Is NL a flawed form of poker?

[fimbulwinter]

come on guys, this is any easy answer.

if one guy has 10000BB and everyone else has 10, he plays the 10BB game as best he can. these tiny, low-variance EV nibblets you're taking pale in comparison with the massive EV overlay good players get in a deep situation. there's a reason guys like flynn built their BR's playing bigger games like this, but like you said, it's an ugly grind, and it won't keep your head above water when you actually want to make more.

If you had to make a meager living and had no experience or innate intelligence, this is a great approach. as the money gets bigger, the margin gets smaller but will always be there so long as there are guys playing deep against each other. my reccomendation? put away the minnow net, think about the game a little and grab a harpoon.

fim

[pk Wools]

there's a reason why shortstacks are disadvantaged

it's simple, when you are short stacked you are potcommitted, you cannot give people improper odds, where your money is mostly made

example:

you hold AA and get called by drawing hands..

suppose you get 562 and someone holds 87.. you cannot push this person's draw

if they get the flop they want they have easy odds to draw, other they can choose to fold, the short stack cannot

[fimbulwinter]

[ QUOTE ]
there's a reason why shortstacks are disadvantaged

it's simple, when you are short stacked you are potcommitted, you cannot give people improper odds, where your money is mostly made

example:

you hold AA and get called by drawing hands..

suppose you get 562 and someone holds 87.. you cannot push this person's draw

if they get the flop they want they have easy odds to draw, other they can choose to fold, the short stack cannot

[/ QUOTE ]

read the other posts. you don't get it.

fim

[Kevin K.]

[ QUOTE ]
FWIW, my buddy who plays the stars NL1000 games says that the players who buy short get housed on a regular basis.

I think if you are very selective, you can make this strategy work at any limit. The problem is that people go overboard with it, and try to steal pots with hands like AJ by moving in preflop.

If you are multi-tabling and using this strategy, I would suggest having atleast 30 mini buy-ins.

[/ QUOTE ]

How many of the people buying in short in these games are using this particular strat, though? A good percentage of the people that your friend is referring to could just be clueless donks who don't have 1k to buy-in with.

[FreakDaddy]

The short stack system is great for beginners who want to take little risk. Unfortunetly I think you're losing money playing this system in terms of a time / money ratio because you should be able to play party $25/$50 for at least 10PTBB/100 on monkey auto-pilot. I'd like to see the PTBB/100 at higher levels. I would suspect it would be < 1.

[Nate_Dogg]

[ QUOTE ]


I played 1296 hands (it took that many to clear the 700 hand bonus!?!), VPIP of 13.3, PTBB/100 of 2.48. Biggest downswing 32 PTBB


[/ QUOTE ]

I think this win-rate sucks. You could make more by folding every hand except Aces, Kings, and Queens. I think I'll keep buying in for a full stack and making 7-11 PTBB/HH through solid play.

[Ed Miller]

Just to be clear:

This short-stack strategy is recommended in my beginner's book, Getting Started in Hold 'em. I said, "What can I write for beginners in 20-30 pages that will make them winners at no limit?" That's what I came up with.

A lot of you are saying, "No way I'm playing that way, I already make way more playing deep stacks." Of course you do... that strategy isn't intended for you. It's intended for the people you are winning the money from playing deep stacks... the losing players.

The strategy is not intended to be even close to optimal play. It's not intended to exploit poor players to the fullest. It's not even intended to be fun.

It's intended to give a beginner a shot at winning off the bat, and it's intended to help a beginner overcome the fear of being outplayed. For someone who has never played NL before, it helps them think, "This is simple enough. I can win at this game."

Having said that, a monkey could make a pretty good living in the $10-$20 game at Bellagio playing this way.

[FreakDaddy]

Thanks for helping to clear that up Ed, and thanks for creating a system for all these players to buy-in short stacked. They're easy as hell to read. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]

The strategy is not intended to be even close to optimal play. It's not intended to exploit poor players to the fullest. It's not even intended to be fun.

It's intended to give a beginner a shot at winning off the bat, and it's intended to help a beginner overcome the fear of being outplayed. For someone who has never played NL before, it helps them think, "This is simple enough. I can win at this game."

Having said that, a monkey could make a pretty good living in the $10-$20 game at Bellagio playing this way.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry to chime in late, but I find this comment interesting. Because the same could be said in defense of Lee Jones's "Winning Low Limit Holdem" as it relates to Limit.

However in the build up to SSH, Jones was routinely excoriated by Miller for advising sub-optimal play (which he does).

[StLouisMike]

I played online for about a month playing like .10/.20 nlhe and never turned a profit. One day I put in $50 and tried .50/1 nlhe and over a weekend won $500 using this exact same strategy. I bought in for the minimum and played like a rock. I actually made it up to $2500 in two weeks using this. And I think that what we all can take from it me included is the value of tight selective play. Especially online this seems to be true. For me at least I seem to underestimate the strength of some opponents simply because I cannot see them or get a feel for their personalities. But, when I first started I gave my opponents all the credit in the world and just played premium hands and it worked.