a newbie's thoughts fixed buyin NL games

[ApeAttack]

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i play a lot at hawaiian gardens in LA county

im usually a 2/4 limit player

ive been dabbling in the $20 fixed buyin NL game
the blinds are 1/1

ive found it quite annoying when i call a few $4 raises and have to fold when i flop nothing.

but then when i hit a nice hand, i only got like $10 left and basically double or triple up to $20 or $30 bucks.

if there was a max buyin of like $100 that's what i'd probably do, call a few raises and when i hit my hand i'd stack them. with only $20 to start with it's basically all in preflop or on the flop, there's practically no point in callin the flop cuz once i do that i dont have enough money to protec thte pot on the turn.

i dont think im going to ever play fixed buy in NL games again.

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Look. This is a party fest game fueled by mucho alcohol and free flowing rebuys. Since the buyin is only 20 times the BB plan on making as many as six to ten rebuys (if the fixed buy was 33 to 60 times the BB 5 to 3 is enough). Play good cards and try to double or triple up. Don't waste these rebuys, it's nice if you don't have to use more than one or two. Give it time and your stack approaches the average stack since despite the drop a rebuy (from some player) goes in almost every hand.

Once you get stacks of about 60BB now you're playing medium stack NL holdem. You have a chance to play well and if you double through or gobble some smaller stacks you get to let's say 110BB. Now you may have one of the three big stacks at the table. AND NO DECENT PLAYER CAN SIT DOWN AND MATCH YOUR STACK RIGHT AWAY. Play well against the other deep stacks (often they just got lucky) and now you can have a game where you rule with a stack size of 200-300 BB and you adjust your game to playing against the effective stacks which should be smaller than yours. MEANWHILE NO DECENT PLAYER CAN SIT DOWN AND MATCH YOUR STACK RIGHT AWAY. That's the beauty of highly restricted fixed buy baby NL games. Your donkfest is protected from the danger of decent players taking a spot in your fishbowl.

~ Rick

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Can this game be beat after considering the rake +$1 tip/big hand? Doesn't Hawaiian Gardens have a ~$4 rake if a flop is seen?

[AKQJ10]

My intuition is yes, but obviously it would depend on just how bad the opponents are. (Survey says: F'ing awful.)

I would suggest tipping those peach 50c chips (do they have those at HG?) on a pot of, say, $20. But I would imagine it's either take down the blinds (rare) or triple and quadruple up.

Just guessing -- I've never played in a game this short, only the FW $100-and-you-can't-rebuy-above-$40 with the time charge.

See also http://poker.wikia.com/wiki/Low-limit_rake

[Rottersod]

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Or, you can play opposite and wait till someone moves all in, 2 callers and play your 64s.

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I don't think 64s has 25% equity against 3 random hands, does it? Its advantage is postflop (GSIH strikes again!) which is nullified in this game. I barely even think 64s is worth limping on the button if pots aren't being raised in this game.

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Playing $20 NL is simply for fun and good times. You can't seriously expect to apply strategies and money management to such a donkfest. If you think that everyone else is playing high cards and you want to have some good fun then just call them with low cards, hit the flop and watch the rebuys fly. I'm not saying you'll always be successful but seriously, you can't really be playing $20 NL to not have that kind of fun.

[Matt Flynn]

The game will die.

The rake is way too high relative to the stacks. Once the alcohol is cut off it will break.

[AKQJ10]

Too high in some absolute principled sense ("They're getting away with highway robbery") or so high that it's unbeatable for a good player?

Also, as has been debated on that Commerce thread I don't think the fish are all that sensitive to the rake. So it's reasonable to think that the game could be unbeatable but still not break. [Insert slots example here.]

[Rottersod]

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The game will die.

The rake is way too high relative to the stacks. Once the alcohol is cut off it will break.

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Honestly, I doubt that I would have been able to find more than 5 people in the entire $20 room who had any idea about what the drop was and those of us who did simply weren't there to win big - we were there for the fun. It's like a home game and the drop is paying for the dealer, etc.

[newber]

for a full ring game the rake is $2.50
and if it's a small pot ill tip $0.50

so 3 bucks comes out of every pot.

so if it's 3 players it's a $0.50 pot

[Pocket Trips]

please tell me this is a joke. this sounds like a scene out of vegas vacation.. ask if you can play war at this casino

[daveT]

No, this is not a joke. When I first started playing NL a year ago, someone suggested this game to get a "feel" for it. So it has been around at least that long. I never been to HG, not worth the time.

I think the only thing you can do is wait for one of the hands that you would gladly raise in your 2/4 game and push it all in. I guess this would be something like TT+, AK- AT, KQ, KJ-KT suited. If you could limp in for the dollar, then try out some of the marginal hands.

I think one thing that is funny is that you say you call a four dollar raise and miss the flop. Realize that you are calling off 1/5 of your stack. Think of it in a 200 dollar setting, now you are calling a 40 dollar raise cold, seriously bad play.

Really, go ahead and try out a 40 buy in game, it is just like limit, but while smoking good stuff while you are at it. Here, you get 13 "spins," or the 80, where you get 20 "spins."

[Tuff_Fish]

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Look. This is a party fest game fueled by mucho alcohol and free flowing rebuys. Since the buyin is only 20 times the BB plan on making as many as six to ten rebuys (if the fixed buy was 33 to 60 times the BB 5 to 3 is enough). Play good cards and try to double or triple up. Don't waste these rebuys, it's nice if you don't have to use more than one or two. Give it time and your stack approaches the average stack since despite the drop a rebuy (from some player) goes in almost every hand.

Once you get stacks of about 60BB now you're playing medium stack NL holdem. You have a chance to play well and if you double through or gobble some smaller stacks you get to let's say 110BB. Now you may have one of the three big stacks at the table. AND NO DECENT PLAYER CAN SIT DOWN AND MATCH YOUR STACK RIGHT AWAY. Play well against the other deep stacks (often they just got lucky) and now you can have a game where you rule with a stack size of 200-300 BB and you adjust your game to playing against the effective stacks which should be smaller than yours. MEANWHILE NO DECENT PLAYER CAN SIT DOWN AND MATCH YOUR STACK RIGHT AWAY. That's the beauty of highly restricted fixed buy baby NL games. Your donkfest is protected from the danger of decent players taking a spot in your fishbowl.

~ Rick

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Absolutely no truer words were ever spoken on a poker forum.

T