in and keep playing, they don't pull a hit and run (win and leave really quickly). I think your thoughts on his strategy are about what I say.

When I play no limit holdem with a set buy-in, I like to always have the full amount in front of me because you never know when you'll be in a hand that you could double through. When you play limit holdem, how much money you have in front of you doesn't really matter. When you play no limit holdem, the amount of chips you have does affect how aggressive you are. Another by product of having a lot of chips in front of you is similar to having very few, people tend to play worse against you.

I think the rationale is they assume you can't always have a good hand; another part of it may be they just want to try and knock off the winner. When you have a large stack of chips in front of you compared to the other players at the table, you can push them around more so than you could with an equal amount; this would be analogous to having a butcher knife compared to a spoon. The butcher knife commands more respect, and rightly so because if that goes in your gut, you'll be hurtin'.

Same thing goes for a big stack: If the opponents decide to battle you in a hand, they know very well that it could cost them their entire day; by leaving early, your buddy misses out on all this. Next, I don't think that him leaving after winning a pot cuts down on the bad beats. Bad beats are the result of people taking worse hands against better hands and getting lucky. Luck is luck and math is math, him leaving early doesn't change it. Next, one of the most fun things in no limit holdem cash games is to have a big stack in front of you. You can't deny yourself that pleasure.

It is understandable if he wants to play it safe and leave a little early to guarantee a win but doing that all day, jumping from table to table, isn't half as fun as staying at one table and growing your pile to 5 or even 10x the buy-in. Lastly, there is no one right way of doing things in poker. If your buddy is content and winning consistently, I don't see anything wrong with continuing this even if it might limit how much he could potentially win.

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