Small Stack vs. Big Stack

[Chris Dow]

I actually play in this game and the answer is without question the new game. The blinds are 2/5 btw.

[Ed Miller]

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I actually play in this game and the answer is without question the new game. The blinds are 2/5 btw.

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Would you please explain?

[jason1990]

I'll take a shot at this. Suppose I was going to play heads up and I could only have a $200 stack. I would want to play with someone who had at least $200. If he had less, say $100, then it would be as though I had only $100. Since I'm a winning player, I want to have the largest stack possible, so I would want my opponent to have at least $200.

For the first hand, it wouldn't matter to me whether he had $200 or $1000, but looking into the future, as my stack grows, I don't want it to ever get larger than his. If it does, then I won't get my maximum winrate. For this reason, I would ideally like it if his stack was enormous.

For these reasons, I would choose to play at the table with lots of $1000 stacks. In short, there's more money on the table to be won.

This would be unaffected by how many additional buy-ins I have. I will be leaving (at the latest) when I'm broke, but I don't care when that occurs. I only care about maximizing my winrate during the time I'm playing.

[tylerdurden]

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For the first hand, it wouldn't matter to me whether he had $200 or $1000, but looking into the future, as my stack grows, I don't want it to ever get larger than his. If it does, then I won't get my maximum winrate. For this reason, I would ideally like it if his stack was enormous.

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Excellent answer, gold star, two points.

BTW, the question itself is incredibly effective. VNH.

[snappo]

I would say the game where everyone has $1,000 for sure. Assuming you are better than them, you can maximize your winnings because as your stack gets bigger, they will still have you covered so you can take advantage of your bigger stack. If everyone had $200 and you build your stack to $500, you are still essentially playing with a $200 stack yourself which is less profitable.

[punter11235]

I would choose the game with 1k stacks. I dont care if these guys are better or not... being shortstacked is too much of a advantage to miss. Every player with big stack have to play double game.. deep stacked NL vs other 1k guys and shortstacked NL vs me. This is advantegous in itself furthermore practice shows that bigstacks rarely cares about small one.
I think the real question should be : "how much sb would have to pay you to seat in new game".

Best wishes

[Sakuraba]

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Quote:
Check out his response to my post where he says $200 is just $200, he must not play a lot of NL. If i'm at a 2/5 table with $2500, $200 does little to nothing to my stack (i still probably cover the table) whereas a $200 stack is playing for all his chips.



This is a FALLACY. $200 might SEEM like less to you if you have $2,500 on the table, but $200 is always $200, no matter how many chips are on the table. If you lose $200, you've lost $200. It doesn't matter if it's your last $200, or if there's $20,000 more behind it. The result is exactly the same.

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Obviously, Ed is right. Why can't people understand this? I have had this exact arguement with a few people and they all vehemently disagree with the points Ed just made.

My guess is that they are adding in some extra emotional value to busting out. There are "bad feelings" associated with losing all of their money and since these big stacks have them covered and may play more aggressively (also thinking that they can push people around) there actually is a greater chance that one of them will bust them out. (but their long run EV is probably higher if the big stack is taking excessive measure to push them around) Also, if the amount at risk is the short stack's full gambling budget for the day, there is some "entertainment cost" of losing his stake and having to stop gambling.

If the person is gambling for fun, I think it is rational to assign some cost to having to end the day early, but it is not something that sufficiently bankrolled, positive EV gambler should care about.

[grimel]

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While hopefully this is so obvious that it isn't even worth mentioning to posters on this site, it's nowhere near obvious to your average NL player. NL literature is infested with people talking about how big stacks can "bully" small stacks, buying in small "puts you at an unneccessary disadvantage," or that simply buying in bigger than someone else will give you an advantage. I was trying to address those misconceptions.

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Not even begining to put myself at your level, but, I'll go one better and say due to the preponderance of "big stacks can bully little stacks" and "little stacks have to have the hands to win" that a GOOD player can take a small stack, show down one or two good hands and bully the big stacks. They (big stacks) "know" you have to play good cards as the small stack - all the books say so.

Playing short stack might not be optimum, but it sure isn't a total handicap.

[fimbulwinter]

my answer requires a few assumptions that may or may not be valid in the real world:

1. you take no account of the fact that if you bust, you lose all future good EV decisions, you are simply maximizing Ev for the time you sit, not looking to maximize total EV (time sat by EV/time)

2. the new players are on average as good/bad as the 1000 stack game. often there is a must move table with many rocks with many buyins playing 4BB pots on 200BB stacks. if this is the case, the new game has advantages.

sidenote: your assumption that winrate matters most invalidates your question about bankroll. it doesnt matter if you have .0001 buyins or 100000 buyins if all you care about is hand-to-hand EV.

that said, the 1K game is easily the answer for two reasons:

1. deeper stacks give good players a larger advantage over bad players as the EV mistakes betting on later streets are larger/better

2. you are more likely to encounter EV mistakes from the deep stacks playin deep against one another. at a table of 200 stacks, raising a $30 PFR to 100 flat will either get pushed or folded, at one with 200BB's multiple deep stacks will gamble against you if their EV loss against you is offest by their (possibly precieved and not real) EV advantage over other big stacks.

again, sidenote: i find it easier to get a table to deep stacks into gambling fever against small money on a psychological level. many people bring x buyins and leave when they lose it, so the "he coul break me" thing comes into play making the table tight when everyone is equal and shortstacked. people have no problem making loose calls against me at the commerce 200NL game when they have 2K or more in front, but when they have 150, they're in general playing premium holdings.

fim

[fimbulwinter]

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I did read ed's book (that's what i'm disagreeing with) and nothing he has said here has changed my mind, as he is only arguing by declaration and providing no reasoning for his arguments.

