Defending Ed Miller's short stack system

[vulturesrow]

I've noticed a fair amount of , shall we say hostility, towards the system advocated in GSIH. My aim here is to defend the system.

Background:

Ive been playing for over a year, basically switching back and forth between limit and NL as I get bored with just one game (I also had run where I was playing nothing but stud, which was very good to me). So I am not a complete beginner (although I still have much to learn). I wanted to start playing NL again and decided to start off using Ed's system as an experiment and to ease myself back into the NL game. That said, I dont buy out when my stack grows. This obviously allows me to do more post flop play when I grow my stack at a table. Obviously I am padding my profit in that respect. That said, let me answer what I see as the more common objections Ive seen so far. Let me start with what I see as people making incorrect conclusions as to Ed's reason for putting this system in his book.

Nowhere does Ed say that this is the way to make optimum profits at NLHE. He clearly states that it is a beginner strategy that will show a solid return. I completely agree with the posters that say this isnt the best way to make money at NLHE. That isnt the point of this system. Its a way to get beginner's playing in a manner that will show long term profit while they are learning. So I think many people are setting up a straw man in this respect. Ed does also go on to point out that he thinks NLHE is a flawed game because it can be exploited with this strategy. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Many people have said that this is a terrible way to learn NLHE, that they should just buyin for the max and get stacked off a few times. While I agree that a painful lesson is a lesson more easily remembered, it is very disheartening for many people and you can learn just as well from playing a short stack and losing a couple of those stacks.

Now Id like to lay out some reasons why I think this is a good system for beginners.

1. You learn the value of tight preflop play and why hand selection is so important.

2. You learn the importance of implied odds in NLHE. I see it over and over where a big stack will call my big raises with marginal hands for no other reason than it only takes a few dollars from his stack. We should all know why this is wrong (as long as there isnt another big stack in the hand as well).

3. It teaches the power of position in NLHE , e.g. you raise with AK or a low PP, get a caller or two and then take it down on the flop with your next bet, even though the flop may not have hit you with an A or K , or you have a low PP and get someone to lay down top pair.

So, in summary, this is a beginner's strategy. It isnt intended to be an optimal approach to NLHE, its a solid approach that allows you to learn. Many of my points above are very easy to understand in theory, but putting them into practice and seeing what happens is certainly the way to truly understand them.

Flame away and thanks for reading. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[fimbulwinter]

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I've noticed a fair amount of , shall we say hostility, towards the system advocated in GSIH. My aim here is to defend the system.

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by all means


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Background:

Ive been playing for over a year, basically switching back and forth between limit and NL as I get bored with just one game (I also had run where I was playing nothing but stud, which was very good to me). So I am not a complete beginner (although I still have much to learn). I wanted to start playing NL again and decided to start off using Ed's system as an experiment and to ease myself back into the NL game. That said, I dont buy out when my stack grows. This obviously allows me to do more post flop play when I grow my stack at a table. Obviously I am padding my profit in that respect. That said, let me answer what I see as the more common objections Ive seen so far. Let me start with what I see as people making incorrect conclusions as to Ed's reason for putting this system in his book.



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so basically you have the skill set necessary to make more money playing real NL but choose not to. that's our loss.

Ed put the system in his book because it works under the current (flawed) structure of online NL games. it's the "quick fix" that so many losing poker players crave. it won't make you a winner for any appreciable amount of money (reports are around 1-3BB/100 which is a pittance at games below ~400NL) but it will stem the bleeding that a lot of bad players with no discipline experience when they play real poker. this is obviously bad for those of us who play against such players.

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Nowhere does Ed say that this is the way to make optimum profits at NLHE. He clearly states that it is a beginner strategy that will show a solid return. I completely agree with the posters that say this isnt the best way to make money at NLHE. That isnt the point of this system. Its a way to get beginner's playing in a manner that will show long term profit while they are learning. So I think many people are setting up a straw man in this respect. Ed does also go on to point out that he thinks NLHE is a flawed game because it can be exploited with this strategy. /images/graemlins/smile.gif



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you are exactly mirroring what we're saying. nobody has argued that it is optimal, we've argued that it is a no-thinking, silly strategy that takes advantage of flaws in the game structure and somewhat spoils the game for those who'd like to play more than preflop.

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Many people have said that this is a terrible way to learn NLHE, that they should just buyin for the max and get stacked off a few times. While I agree that a painful lesson is a lesson more easily remembered, it is very disheartening for many people and you can learn just as well from playing a short stack and losing a couple of those stacks.



