$2-5 hand at the Mirage

[Tommy Angelo]

4:00 AM at the Mirage, last week. I got in a short-handed $20-40 limit hold'em game and it broke up almost immediately after two guys got all in right before I hit on the river. There was a short-handed NLHE game going and I got it in. The blinds were $2-5. Minimum buy-in $100. Max $500.

This was one of those games where when the waitress comes by, four splattered guys lift one arm each and grunt, and the waitress jots down four memorized drink orders. I was totally fresh and still on my first quart of coffee.

I made it five-handed. Stack sizes ranged from $200 to $800. I bought in for the minimum $100 for the usual three reasons:

1) I'm really good at playing all-in short-stack NL against drunk people.

2) I can always add on later and pick my investments precisely. If the guy with $200 is the worst player, and the guy with $800 is the best player, then I might decide to add on up to $200. Other way around, and I'd add on the maximum. I figure I only get to get the most out of this option once or twice per session. Might as well get it right.

3) I don't need to compete guys. I'm just here for the money.

I blinded down to $86, which might not sound like much, but that's two full rounds of mucking, and these guys were slow.

The first guy limped for $5. I was next and I went all in. The button folded and both blinds folded and the limper went WPT on me. He stood up, turned his cap around, turned his chair around, then he reached down to his cards on the table and turned them around, and he said, "You sit there all this time so you can bet your whole stack hoping to win 12 bucks?"

Now usually I'm not much of a talker in spots like this. But I'll fess up right now that I was hitting the coffee pretty heavy and I sort of totally lost my mind. Plus, it did seem like if I said anything at all, he would say "call."

In search of a flop, I said, "Actually, what I was hoping for was to double up."

He said, "I call," and he turned over J-8o. I turned over AJ and it held up. He offered to buy me a drink and I said sure, make it black.



Tommy

[youngin20]

lol. I would have said something along those lines. Perhaps "actually, i was hoping to take all your money."

[daryn]

how can you not like this guy's posts? the last line is awesome.

[SpaceAce]

Was this guy so bad that you were just dying to get all-in with AJ or was it the whole World Poker Tour routine?

SpaceAce

[B Mando]

Why wouldnt you buy in for more in case you got a big hand? Wouldnt you want to make much more money off these guys by just outplaying them instead of waiting for a big hand to just "double up"....When I play NL I always want to at least have a couple people covered...

[The Ocho]

[ QUOTE ]
Why wouldnt you buy in for more in case you got a big hand?

[/ QUOTE ]
Anti-Drunk Short Stack Sliding is pretty fun and effective. It gives them a chance to do something stupid that they may not do if you had a large stack. And giving drunk people the chance to be dumb is 90% of beating a game such as this one.

[snowbank]

Hey Tommy,

Very interested to hear more about buying in with the minimum, especially in what is probably very small stakes for you. I almost always buy-in for the max when I play so that I have as many people covered as I can. Should I be evaluating something else first?

[Sponger15SB]

[ QUOTE ]

I blinded down to $86 ... I went all in.

[/ QUOTE ]

*Ahem* this is the mid-high stakes forum....

[coltrane]

nice post Tommy,

I think this technique works especially well when SHORT-HANDED against drunks.....you know if you catch 3 decent all-in hands in a short span, someone's calling you on the third time with whatever they have (for you it only took one!).....I use this technique from time to time at my local game (check out my somewhat recent 5/5 JJ post) because it's even better structure-wise - 5/5, no max.buy, $100 min.buy, stacks are generally very deep so no one respects even a 50xBB stack (good for me to make them make big mistakes)....

one nice thing about being short in a shorthanded game is you can really push your mediocre/decent values without worrying about reads or implied odds or someone making a move on you, etc.....top pair is gonna be good so much more often 5-handed than full-ring - and when it's not, oh well, reload and keep pounding them.....

question....pre-flop, were you preferring high-cards or pairs as well.....I would think I'd rather see AJo than 66 with a shorty.....

[Ray Zee]

good post tommy.
you injected your thoughts about things most dont even think about. good job. at least you drink your java black, but next time though be a man and have a beer.