> and I didn't realize how buying in for [10 or 20 big blinds] was to my immense disadvantage.
It's not inherently a disadvantage for those who understand the consequences. When everyone else has bought in for a normal amount, they'll open a wide range of hands that can be punished by an opponent with a stack of that size who has a good sense of what that range will be. (Although 30 or so might work better for this kind of strategy.)
The idea is to go all in (i.e., over the top of opening raises - which at a cash game are usually at least 3-4 big blinds; at a low stakes live table they could be quite a bit higher) with hands that have good preflop equity against that range. To adjust, other players are forced to tighten their ranges - otherwise they'll be stuck opening and folding speculative hands, or doing worse by calling (people can be stubborn at low stakes, and fail to understand that a hand that's playable with deep stacks is relative garbage all-in preflop). The shape of the range you shove all-in will be different; random Ax hands go up in value (you're ahead of KQ and you have a blocker that makes it less likely for opener to have an Ace), while e.g. suited connectors go way down in value (you also can't open them, because you can't win big pots to make up for the times you don't hit).
If the table doesn't adjust, you keep exploiting it. To adjust, they have to tighten their ranges, and then you can hopefully steal more blinds. Either that or they reduce their opening raise size; if that leads to pots where multiple people committed against a small raise (or even all just limped in), you can punish by still shoving, but only with premium hands.
Of course, tournament poker does work differently; but if you're short stacked relative to the rest of the table there, it's not because of how you bought in, anyway.
> I recommend it to all my friends and family as the only thing I'll play in a casino. You are actively engaged in decision-making while competing against other players, as opposed to sadly pressing a gamble button with 49% - 51% probabilities the house has set against you.
It should be noted that the house does "rake" the pot at a casino cash game, and pays out less than the total buy-in for a tournament. It seems like a small fraction, but the variance in poker is wide enough that it's very difficult to beat, especially at low stakes. (And those who have beat it over some period, may not have a sample size that actually provides good evidence of being able to do so consistently.)
Thanks for taking the time to write up all this commentary and share it!
seems like you know your stuff. specifically
> agree the word "immense" is misused there, and perhaps this phrase as a whole should be cut out since it's a bit misleading... i guess i was trying to express my naiveness back in the day, but i ended up showcasing that it persists to some extent to the present, which is why i appreciate the comment and opportunity to learn more from smart internet poker people!! :)
> rake is great point, and i was thinking about this quite a bit yesterday while playing these terribly low-capped buy-in games in LA at hollywood park haha ($100 max for $1-3 or $500 max for $5-5 and they like telling everyone to straddle so it's effectively 5-5-10, ugh... guess your short stack point comes in handy here too)
> honored you haven't written any further corrections so i assume the rest of my post wasn't horribly inaccurate, yay :p
I studied the game in some depth around a decade ago (maybe longer than that). Both practical strategy as counseled by experts, and also on a more formal, theoretical level. I have one physical book on the topic - The Mathematics of Poker by Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman - and can highly recommend it.
I wasn't really aiming to "correct" you but just give additional insight. It seems like you clearly recognize the impact that luck has in poker, and your points about mental discipline are well taken. (I'm bad at that, and I figure that's mainly why I never saw major success despite my understanding of the math.) It seemed like your intent was to offer fairly basic advice, and I don't see anything really wrong with it (except that in typical situations, a small pair like 44 is at least as playable as the weaker "hands with a value of 10 or higher, for both of your cards" like QTo; and a lot of the time a small suited Ace also has comparable value).
Of course, it would be better to distinguish between strategy in cash games and tournament play, since you mention trying your hand at both; but that's really not as important as the fundamental ideas you present (trying to be aggressive preflop to get heads-up; making sensible bet sizes; understanding how "short" a 15BB stack is with no-limit betting; making continuation bets as cheap bluffs in appropriate spots; not getting fancy against simple-minded opponents).
> low-capped buy-in games in LA at hollywood park haha ($100 max for $1-3)
Oof. Yeah, a shove-or-fold strategy is probably very viable there if people are opening speculative hands to like $12 or more. (And I imagine they will do that, because even if they have a basic understanding and aren't just there to gamble, they aren't going to understand how deep you have to be to make things like 98s profitable.) Of course, if you aren't comfortable repeatedly putting $100 at a time on a 60-40 proposition (plus getting a chunk raked away when you win) then you can't really play live poker for cash. (And I mean 60-40 at the time of betting, based on an expected range - not when the cards are turned up. Your opponents are allowed to have AA sometimes.)
It's not inherently a disadvantage for those who understand the consequences. When everyone else has bought in for a normal amount, they'll open a wide range of hands that can be punished by an opponent with a stack of that size who has a good sense of what that range will be. (Although 30 or so might work better for this kind of strategy.)
The idea is to go all in (i.e., over the top of opening raises - which at a cash game are usually at least 3-4 big blinds; at a low stakes live table they could be quite a bit higher) with hands that have good preflop equity against that range. To adjust, other players are forced to tighten their ranges - otherwise they'll be stuck opening and folding speculative hands, or doing worse by calling (people can be stubborn at low stakes, and fail to understand that a hand that's playable with deep stacks is relative garbage all-in preflop). The shape of the range you shove all-in will be different; random Ax hands go up in value (you're ahead of KQ and you have a blocker that makes it less likely for opener to have an Ace), while e.g. suited connectors go way down in value (you also can't open them, because you can't win big pots to make up for the times you don't hit).
If the table doesn't adjust, you keep exploiting it. To adjust, they have to tighten their ranges, and then you can hopefully steal more blinds. Either that or they reduce their opening raise size; if that leads to pots where multiple people committed against a small raise (or even all just limped in), you can punish by still shoving, but only with premium hands.
Of course, tournament poker does work differently; but if you're short stacked relative to the rest of the table there, it's not because of how you bought in, anyway.
> I recommend it to all my friends and family as the only thing I'll play in a casino. You are actively engaged in decision-making while competing against other players, as opposed to sadly pressing a gamble button with 49% - 51% probabilities the house has set against you.
It should be noted that the house does "rake" the pot at a casino cash game, and pays out less than the total buy-in for a tournament. It seems like a small fraction, but the variance in poker is wide enough that it's very difficult to beat, especially at low stakes. (And those who have beat it over some period, may not have a sample size that actually provides good evidence of being able to do so consistently.)