Did Sklansky make a mistake?

[Vince Lepore]

Bellagio

10-2o NLH

Sklansky first in on the button - raised to ~ 80

SB calls. They take the flop heads-up.

Flop - 3,9,3 rainbow.

SB - bets ~ 100, Sklansky (David) calls.

Turn - J.

SB - bets 200 - Sklansky raises 200 to 400. SB calls

River - 3. Board 3,9,3,J,3.

SB pushes all in. Sklansky calls ~ $800. The SB had ~ $400 more than Sklansky.

David had A,3 and won the pot. I told David that he made the cardinal sin of No Limit. I said that he did not have enough money on the table. Dsvid had less money on the table than anyone else in the game. David said that I was wrong. That he probably had the right amount on the table.

Who was right?

[PokerSlut]

$1.5k seems pretty short for a 10/20 NL game.

[tpir90036]

Maybe he wanted to buy-in short to get a feel for the game first. I don't see why someone has to be right or wrong here.

[riverboatking]

i don't follow.
are you asking if david make a mistake in how he played the hand? in how he played the hand due to his stack size? or in the size of his stack without regard for the hand?

[Matt Flynn]

since it was david, i will assume the blinds were folding often enough that his cards barely mattered. note that the blinds are not incorrect to play that way.

since his cards could not have mattered much (assuming he raised correctly from the button), his stack size was fine. nice thing about a 70BB stack is that it is hard to make a huge error. david wins. his stack is not more correct however, just perfectly fine for the raise.

there are other circumstances for raising A3o. e.g., bb will call any raise but fold the flop if he misses, or a blind will call with a huge range of hands then call down with third pair. but other than tight blinds for raising A3 to be correct on the button you have to have seriously bad players in the blinds.

he only needs to have a giant stack if he's hoping to hit a monster and get paid off by a weaker beast. A3 is terrible for that because every monster you hit short of quads is vulnerable to a bigger monster. so i agree with david, at least in that having a small stack did not make for a significant error vis. raising on the button with A3.

matt

[lapoker17]

Don't really care about the buy in questions, but I can't believe Sklansky min raised - yuck.

[Vince Lepore]

I thought that David should have had more money on the table. Sklansky is probably better at game selection than anyone Consequently, I think Sklansky was in a good game and a favorite. Given that he was the best or one of the best players in the game he should have insured that he had weaker players covered.

Of course Celine Dion was on her way over to Bellagio at the time to sing Happy Birthday to her husband who was playing at the table behind David. That may have had some bearing on how he was playing.

Vince

[casinogosain]

[ QUOTE ]
$1.5k seems pretty short for a 10/20 NL game.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is short for this game - or at least the couple times I have sat.

-Ash

[TStoneMBD]

you could argue that he should have bought in for more money because deep stack NL games have more gameplay which is +EV for a winning player. but to say its -EV compared to other players at the table because you bought in short never made sense to me. i hear people say that if you buy in for $500 at a 5/10NL table youll get run over and lose. this logic is absurd to me.

[edtost]

there are many times when sitting short stacked is much more +ev than being equal to others in a deep game, particularly if your opponents are likely to play very well on later streets and too loose preflop and on the flop, not adjusting properly for their reduced implied odds vs. your short stack.