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  #21  
Old 12-28-2005, 02:21 PM
rachelwxm rachelwxm is offline
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Default Re: Bankroll Requirements

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And I'm sure you have the sample size to prove it? 1 or 2 bb/100 over 30,000 hands is very big.

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You don't think I have enough hands? What's next, will you say that I probably buy in short because I am underbankrolled, or some other speculative nonsense? That's usually how these discussions have gone in the past. To forestall that, I am massively overbankrolled for the highest NL game I play regularly, NL 400. Despite this, when I play NL 100, I usually buy in short, and I have for the past 20k NL 100 hands. I usually didn't buy in short for the first 20k hands. My win rate hasn't changed noticeably between those.

However, even if my win rate drops by 2 BB when I buy in short, it would still mean that buying in for $50 at a NL $100 table is much more profitable than buying in for $50 at a NL $50 table. Winning 8 BB/100 ($16/100) at NL 100 is better than winning 12 BB/100 ($12/100) at NL 50. (Actually, according to PokerTracker, my win rate is higher at NL 100 than NL 50, but I didn't use my observed win rates.) So, your suggestion (which is not supported by my evidence) argues for buying in short at a higher stakes game.

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I think buying 25 at 50NL has a higher hourly rate than buyin full at 25NL especially if there is alot of raising pf. I have some success at 400-1000NL games.

I think the general knowledge in this forum is
Buyin short = moron/fish/(stupid guy who push 22 pf)

This is far from truth. I think it requires different skills to be successful.

I hate playing against short buyings btw.
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  #22  
Old 12-28-2005, 02:58 PM
dbitel dbitel is offline
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Default Re: Bankroll Requirements

I agree that there are times where buying in short can be the more +EV, but it should by no means be your default move. I find that at SSNL, most of my money comes from my AA vs KK or QQ and me hitting sets vs an overpair. And in these situations, if my oppponent has 100BB, I usually get all 100. So I want to be fully stacked to take full advantage of these situations, so i think that more often than not, buying in for the full amount is the most +EV
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  #23  
Old 12-28-2005, 03:06 PM
Isura Isura is offline
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Default Re: Bankroll Requirements

Something I was thinking about today was buying in short for Massive multi-tabling. Reads are what makes money with deep stacks. And I wonder if playing a huge number of tables with 40-50bb could make up the edge of player few tables at 100bb. 4-tables at 100bb or 10 tables at 40bb? I imagine at small stakes the 10x40bb would be more profitable.
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  #24  
Old 12-28-2005, 03:13 PM
teamdonkey teamdonkey is offline
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Default buying in short

Phzon, i absolutely disagree in several spots:

-20k hands is about 480k short of what you'd need to tell if there's any real difference in your winrate when buying in short. Actually closer to a million: half buying full, half buying in short. Do the calculations for yourself... i'm not joking. I don't think anyone would argue your buyin amount would make more than 3 or 4 BB/100 difference, and since you can't narrow your winrate down to a range that proves this difference without at least a half a million hands, you'll never be able to make that statement with any sort of credibility.

-Tommy Angelo / ElDiablo are talking about buying in short until you get a feel for the table, then buying in for more. Not buying in short and staying there.

-in small stakes NL, not buying in for the max because the other big stacks are good is close to rediculous. There's only 2 situations where it's a disadvantage:
1. your post flop play is poor. If this is the case, you should be actively working to improve it (which you need larger stacks for) or playing a game where it isn't as important (MTTs, STTs).
2. the big stacks at the table are much better than you. If this is the case, you have no business being at that table. The rake is too hard to beat by itself without having to deal with losing chips over time to better players also. I'd argue strongly that if you're not at least very close to the best player at your table, in almost all cases you're losing money.

Buying in small makes your decisions easier. It certainly allows for plays and situations not available to you when you're deep. But it's the complexity of poker that makes it difficult (and profitable), and the difficult decisions you face when playing deep should be where the majority of your edge against bad players comes from. In the long term there really shouldn't be any arguement as to which is more +EV to a winning player.
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  #25  
Old 12-28-2005, 03:25 PM
ajmargarine ajmargarine is offline
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Default Re: Bankroll Requirements

Interesting thread. I agree with Grunch that 50bb's is not a good buy-in level for the short player. And I stand by my previous assertion that an ~80% buy-in is OK if you have bankroll considerations.

I still don't agree with the shortstack mentality however. I don't believe that is more +EV than buying in full. Yeah, I find it a nuisance when I limp with 44 and the SS PFR's and I have to fold, but so what. I find it easy to play against SS's. You just have to make a few adjustments, something any decent player should be able to do.

At NL200 and below, villians make so many mistakes. The greatest EV comes when you can capitalize to the maximum on their mistakes. If they have a 140bb stack, your greatest EV against them will occur when you have 140 bb's as well and they make a mistake.

I read the Tommy Angelo thing and I see his point. He is not talking about playing the perpetual shortstack. It's the Ed Miller SS thing that I think of when people start talking about buying in short, that IMO isn't good for the avg. 2+2'er.
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  #26  
Old 12-28-2005, 03:42 PM
pzhon pzhon is offline
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Default Re: Bankroll Requirements

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I have always agreed with pzhon that buying short can be the most +EV play, depending on who you are and where you're playing.

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Thanks. I'd keep saying it even if (or especially if) no one believed me, but it's nice to see some agreement.

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But I disagree that buying for 50BB is ever right, if 50BB isn't the minimum buyin.

