poker buyin full/medium/short strategy

[dynacraze]

I know that full buyin of 100BB allows you to really play poker the way its suppose to be played. Raising suited connecotrs and hitting sets to win other person's whole stack against their AA Or KK. With short stack of 20BB, you only wanna raise and push with AA, KK, QQ, AK. You can't limp with a pair to hit a set b/c you would lose out on implied odds already. With middle stack of 50BB, what are your options really? When i play middle stack i don't like to call raises at all even with a pair b/c i know i lost out by not buying full?

Is buying in for 50BB getting the worst of the 3 ways? I like full buyin b/c thats the way you really play poker. HOwever, what would u say is the best strategy for buying in middle stack of 50BBs? What hands to you throw away when people raise? Do you call the BB Utg with 88? Raise or call with 1010?

[AKQJ10]

It's a mix of the two. Implied odds still don't matter much, so you don't want to call raises with 66. But calling a raise (or occasionally reraising) with something like 99 that might have greater showdown value and be OK on a board of J85 is probably acceptable. Gotta be careful about the overpair, but that short donking off a stack to QQ is less of a concern.

Always raise TT facing a limped pot - it has an equity advantage against everything but the top four and wants to charge A9 and hands like that to draw out.

I don't see why you're gettig the worst of all worlds. You still need to be somewhat proficient at flop and turn play, but you're learning at lower risk. It's an approach I've used often.

[Red_Diamond]

Buying in for short gives you move disadvantages than advantages. The SS simply gets stuck in situations where he can not move you off certain hands. He pushes with tptp, and knows he doesnt have enough chips to make your flush draw call a bad one, so he is actualy giving you +ev by calling him. If he had a larger stack he then makes it -ev to call. This is just one out of many situations that come up.

Also, an advantge to having a full stack, is you have an implied threat on other good sized stacks. You can put a man to a decision for all his chips with a relatively small bet on a bluff, or semi-bluff. He may have an OP, but he knows he is often facing a larger bet on the card after and this puts him into a huge bind. He is risking a LOT to keep you honest and look you up.

[AKQJ10]

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He pushes with tptp, and knows he doesnt have enough chips to make your flush draw call a bad one, so he is actualy giving you +ev by calling him.

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Occasionally this may be true, but it only underscores how your opponents may have been making incorrect preflop calls for implied odds that they won't get. You can't force a flop mistake, but you'll get plenty of preflop mistakes.

Moreover, they may be used to calling getting 2:1 to see one card for a flush, but that's wrong if you can't pay off.

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Also, an advantge to having a full stack, is you have an implied threat on other good sized stacks. You can put a man to a decision for all his chips with a relatively small bet on a bluff, or semi-bluff.

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That's true, Doyle, provided that you know when to put a man to such a decision, and provided that his decision-making is inferior to your decision-making when a man puts you to a decision for all your chips.

In other words, deep stacks are superior when you're the best postflop player. No one disputes that.

I inferred that OP is talking about learning to play NLHE, or perhaps moving a game he's not so well bankrolled for. In such a case, a man might put him to a decision where he'd incorrectly donk off all his chips, so he'd be correct to learn with smaller stacks.

Anyway, it's a valid theory question. No one wants to revisit the short-stack debate every time this sort of question comes up. You're proferring no new argument that hasn't been discussed six ways to Sunday on SSNL.

[gull]

Shortstacked is better than deepstacked. Even for better players.

[AKQJ10]

Not against bad players.

But that's for a very narrow definition of "better" -- higher EV, ignoring variance, etc.