Punishing limpers

[pzhon]

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You don't want to have 10BB when you get those aces.

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You don't want to have more than 10 BB when someone else has AA. Every time someone wins because he has a deep stack, someone else is losing because he has a deep stack. The wins are more vivid, and someone always mentions value-betting the nuts in these discussions, but the losses overbalance the wins whether you notice the losses or not.

[theben]

i can't really say a probabilty that somebody would limp with a certain hand, because its player, game, and site dependant. its also hard to say if how many people actually call with worse, because that too depends on where and who you are playing. sorry i can't cough up a number but any number i give would be me BSing a very inaccurate approximation.

[ajmargarine]

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Contrary to popular belief, being a short stack is an intrinsic advantage.

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Wrong, wrong, wrong. A primary advantage NLHE has over LHE is that you can manipulate bet sizes so that opponents do not have proper odds to call your bets. As a matter of fact, this is where much of a NLHE player's profits come from: players mistakedly making bad calls against a good players bets. If you buy in short stacked, and lose a portion of your stack early, often you cannot bet enough to make it bad enough for players to fold to your bet. They will have the odds to draw, knowing you can't put any more pressure on them, and they know how much the next 2 cards are going to cost them. Also, you don't get paid off well on your monsters (If you are afraid of losing your medium sized stack to someone else's big hand, poker's not for you). You're often all in, in coin flip situations, win half, lose half. Etc. etc. etc.

We all get the same cards in the long run. A small stack limits what can be won when you are dealt those good cards that we all want to get.

[Voltron87]

1. there are advantages (limited) to being a shortstack

2. there are advantages to having a deep stack

3, most of your profit should come from people overplaying their hands, not from charging people for flushdraws. until a player gets to this point theyre not really playing nl

[AllIn3High]

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I don't think I could outplay my opponents worth 3 BB postflop with garbage in the big blind. I don't think anyone else can, either.


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I think you could have accomplished the same thing with a bigger stack raising to say £16 pre-flop.

My comment about outplaying them was in general. Judging from your descirption of your opponents it sounded like they were calling stations.

I agree that your move was profitable, but buy-in in short against bad opponents isn't maximizing your EV. Sure you can make a few BB here and there, but i think you can make far more by buying in for more and outplaying them. That's all I'm saying.

[ajmargarine]

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3, most of your profit should come from people overplaying their hands, not from charging people for flushdraws. until a player gets to this point theyre not really playing nl

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The flush draw was an example. I said much of our profits come from players mistakedly making bad calls (ie. decisions, call is a bad word there) against a good players bets. Draws are just a part of it, overplaying 2nd best hand is a part of it, etc. etc.

[teamdonkey]

i think this is fine as long as UTG isn't a donkey. Although asking for input on this forum is a little odd, 95% of the posters here never have a stack that small.

[pzhon]

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Contrary to popular belief, being a short stack is an intrinsic advantage.

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Wrong, wrong, wrong.

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The idea that a big stack has an intrinsic advantage is a common misconception. If you are going to try to defend it, add something new. You didn't.

Note that I am not alone in pointing out the advantages of short stacks. Numerous theorists and successful players have also pointed them out.

It may be possible to make more money with a big stack. It is possible that a grandmaster would make more money playing chess by spotting all comers a bishop than he would playing with no disadvantage. This does not mean losing a bishop is an advantage.

The point of this thread was that a short stack allows you to outplay your opponents in some situations many players don't expect. If you disagree with my analysis of the push from the big blind here, I'd like to hear it. If you just want to say that I must be a fish for buying in short and not sharing your misconceptions about NL play, save it.

[pzhon]

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expect to be definetly called by JJ+ and AK, as well as TT probably and maybe 99 and AQ

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Ok, with what probability do you think people would limp with those hands? Do you think people will call with worse?

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i can't really say a probabilty that somebody would limp with a certain hand, because its player, game, and site dependant. its also hard to say if how many people actually call with worse, because that too depends on where and who you are playing. sorry i can't cough up a number

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The point is not to come up with a number.

I'm not looking for a cop-out like, "It depends." I had been at the table for an orbit, so I didn't have detailed reads on everyone, either. Nevertheless, I made a decision I'm confident was +EV by a lot.

I asked to point out that it is relatively unlikely for someone to have limped with a big enough hand to make this a comfortable call. To defend yourself from someone who is willing to raise every time you show weakness, you need to lower your calling standards, trap frequently, or stop limping.

[pzhon]

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i think this is fine as long as UTG isn't a donkey.

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I'm not sure why you think UTG would have to be a donkey to make this a dangerous play. I usually limp UTG with JJ and AQ, and I would limp-reraise over a short-stack's push with both of those hands if there were several limpers beind me. I sometimes limp with AA and AK UTG, too, more as I play for higher stakes. (Of course, some people call me a donkey, but I console myself by rolling around in large piles of money won playing poker in ways that make sense to me, but not my opponents.)

I think the real donkey-play would be to limp with a low pair like 44, then put me on AK and call a push. I'm not so worried about this with Q7, but I suppose it is an argument for not having a low card in my hand when I make this push.

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Although asking for input on this forum is a little odd, 95% of the posters here never have a stack that small.

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I wasn't really posting for information. I posted it for discussion, since I thought this was an interesting hand. It illustrates an advantage of a short stack few cash game players have considered carefully.

I think many people have had a stack this short after losing a big pot. It may be that instead of thinking about how to play with a short stack well, they immediately reload.