Negreanu's Folly?

[Vincent Lepore]

DN in his blog makes a statement that buying into a NLH game for more than the table has does not in itself give one an advantage. He says that buying in for the minimum makes your strategy decisions simple. He uses the following as an example:

[ QUOTE ]
When you buy in to a game YOU have the choice to decide how difficult you want the game to be. If you buy in for the minimum, it makes the correct strategy very simply. If you buy in for the most, it will force you to make more difficult decisions. An example:

You raise to $30 with AA and get three callers. The flop comes 9c 6d 2s and you bet your last $50. That's a no brainer right? Well, what if you had $20,000 in front of you? You bet the $50 and a player raises you $200 more. Now what do you do? It's more difficult isn't it?


[/ QUOTE ]

Does anyone see a problem with this example? Sure your decision is simple when you have $50 left you move in. He seems to think from his comments that this someghow makes buying in short correct. I don't. I think it's a mistake. Let,s look at his flop and a modified flop (by me) similar to this, say 9c,6d,2d. Suppose in his example the first opponent has a T,9 and calls the $50 now the second player has an 7,8o. Isn't it correct for the second player to call? What if in the second example, the one I modified, everone folds to the $50 bet except the last player that has the Qd,Jd and decides to (correctly) call? In both examples Daniels opponents are getting the right price to call and are correctly calling. Winning Poker is about mistakes. Mistakes you don't make and mistakes your opponent does make. If in these examples Negreanu had a much bigger stack he could now make a bet big enough that it would be a mistake for any of opponents to call. And if he had a huge stack, larger than everyone elses, he could make a call with a draw a huge maistake on his opponents part. This is just a simple example of how being short stacked in live poker can be a disadvantage. It doesn't settle the issue of whether a huge stack in and of itself is an advantage that is true but it does show that being underfunded can be a mistake. Just because you simplify your strategy does not make it a winning strategy.

Opinions?

Vince

[soah]

You don't think it's a mistake for those players to call a $30 raise trying to crack aces when the guy only has $50 behind?

[dauler]

You aren't saying anything that Negreanu would disagree with, you're just looking at it from a different perspective. He was making the point that it's easier to make the right decision when you have less money in front of you, there was no other way to play that hand when he had $50 left in front of him. He wasn't saying that that makes it an optimal strategy, simply that if you aren't good at making correct decisions, it's easier to play with less money in front of you because there are fewer factors to consider. He'd agree with you that it's possible to make more money when you have a bigger stack because you have more freedom of choice, but if you don't know what to do with that freedom you're making the game tougher on yourself, short stacked is a simpler strategy to employ correctly.

[ QUOTE ]
He seems to think from his comments that this someghow makes buying in short correct.

[/ QUOTE ]

No he doesn't.

[StLouisMike]

Correct poker is about making correct decisions. If you play loose when starting out or just do not do well with a larger stack you are making a correct decision when buying in for the minimum. If you read Barry Greenstein's book he will tell you that he also buys in for the minimum and explains the pros and cons of it. No one is saying that buying in for a large stack is wrong for everyone. I believe that we all need to understand what type of player we are and adjust our buyins, game selection, general style, etc to what fits us with the game we are in. Im sure there are times when someone like Greenstein will buy in for the maximum when he feels like it is to his advantage.

Mike

[Vincent Lepore]

How did these players know that he specifically had Aces? Yes it was a mistake for them to call a raise with the weak hands that I described but on the flop their call is correct. The two decisions are independent.

Vince

[michiganlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
You aren't saying anything that Negreanu would disagree with, you're just looking at it from a different perspective. He was making the point that it's easier to make the right decision when you have less money in front of you, there was no other way to play that hand when he had $50 left in front of him. He wasn't saying that that makes it an optimal strategy, simply that if you aren't good at making correct decisions, it's easier to play with less money in front of you because there are fewer factors to consider. He'd agree with you that it's possible to make more money when you have a bigger stack because you have more freedom of choice, but if you don't know what to do with that freedom you're making the game tougher on yourself, short stacked is a simpler strategy to employ correctly.

[/ QUOTE ]
I couldn't have said this better myself. Easy distinction between simple strategy and optimal strategy...short buys make for simple strategy, not optimal strategy. I think you're trying to read too much into this one....

[Vincent Lepore]

[ QUOTE ]
He seems to think from his comments that this somehow makes buying in short correct.

No he doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK you are correct he doesn't say that. What he does say in defense of his point is:

[ QUOTE ]
The reason a casino puts a max buy in on their tables isn't to help YOU at all. It's in their best interest to have LESS fluctuation so that players don't go broke as quickly. Casinos do that to protect THEIR interests of keeping the games going so that they can keep dropping rake. I mean, do you really need someone to hold your hand and tell you how much you can buy in for? "No sir, you don't want to buy in for that much. That's a lot of money sir, please don't gamble that much, we are worried about you." Yeah right!


[/ QUOTE ]

This is not true. Why is it in the best interest of the Casino's that the players don't go broke quickly? The Casino's do not put max buy-ins on their tables. They put max limits on the amount bet. They do that to keep from going broke or at least losing a huge chunk of money. Imagine if you will a dice table with no max bet. How dangerous would this be for a casino? The cap on betting is the reason that the martingdale system cannot work. If there were a bettor with an infinite bankroll the Casino could not survive without a max bet on their tables. Their is built in advantage of an infinite bankroll over a finite bankroll. If for instance we made a static bet on the results of the tossing of an unbiased coin. You take heads and I take tails. I have an infinite bankroll and you have a finite bankroll. Eventually you will go broke! In fact even if you biased the coin to a point where you had a 1% advantage you would still go broke. I don't know how long it would take. It depends on the size of your bank roll but eventually I would get all of your money. This is an extreme example of the built in advantage of a much greater stack to a small stack.

Vince

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
And if he had a huge stack, larger than everyone elses, he could make a call with a draw a huge maistake on his opponents part.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are confused w/ much of your reasoning, Vince. This is one example. If he covers someone, it is in fact the very opposite: his opponents are far more likely to be correct making a call w/ a draw due to the implied odds they will be getting. On the other hand, if he has a small stack, it is more likely that his opponents will be making a mistake calling w/ a draw.

[edge]

Players who keep rebuying to 20 BB stacks are lame and annoying. It doesn't seem to be profitable either, from what I've observed, and I have seen some players using what appears to be proper shortstack strategy. Good hands just don't come around often enough to run with a 20 BB stack. I suppose the lame shortstack strategy could work well in a deepstacked game where 50 BB is a standard reraise.