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I don't quite know what "arguing by declaration" means, but what I'm saying is all just very basic math and logic. The fact is, there are logical fallacies all of your points where you disagree with me.

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I don't know how much NL Ed plays, but his arguments sound like theoretical limit arguments to me and don't reflect the reality of NL.

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To be quite honest, even if I'd never played NL before, I'd be 100% right on these issues. They are math and logic issues, not "reality of NL" issues (whatever those might be).

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Check out his response to my post where he says $200 is just $200, he must not play a lot of NL. If i'm at a 2/5 table with $2500, $200 does little to nothing to my stack (i still probably cover the table) whereas a $200 stack is playing for all his chips.

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This is a FALLACY. $200 might SEEM like less to you if you have $2,500 on the table, but $200 is always $200, no matter how many chips are on the table. If you lose $200, you've lost $200. It doesn't matter if it's your last $200, or if there's $20,000 more behind it. The result is exactly the same.

This is how tournaments differ from cash games (which you get wrong in the next paragraph). In a tournament, T200 isn't necessarily T200 because CHIPS CHANGE VALUE. The only value tournament chips have is as a tool to maneuver you into places in the prize structure. I think I explain this idea fairly clearly in GSIH.

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Ed's comment about money in the pocket really makes no sense, since his book reasons that the short stacks do have a problem in tournaments because losing means getting knocked out, well if i'm a SS in a cash game and have no more money i'm in the same boat as a tourney player (and can be easily bullied), but if i have more buy-ins then being set-in isn't as much of a problem, since i'll just rebuy another SS.

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Again, the reason short stacks are at a disadvantage in a tournament isn't because losing all your chips means that you will have to go home. It's for these reasons:

1. Chips change value. Generally speaking, each chip added to a stack contributes less marginal value. So T200 off my T400 stack is actually WORTH MORE in a very real way than T200 off your T20,000 stack.

In a cash game, everyone's $200 is worth exactly the same... $200. Best Buy isn't going to give you an extra iPod for your $200 just because you won it from some sap with a short stack.

2. In a tournament, you are FORCED TO PLAY UNTIL YOU ARE BROKE. That means that if you get a VERY short stack (like 2 or 3 times the big blind) you must play it. A very short stack IS a disadvantage because you don't make enough on your good hands to overcome the blinds.

In a cash game, you never have that problem, because you can add to your stack or pick up and cash out whenever you want.

Now if being short-stacked and poorly bankrolled means that you will start playing weak-tight instead of properly (which is essentially what you are arguing), then of course it's a disadvantage. But as long as you play correctly, which is very easy to do (and outlined in GSIH), you're fine.

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I grind 2/5 weekdays at the Borg in AC, and i know many players who if they get a big stack (more than 3x the max) will immediately start playing lots of hands and setting short stacks in with a wide range of hands like 67s or even Axs or Kxs, and they don't mind doubling you up once or twice because when they catch you, you get stacked.

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This is a big mistake on their part, and if they are indeed "setting short stacks in" before the flop with these hands, they will get destroyed by a table full of GSIH (perhaps slightly modified to account for the excessive action) short stack players. The extent to which they aren't getting hammered by doing this only shows how incompetant their opponents are.

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This is what i mean by "being hurt" It is almost impossible to read the BS hand in these cases and if you are forced to call then your 'stackability' goes way up. Not to mention that when they have a 'real' hand they really get paid. These players will often just run over the table, esp. if they win a few suckouts. Some of them will also increase whatever the 'standard' raise has been, say from $50 to $200 making it real tough for a SS to play any pairs under KK, since they are calling for all of their chips and have less of an idea where they are. This makes the whole 'tight with SS' strategy very difficult to play.

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I'm sorry Joel, but you have some major misconceptions regarding the game you "grind." Perhaps you won't ever believe me, but realize that failing to understand this stuff will do you harm in the long run.

Fortunately, NL is different from limit in that you can be successful without understanding this theoretical stuff if you read hands real well. So you may well win in your game if you play well, even getting all this stuff wrong. But if you understood it, you'd win even more.

Good luck. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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actually ed, you too are slightly wrong buddy.

good players lose long term EV every time they lose a chip over the initial buyin assuming there are still stacks to cover, so there are more considerations to be made in a capped buyin NL cash game than strictly chip EV.

that said, i think a lot of players are far too willing to lose EV playing short to get to this magical deep stacked land of bonus EV and cost themselves money long term.

fim

PS- my girlfriend loves your book