Re: Buy-ins
Well first thing, there's not always a maximum. If you sit in an uncapped game, are you going to bring your life savings?
If you're talking about online, where the buyin is usually 20-100 BBs, there's pros and cons of doing both. Most players want to buy in for the full amount. Your edge is greater with deeper effective stacks so you want to maximize that over any fish at the table (I hope you're table selecting and sitting with fish, rather than a bunch of TAGs). There are people who prefer to go the short-stacking route, because in a game with full stacks, if you have a short-stack you have an advantage. From a full stack's perspective, if they play optimally vs the other full stacks, they are playing sub-optimally vs the short-stack (too loose). If they tighten up and play optimal against the short stack, then they're losing value vs the full stacks. Most people choose to maximize their edge against the full stacks and just deal with the short-stack. But this allows the short-stack to pick up EV in lots of spots. It's also a very robotic method of playing, so even if their BB/100 isn't as high, they can play tons of tables without having to think much and grind out money in that fashion.
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