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it is a terrible way to learn because it tells you to turn your brain off. do x when y and you win. this has nothing to do with the beauty that is NL poker, namey that algorithmic play (which can destroy SSlimit games) will not work in any but the smallest NL games.

as for players doing this or getting stacked; this is flat out stupid. take a reasonable person, put 250 in a party account and give them a VP$IP=15 starting hands chart and they'll make money nut peddling the 25NL full ring. the reason people like this is that it allows them to play bigger than they should without getting creamed. the problem is that these players contribute little to the game and are using a strategy which is very difficult to beat for any appreciable amount of money, so no matter how bad you are, if you do the system, you can't lose or win much.

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Now Id like to lay out some reasons why I think this is a good system for beginners.



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I'd love to hear it

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1. You learn the value of tight preflop play and why hand selection is so important.


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this one i agree with mostly, except that you don't learn why hand selection is important as you don't do anything but ram preflop edges. you have no idea why i love seeing 56s on the button in a deep game. you have no idea how much value 22 has against a raise. you simply know that shoveling it in with AK and JJ+ against a standard range eeks you out a BB/100 long term. basically it takes the reason out of a position and implied-odds aware preflop strategy.

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2. You learn the importance of implied odds in NLHE. I see it over and over where a big stack will call my big raises with marginal hands for no other reason than it only takes a few dollars from his stack. We should all know why this is wrong (as long as there isnt another big stack in the hand as well).


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i won't even adress this as it is flat out wrong.

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3. It teaches the power of position in NLHE , e.g. you raise with AK or a low PP, get a caller or two and then take it down on the flop with your next bet, even though the flop may not have hit you with an A or K , or you have a low PP and get someone to lay down top pair.


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again, wrong. position has nothing to do with what you described. you described aggression as an asset in winning sometimes without the best hand. position helps with aggression, but you're muddled up in the above paragraph, and moreover you've missed a much bigger and more interesting point: the strategy teaches you dumb agression which will prevent you from playing an effective real game. since you can be all-in so easily, you'll often get it in ahead or drawing live with say AK. the same case will not be true with 100BB's because then people take the time to flop sets and make straights.

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So, in summary,

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here we go

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this is a beginner's strategy.

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nope, this is a quick-fix strategy which tkes losing players and makes them pseudo-winners. it is for anyone without the desire or patience to play real NL poker


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It isnt intended to be an optimal approach to NLHE,

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totally agree

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its a solid approach that allows you to learn.

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it is a quick fix approach which eliminates most learning from the game
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Many of my points above are very easy to understand in theory, but putting them into practice and seeing what happens is certainly the way to truly understand them.


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you don't understand many of the points you tried to make above. moreover, you are not putting really any into practice using this system, and so there will be little chance a new player will "truly understand" them.

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Flame away and thanks for reading. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

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no flame, just a clarification. we hate the system because it has no value, long term, to the game. we'd like to play poker on all streets, not just WPT style all-in douchefests. this system basically takes cash NL games and reduces them to the sickening simplicity of tournament play, which sucks and is no fun for us or the players doing it.

fim

[amoeba]

In a typical poker game, your decisions come down to betting/raising, calling/checking, folding and of course how much to bet/raise, etc...

I think since how much to buy in is a decision as well, we should treat this as yet another strategic weapon.

[vulturesrow]

Fim,

Thanks for answering. I was hoping to generate some discussion with this post (obviously) and hopefully find what I am missing in my "defense" and get a better understanding about what people dont like about this system. On to the show... /images/graemlins/smile.gif

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so basically you have the skill set necessary to make more money playing real NL but choose not to. that's our loss.

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Its a short term thing /images/graemlins/smile.gif I just wanted to try it out and see what happened. Also, I am able to employ my entire range skills once I grow my stack. As I said, I dont cash out.

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it is a terrible way to learn because it tells you to turn your brain off. do x when y and you win. this has nothing to do with the beauty that is NL poker, namey that algorithmic play (which can destroy SSlimit games) will not work in any but the smallest NL games.

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as for players doing this or getting stacked; this is flat out stupid. take a reasonable person, put 250 in a party account and give them a VP$IP=15 starting hands chart and they'll make money nut peddling the 25NL full ring.

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Arent these essentially the same thing?

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i won't even adress this as it is flat out wrong.

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I disagree. When you see someone willing to call raises with 67s against your AA, and all he wins is your peanuts, that should be a good illustration of implied odds. Granted, you have to be thinking about this as your playing, but I dont think I am completely wrong here.