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In that case, you disagree with El Diablo's tactic of buying in for $1000-$1500 in a live $10/$20 game at first, and buying in for $2500 in the UB $25/$50 game. I don't play in these games, so I don't fully understand the context of his decisions, but he has discussed some reasons. IIRC, one point he made was that it is valuable to get more information before buying in deep. Another was that many people don't play their A game when there is a stack disparity. They feel they only need to play carefully against someone who can take their whole stack. In a tough game where an expert has a low win rate, getting your opponent to tilt in this fashion can be valuable relative to a normal advantage. So can the ability to steal the limps a bit more frequently.

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If buying short is the most +EV move for you at a particular time, then there are two overriding reasons why that is so. First, it limits the amplitude of your errors. Second, it reduces the chance that you can make a mistake postflop, since you are going all-in preflop so frequently.

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There are quite a few other considerations. As zippy pointed out, "Buying in for 50BB instead of 100BB certainly strips away implied odds for large stacks looking to play speculative hands." Look at what happens with the 5%-10% rule: If you raise to 5 BB after someone limps with a speculative hand, they have to call 4 BB, or 4% of their stack if the effective stack size is 100 BB. That's an easy call with a low pocket pair, and a marginal call (or marginal fold) with a suited connector out of position. If you have 50 BB, the call is 8% of the effective stack sizes, which makes it a clear fold with a suited connector, and only a marginal call with a pocket pair.

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you'll get all-in preflop infrequently which exposes you to postflop play.

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My goal isn't to avoid postflop play. Having a different stack size from what people anticipate when they choose which hands to play can give a short stack an advantage in post-flop play. A short stack can play pair poker (and semibluff aggressively with draws), just as people did successfully in Party's old 50 BB structure.

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In fact, I might go so far as to say that if it's theoretically most +EV to play short, but the minimum buyin is 50BB, then in reality it's most +EV to play deep at a (edit) smaller game. The reason for this is becasue the amplitude of your errors is unchanged in reall dollars,

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I don't think your errors or your opponents' are the same size in real dollars.

I win many pots by open-raising preflop to 4 BB, getting one caller. I bet 6 BB on the flop, and take down an 8.5-9.5 BB pot. Many opponents call preflop, then fold on the flop so frequently that they have a huge leak somewhere, possibly calling with garbage like QTo or A9o and then folding unless they have top pair. The size of that leak is in proportion with the blinds, not the stacks. I'm getting almost the same value from that leak whether I have 50 BB or 100 BB.
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  #27  
Old 12-28-2005, 03:46 PM
Isura Isura is offline
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Default Re: Bankroll Requirements

Interesting post pzhon. I am going to try out 4-tabling 1/2 this afternoon with a 40bb stack. I'll post results in a bit, should be a sufficient samplee. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]
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  #28  
Old 12-28-2005, 05:03 PM
teamdonkey teamdonkey is offline
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Default Re: Bankroll Requirements

Back when Party max buy-in was 50BB, wasn't the generally considered "optimal" win rate for SSNL much lower than it is now? I don't play at Party, but i remember people speculating that maybe 8-10BB/100 was possible now, and other saying there's no way anyone could sustain that, even with bigger buyins.

Shouldn't that answer this question pretty definatively?
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  #29  
Old 12-28-2005, 05:12 PM
pzhon pzhon is offline
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Default Re: buying in short

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-20k hands is about 480k short of what you'd need to tell if there's any real difference in your winrate when buying in short.

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There seems to be a folklore about how many hands you need to be able to draw conclusions about your win rate. Below whatever number someone wants to give in an argument, they will say your sample size is negligible. (By contrast, thedustustr offered NO evidence for his assertion that buying in short should cut my win rate proportionately. I have offered numerical and logical arguments against it.) As a mathematician, I prefer the much more accurate idea that rather than using an arbitrary threshold (chosen beforehand, or adjusted later to try to disqualify my evidence), we can recognize that the observed win rate smoothly becomes increasingly accurate with more evidence. A very high number of hands is needed to pin down a win rate within 1 BB/100. A much lower number of hands is needed to provide substantial evidence that my win rate is not cut in half when I buy in short.

20k hands each is enough that I would notice if buying in short were to cut my win rate in half the vast majority of the time. The 95% confidence interval from the last 20k hands does not include winning only 6.5 BB/100. (33 PTBB/Sqrt(200) = 2.33 PTBB/100.) While I don't have strong evidence that I would not win 13 PTBB/100 by buying in for 100 BB, I don't believe it.

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I don't think anyone would argue your buyin amount would make more than 3 or 4 BB/100 difference,

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That's precisely what people are arguing when they say you must cut your stakes in half and buy in for 100 BB instead of buying in for $50 at a NL $100 table.

I'll respond to the rest later.
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  #30  
Old 12-28-2005, 05:28 PM
pzhon pzhon is offline
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Default Re: Bankroll Requirements

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Back when Party max buy-in was 50BB, wasn't the generally considered "optimal" win rate for SSNL much lower than it is now?

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I don't know. I doubt it was only half as much in BB/100.

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I don't play at Party, but i remember people speculating that maybe 8-10BB/100 was possible now, and other saying there's no way anyone could sustain that, even with bigger buyins.

Shouldn't that answer this question pretty definatively?

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There may be some good data there in old threads. As I recall, though, the change to a 100 BB structure happened around the time the highest stakes increased from NL 200 to NL 1000. I don't think the win rates should be compared between the old NL 200 and the new NL 200, as the new NL 200 is much softer. In the Mid-High NL forum before the recent forum split, 5 BB/100 was considered good in NL 600+. I'd like to see comparisons between NL 50 and NL 100 before and after the change.

I don't this will be definitive, though. Buying in for 50 BB when everyone buys in for 50 BB may be very different from buying in for 50 BB when most people buy in for more.
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