Return of the Grey Tweed Hat or Steamboatin's Revenge.

[tylerdurden]

Call the cops! He dropped below 12BB and didn't rebuy! THE HORROR! Revoke his 2+2 membership card!

[RacersEdge]

I agree if you want to just have fun and relax playing poker, then don't worry about your stack size.

But if you want to play correct poker, you gotta have the chips to be able to make the correct plays. Worst case is you alter your play based on your chip stack size.

[CCx]

You have offended the young wordsmiths with your lack of money management skills - for this, you should be remorseful.

[steamboatin]

This is how I do it and I am wide open for helpful advice, flames or whatever, I can take it.

When I first began playing poker three years ago, I used a stop loss. I would buyin for 20-25 Big Bets and when I lost half my stack, I got up and went home. I figured I was overmatched or just unlucky that day. As my game has improved, my stop loss has changed. Now I buy in for 20-25 Big Bets and when that stack is gone, I get up and go home.


Now understand, I live about 25 minutes from the cardroom so going back is easy. I have watched other players closely over the years and I try to discover the differences between the winners and losers. I have watched people get up and reload time after time and rarely (if ever) do I see them recoup their losses for the evening or leave with more than the brought. I decided early on, that I was not going to be that guy that keeps buying chips and keeps on losing.

I am a firm believer that (unless you are an expert palyer)after you drop 20 or 25 Big Bets, you should take a break and closely examine your play and the game you are in.

I love to see people in my game buy more chips. It is one of the prettiest sights in the world. I doubt very seriously that you will ever see me buy more chips while playing limit. I will either win some chips or get up and leave when I have lost all of my buyin.

I think it is important to point out that I am a recreational player. I play poker for fun. If want to make more money, I just work a little harder selling houses. Selling a house pays much better than low limit poker.

Part of the enjoyment that I receive from poker is watching my game improve and working to become a better player. I am on a quest to become the best poker player that I can possibly become.

This very subject, upswings, downswings, standard deviation and variance is what I am woring on at the moment. I am trying to understand how much of a downswing is normal and when a downswing should raise a red flag and let me know it is time to reexamine my game.

[Bigdaddydvo]

Rebuying is fine if and only if the following two conditions are met:

1) You are among the best players at the table and you can reasonably expect to make money by continuing to play (e.g. several donks that cold call raises w/A3o and Q5s and chase longshot draws without the right odds...Hell this is 2+2, you all know what fish smell like)

2) That the rebuy does not affect HOW you're playing. Some folks tighten up too much after a rebuy out of fear that they'll lose even more. Others will loosen up too much trying to chase their losses. Both are a recipe for losing your rebuy.

This is why I think in Steamboatin's case that not rebuying is OK. A good poker player always attempts to understand his strengths and weaknesses, and if Steamboat thinks a rebuy will lead to him not playing his "A" game, then foresaking more chips is a good choice. What I do recommend is that he goes back to the "Stoploss" idea. Buy in for 10BB more than you do normally, and leave when you hit 10BBs. The last think you want to do is flop the nut flush and be all in for 2 SBs.

[steamboatin]

I think you are right.

Part of what I figured out during my two weeks off is because my variance is high, I need to sit with more chips.

I am trying to play tighter in early posistion but have actually loosened up a little in late posistion with lots of limpers.

[jalexone]

[ QUOTE ]

Part of the enjoyment that I receive from poker is watching my game improve and working to become a better player. I am on a quest to become the best poker player that I can possibly become.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think that the key to the other's responses to you is that you are asking for advice of how to play "your best". I feel that I am in the same steamboat as you in this regard and the message that I hear is that to play "your best" you should never play a hand without 12xBB. Playing with less is -EV, remember win big and lose little.

The approach that I have taken is to buy-in with at least 50xBB and I play until I reach 10xBB then I leave. The real difference between your game plan and mine is that you continue to play until you get close to $0. I still limit my loses but I never play a hand without a reasonable stack. I have the discipline to stop when I reach my preset limit but I don't limit my ability to maximize my pot size when I have a winner.

If my reply is out to lunch I will step aside and let those that know what they are talking about to take over the discussion.

[steamboatin]

No I think your reply is well thought and makes perfect sense.

I always considered coming back from the felt as good practice for being short stacked in a tourney. I think there are things to learn from coming back from a short stack.

That said, I believe I will take the advice of you and the other posters and not play down to the felt. Although if I had done that Saturday, I would have left stuck $60 instead of up $93.

I believe the best thing for me is to buyin with more and leave when I get down to 12 bets.

[RacersEdge]

I just take the "one giant session" approach. What happens over any individual session is not important. So if you are a winning player, then there is no need to limit your number of hours.

Reason I leave a table: tired, not focusing, table too tight, etc.

You never know when your next winning streak starts, so if a 20 BB downswing is in front of 40 BB upswing, I'm hanging around for it.

[MicroBob]

you can still decide to leave after losing 25BB's...that doesn't mean that it is okay to sit there with 7BB's or fewer at the table.

it is just a bad idea.

I get the impression that you would actually sit there with even less than this. If you're just sitting there with 4BB's or so then that's really terrible. You should really reconsider this policy.


I also believe you have stated that the rake in Indiana is obsecnely high anyway so it doesn't seem likely that you can do much better than break-even in the long-run anyway.

But at least give yourself a chance and don't cost yourself EV by sitting there with 7BB's (or less).


The fish who get down to 3BB's or so and then just toss it all in are the players you want at your table.
Guy I played 10/20 with last night did that. He was really steaming and then...when he had 3BB's or so he caught AA or something.
The main-pot he won wasn't great...the side-pot with the extra bets he could have won was significant.

He then complained that the only time he catches a hand is when he only has a few chips in front of him.


Don't be this guy. It's just unnecessary -EV.