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again, wrong. position has nothing to do with what you described. you described aggression as an asset in winning sometimes without the best hand. position helps with aggression, but you're muddled up in the above paragraph, and moreover you've missed a much bigger and more interesting point: the strategy teaches you dumb agression which will prevent you from playing an effective real game. since you can be all-in so easily, you'll often get it in ahead or drawing live with say AK. the same case will not be true with 100BB's because then people take the time to flop sets and make straights.

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I agree I muddled two concepts there. But do you think it teaches you nothing about why having position on another player is important? But I agree, I presented that one poorly so I wont argue too much with you there.

Anyways, to address the rest of your points, it seems like the disagreement is more of a philosophical point than anything. You basically think its will create robotic players who dont contribute anything to the "fun" of the game. I think that a person will not stick with this strategy long term. Some will, that is people who are content grinding it out like this. Some will progress on to a more complete strategy and become the players you want. Some will progress on to a more complete strategy and still be hopelessly bad. I will definitely stick to my contention that Ed intended it as a beginner's strategy. And I think its fine for that. What they do beyond is totally up to their desire and what they want to get out of poker.

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you don't understand many of the points you tried to make above. moreover, you are not putting really any into practice using this system, and so there will be little chance a new player will "truly understand" them

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I think there was one point on which I definitely did a poor job of explaining. However I do agree that my prior experience probably does taint my "experiment" which I thought was an implicit point in my pointing out that I do have experience.

Thanks for taking the time to write an obviously well thought out post and giving me a better understanding of objectors. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

VR

[fimbulwinter]

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Fim,

Thanks for answering. I was hoping to generate some discussion with this post (obviously) and hopefully find what I am missing in my "defense" and get a better understanding about what people dont like about this system. On to the show... /images/graemlins/smile.gif

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so basically you have the skill set necessary to make more money playing real NL but choose not to. that's our loss.

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Its a short term thing /images/graemlins/smile.gif I just wanted to try it out and see what happened. Also, I am able to employ my entire range skills once I grow my stack. As I said, I dont cash out.


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again, that's your loss. many players in the live cash games i play do stupid things like call all-in with SC's preflop in hopes of doubling up and playing deeper against the fish. obviously they overestimate their skill overlay, but playing deep is worth so much more money long term that you're basically throwing away money.

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it is a terrible way to learn because it tells you to turn your brain off. do x when y and you win. this has nothing to do with the beauty that is NL poker, namey that algorithmic play (which can destroy SSlimit games) will not work in any but the smallest NL games.

[/ QUOTE ]

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as for players doing this or getting stacked; this is flat out stupid. take a reasonable person, put 250 in a party account and give them a VP$IP=15 starting hands chart and they'll make money nut peddling the 25NL full ring.

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Arent these essentially the same thing?


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not in the least. they'll have to play those hands on all three streets, not just preflop. the reaon they'll be able to win is because in general they'll be making hands strong enough (playing only the very best hands) to stand up to newbie mistakes on later streets. they'll still make those mistakes and learn from them, increasing their winrate. the preflop tightness is just to keep them from having to do somthing like play ATs unimproved against a likely drawer, which is hard to do for even very good players.

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i won't even adress this as it is flat out wrong.

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I disagree. When you see someone willing to call raises with 67s against your AA, and all he wins is your peanuts, that should be a good illustration of implied odds. Granted, you have to be thinking about this as your playing, but I dont think I am completely wrong here.


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they learn nothing about implied odds, all they see is them getting loose calls because the money is inconsequenctial to the big stacks, not because the big stacks are actively thinking they have implied odds when they don't. moreover, they never have the chance to be on the other side of the coin and call a raise knowing they're bhind to try and win money. they simply play a game of thin value betting preflop, which teaches pretty much nothing about implied odds or reverse implied odds. this is just another function of the "no-think" mentality of the system.
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again, wrong. position has nothing to do with what you described. you described aggression as an asset in winning sometimes without the best hand. position helps with aggression, but you're muddled up in the above paragraph, and moreover you've missed a much bigger and more interesting point: the strategy teaches you dumb agression which will prevent you from playing an effective real game. since you can be all-in so easily, you'll often get it in ahead or drawing live with say AK. the same case will not be true with 100BB's because then people take the time to flop sets and make straights.

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I agree I muddled two concepts there. But do you think it teaches you nothing about why having position on another player is important? But I agree, I presented that one poorly so I wont argue too much with you there.


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again, position matters more when you're deep. we all know that. with "the system" you could push against a button raise with AT etc. and know you're likely to be somewhat ahead. deep you know you shouldnt call because you're not likely to win a big pot and he has position and therefore won't lose much. the system in fact teaches disregard for position, not apprecation for it as you can get all-in so easily which nullifies position.


