Small Stack vs. Big Stack

[joel2006]

"You seem to be oblivious to the very basic gambling concept of Expected Value."

No I'm not oblivious to it at all, I understand EV.

Let's say you start with $3000 and your opponent starts with $200, and you bully him around by constantly setting him all-in when you're a 2:1 dog.

So assuming that you will continue bullying him until one of you goes broke, at which point the game ends, you will make a $200 profit 65 times out of 81, and lose $3000 16 times out of 81. (65/81 x 200) + (16/81 x -3000) = 160 - 593 = -433

Here you make my point which is that the SS will get broke 4x for every time he doesn't or to put it another way in any given session the odds are 4:1 that he will get broken, which means he is very likely to get broken in any single session. Yes he will make money in the long run, but he will spend a lot of time broke. My point is that there are other ways of playing that make money where you don't spend a lot of time broke.

"You lose an average of $433 to each person that you try to bully. So congratulations. You're one of the millions of fish that make the games good."

You missed my point, I don't play this way and i stated in my original post that many guys who do LOSE MONEY, my point is that if they are willing to make this play and the SS knows this, that they can give a SS a lot of trouble because they won't always be settting you in with a draw, they will oftentimes be ahead of you and it will be difficult for the SS to know which is which.

[gergery]

[ QUOTE ]
You also seem to be unaware of what I call the ‘Big bank takes Little bank’ strategy of playing NL.


[/ QUOTE ]

This reminds me of the roulette strategy of always betting red, and if you lose, then double your bet the next time.

I think you're confusing expectation with risk of ruin.

If I have a million dollar gambling bankroll and sit at the deep-stacked tables you mention with a shortstack, I will crush them if people play the way you mention. I may get sucked-out on and stacked a few times, but long-run expection is enormous.

[joel2006]

"2) A strategy like the big stacks making standard preflop raises of 25X the BB would be very easy for a short stack to beat. You would just wait for a premium hand and then stick all of your chips in. You can't argue that this counter strategy wouldn't work, can you? The blinds would be very cheap relative to the large expected value I would have every time I picked up a premium hand. "

Dude, you are so missing the point, you waiting for a 'premium' hand is exactly what the big stacks want, for two reasons: One is that by restricting your hand selection, it makes you very easy to read, they will all know exactly where you are, Two is that although you will be a favorite against anyone of them, Your big pair will be a dog against the field, so one of them is likely to stack you. And you will either rebuy or get up. In the case of Ed's example the guy would be getting up, but he wanted to play poker, not sit on the rail and count the theoretical money he made from his +EV play.

[joel2006]

"If you set me in as an underdog (knowing I'll call), that is -EV for you. If you do it several times, it is -EV for you each time. Even if I am an underdog to survive all of these hands, the collection of actions is not +EV for you. You lose on average."

My point is not that this is +EV for the 'bigstacker', I acknowledge that it isn't, the point is that the SS is likely to get broken (which is where how much he has in his pocket becomes relevant, since you need money to make money), and that it creates difficulties for a SS, that if you play with a larger stack you won't have.

[jason1990]

[ QUOTE ]
This is why I stated earlier that it depends on how much money you have in your pocket, if your bankroll is as deep as my stack (or close) then you're fine, but if not I may be able to break you before you get to the long run.

[/ QUOTE ]
So suppose I walk up to a table where the blinds are $2 and $4 with a maximum buy-in of $200. I have $10,000 in my pocket. It's my entire bankroll. If I lose it, I'm done with poker for life. You are sitting at this table, alone, with a $1,000,000 stack. I know that I am a slight favorite over you heads up. Are you suggesting that I shouldn't sit down and play with you because your stack grossly outweighs my bankroll?

[Mathemagician]

[ QUOTE ]
You seem to be oblivious to the very basic gambling concept of Expected Value.

Let's say you start with $3000 and your opponent starts with $200, and you bully him around by constantly setting him all-in when you're a 2:1 dog.

1/3 (27/81) of the time he will lose the first hand and go home. You end with $3200.
2/9 (18/81) of the time he will win the first, lose the second, you end with $3200.
4/27 (12/81) of the time he will win the first two, lose the third, you end with $3200.
8/81 of the time he will win the first three, lose the fourth, you end with $3200.
16/81 of the time he will win all four times. Now he has gone from 200 -> 400 -> 800 -> 1600 -> 3200 and you end with $0.

So assuming that you will continue bullying him until one of you goes broke, at which point the game ends, you will make a $200 profit 65 times out of 81, and lose $3000 16 times out of 81. (65/81 x 200) + (16/81 x -3000) = 160 - 593 = -433

You lose an average of $433 to each person that you try to bully. So congratulations. You're one of the millions of fish that make the games good.

[/ QUOTE ]This is not quite right. He still has $200 left at the end, not $0.

M

[joel2006]

Are you suggesting that I shouldn't sit down and play with you because your stack grossly outweighs my bankroll?

[/ QUOTE ]

It depends on how much you value being able to play after this date. If you really love playing poker and would be miserable without it, it might not be worth the gamble. If you would get just as much enjoyment from switching to say backgammon then of course you should sit.

[jason1990]

This is what I suspected you meant and it is just ridiculous. If I have a $10,000 bankroll in a game with $2 and $4 blinds in which I am a reasonable favorite over you, then my risk of ruin is certainly negligible, no matter what your stack size is. I would be a fool to avoid that game out of fear of going broke.

At least that's my take on it. Can someone other than Joel comment on this?

[Chris Dow]

For Starters:

In games of this format the better players accumulate the chips most of the time, the poorer players eventually bust $200 as many times as they are going to so the level of the players in the game with 1k stacks will be higher on average. On top of that once the game begins to be played with 1k stacks it is a tighter game on average. There is a very strong sense of gambol while still at $200 stacks, which makes sense imo since we are talking about just 40x the bb stacks. It is very easy to keep getting $200 off of the newer players, whereas the 1k deeper players aren't going to give away their 1k very often (or while drawing dead etc). While playing that game it is imo, the correct strategy to adjust correctly and concentrate on scooping up the $200 that all of the new players continually give away than to attack the larger stacks.

In conclusion and summary, in that game maxing your earn is done by concentrating on the $200 stacks.

[Noo Yawk]

I'll take the game with the larger stacks.

1) Because my opportunities to Double through are much better in a game where more people are trying to bully me with the worst of it.

2)Because theres a good chance I can triple up on one hand much easier, while at the same time getting one of the larger stacks with a possible draw or 2nd best made to protect my hand for me against another draw or even best hand . For Ex:

I have QQ and my opponents have AK and JJ. I get my 200 in and they each call . If the flop comes all rags, there is a good chance that JJ makes a bet that blows AK off the hand. If an A or K falls on the turn or river, I triple up rather than rebuy.

OR

I have the J's and a flush draw makes a bet that blows Q's of the hand because a King showed on the flop.

It's easier to manipulate the aggressive tendencies of large stacks, particularly those large stacks that play poorly and believe bigger is always better.