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Anyways, to address the rest of your points, it seems like the disagreement is more of a philosophical point than anything. You basically think its will create robotic players who dont contribute anything to the "fun" of the game. I think that a person will not stick with this strategy long term. Some will, that is people who are content grinding it out like this. Some will progress on to a more complete strategy and become the players you want. Some will progress on to a more complete strategy and still be hopelessly bad. I will definitely stick to my contention that Ed intended it as a beginner's strategy. And I think its fine for that. What they do beyond is totally up to their desire and what they want to get out of poker.


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the problem is that ed showed what we all know to be true but didnt say anything about. bad players like action and this is an action system (you get all in a lot). bad players playing deep give up lots of money. bad players playing shallow don't. i for one want more bad players in my game and i don;t want to play somewhere that negates my advantage as a better player because of a dumb oversight in minbuy requirements meant to keep fishies from leaving the site.

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you don't understand many of the points you tried to make above. moreover, you are not putting really any into practice using this system, and so there will be little chance a new player will "truly understand" them

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I think there was one point on which I definitely did a poor job of explaining. However I do agree that my prior experience probably does taint my "experiment" which I thought was an implicit point in my pointing out that I do have experience.

Thanks for taking the time to write an obviously well thought out post and giving me a better understanding of objectors. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

VR

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you too. discussion makes us all better poker players.

fim

[swolfe]

i said this in a post a few days ago, but i think it deserves to be repeated: good poker players make money by making good decisions. when the money is deeper there are more decisions to be made and they matter exponentially more.

[vulturesrow]

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i said this in a post a few days ago, but i think it deserves to be repeated: good poker players make money by making good decisions. when the money is deeper there are more decisions to be made and they matter exponentially more.

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I couldnt agree more. But how do you equip the beginning player to make these decisions?

[vulturesrow]

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again, that's your loss. many players in the live cash games i play do stupid things like call all-in with SC's preflop in hopes of doubling up and playing deeper against the fish. obviously they overestimate their skill overlay, but playing deep is worth so much more money long term that you're basically throwing away money.


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I appreciate your concern fim. /images/graemlins/smile.gif And actually I am done with the system, this post was basically my culmination if you will. But I have to wonder if you are concerned about me throwing away money or if you are just hoping Ill show up in the same game as you with deep money. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

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not in the least. they'll have to play those hands on all three streets, not just preflop. the reaon they'll be able to win is because in general they'll be making hands strong enough (playing only the very best hands) to stand up to newbie mistakes on later streets. they'll still make those mistakes and learn from them, increasing their winrate. the preflop tightness is just to keep them from having to do somthing like play ATs unimproved against a likely drawer, which is hard to do for even very good players.

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Ok thats reasonable. But a beginner is more likely to stack off with a strong hand anyways because he doesnt realize when he is beat with a strong hand.

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they learn nothing about implied odds, all they see is them getting loose calls because the money is inconsequenctial to the big stacks, not because the big stacks are actively thinking they have implied odds when they don't. moreover, they never have the chance to be on the other side of the coin and call a raise knowing they're bhind to try and win money. they simply play a game of thin value betting preflop, which teaches pretty much nothing about implied odds or reverse implied odds. this is just another function of the "no-think" mentality of the system.

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This is the one point where I figured I might be wrong. And this is because I do recognize it having played on the "other side". However I would submit that players who actually _read_ the point in Ed's book and strive to understand them will gain some understanding of implied odds. But you are right, if a person is just playing the "system" in a very robotic manner and not thinking about the game, he probably wont get this. So I will concede on this point. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

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again, position matters more when you're deep. we all know that. with "the system" you could push against a button raise with AT etc. and know you're likely to be somewhat ahead. deep you know you shouldnt call because you're not likely to win a big pot and he has position and therefore won't lose much. the system in fact teaches disregard for position, not apprecation for it as you can get all-in so easily which nullifies position.


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I cant think of a situation in the system where you would get allin with AT against a button raiser. Have you read GSIH?

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the problem is that ed showed what we all know to be true but didnt say anything about. bad players like action and this is an action system (you get all in a lot). bad players playing deep give up lots of money. bad players playing shallow don't. i for one want more bad players in my game and i don;t want to play somewhere that negates my advantage as a better player because of a dumb oversight in minbuy requirements meant to keep fishies from leaving the site.

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In Ed's defense, he basically pointed out this way of playing is exploiting a flaw in the game.

At any rate, I am feeling more and more that my experiment was probably not much of one (as you correctly pointed out) because of the experience I already had. This was truly my one concern with this.

However I do have ideas for another thread...stand by for more... /images/graemlins/grin.gif