live NL game w/ only 50x BB buy-in cap

[Pov]

i.e. $1/$2 blinds with $100 or $2/$5 with a $300 buy-in (ok that's 60x, but still short) These games are made up of average to weak players and are readily beatable with the minor adjustments I've tried, but unfortunately I am more comfortable with relatively deep stack play. These are the only live games I'm likely to play in for a while so I'd like to learn to crush them rather than just beat them nicely.

What adjustments would you make to this game?

[SplawnDarts]

I would speculate less and pay careful attention to implied odds. Fewer SCs, small pairs etc. and if I do bring them in it's not for a raise.

After the flop, many situations that would likely be a place to set a trap in deep stack become a push, especially if the table is wild. Stright ahead agression, with the bluff percentage adjusted to fit the table is going to take down the money here. A wild, gambling image would help a lot because you want lose calls (and the shortstacks will encourage people to make them). How you develop that image depends a lot on the circumstances.

[Pov]

Yes - in a deeper game I typically like to both put in and call a lot of small raises with small pairs and SC's to disguise my hand range and to generate the image that leads to big payoffs. But now I've been limping a lot to preserve some semblance of implied odds. I feel uncomfortable with the passivity, but even a modest raise is close to 10% of a stack. Maybe I am playing more closely to correct strategy than I thought.

Would anyone play their "big cards" differently? I have been keeping that part of my game fairly standard, but I'm worried this will make my hands a little too transparent. Still, limping more big cards to blend in seems like a bad idea . . . so is still raising some of the speculative holdings warranted? I am not up against any great players here, but there are enough pretty good players I'm worried they'll be able to take advantage.

Maybe this is the question I've really been after: In the battle of trading mistakes, am I better off being too passive with a few "big cards" hands or too aggressive with speculative hands that are usually short on implied odds? Which is more likely to get the chips?

[NL Rounder]

I certainly agree with all that has been discussed above between you Pov and SplawnDarts.

The bottom line IMHO is that this structure simply results in crapshoot poker. I have encountered similarly structured games and as implied, found myself getting weak-tightish by being too passive.

This game structure nullifies skill and enhances luck. One will not be able to adequately protect a hand. You don't mention if there's a min buy-in or not. If so, the situation is even worse.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
The bottom line IMHO is that this structure simply results in crapshoot poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not true.

A good player will still beat this game very soundly and fairly consistently. (I played under these conditions at Foxwoods for a year or more until they recently lifted the max. and I moved from the Northeast.) A crapshoot would imply that it's really just a game of chance with no room for skill.

Like any short-stacked NLHE, it's going to involve less skill, and specifically much less postflop skill, because there simply isn't the money behind to make for play on the turn and river. But that's not making it a total crapshoot, just a bit more of one. (Short-stacked NLHE has much less variance than LHE, for example, and no one disputes that LHE is beatable over the long term.)

It's higher-variance than deeper stacked, certainly, but IMO you dramatically overdramatize the impact, implying that perhaps you need more practice varying your play to stack size. You'll have short-stacked situations in deep-stack NLHE, unless you only play cash games and pick up from the table each time someone falls well below their original buy-in. That's silly, so it's far better to learn these concepts than to put them down as not part of real poker.

---

Most of the advice on this thread is good. I'm guessing that a live $1-2 game will have an oversized standard raise, say to $15 or $20, and you should raise like this too unless table image chases off your action. Play fairly tight, raising your big pairs and your premium big cards (dependent on position) alike to as much as you think will get called in 1-2 places. The hardest part is finding that sweet spot between chasing off all your action and taking QQ into a field of six, but even that's not too bad a situation for you mid-stacked. You'd rather get just one or two cold calls though.

Getting Started in Hold 'em would be a good investment of $20. You won't play quite that tight because you're not quite that short-stacked and because you want to crush these games rather than just tread water as a beginner. For example, don't be afraid to call with small PP for $15 if 5-6 are already in the pot and you're closing the action or close to it -- your diminished stack-IO is supplemented by the money already in the pot. But you'll be playing substantially tighter than you would with deeper stacks. In particular I'd probably play big aces much as Ed recommends in there, only playing AQ OOP a bit more if you can avoid getting trapped by a dominating hand.

Basically take your big hands, ride them for all their worth, expect to get TPTK or an overpair paid off royally, CB only when prudent (2- or 3-way), and build up bankroll to play deeper games.

[Pov]

[ QUOTE ]
I certainly agree with all that has been discussed above between you Pov and SplawnDarts.

The bottom line IMHO is that this structure simply results in crapshoot poker. I have encountered similarly structured games and as implied, found myself getting weak-tightish by being too passive.

This game structure nullifies skill and enhances luck. One will not be able to adequately protect a hand. You don't mention if there's a min buy-in or not. If so, the situation is even worse.

[/ QUOTE ]

Strict buy-in. $300 or nothing. And I'm not having any trouble winning. I've only clocked about 2000 hands in this game, but I've played well over 100,000 hands of NL online and I've got a good idea of when I'm running hot or cold. So far I'm running just a little warm and doing quite nicely. I'd just like to be sure I'm not leaving much money on the table by failing to make adjustments for the structure that I should be.

The strategy that seems to be working the best at the moment (and I'm still looking for alternatives) is to keep pots fairly small preflop, thus still allowing my opponents to make large post flop errors - which they do with very little encouragement. I'm still raising big hands and the occasional speculative hand, but overall I'm playing much more passively preflop than I would with a full 100x buy-in.

[Trillos]

FR or short?

anyway what i have in mind:

Play more aggresively in smaler pots than usual.

Be less willing to play speculative hands in raised pots.

[SplawnDarts]

I wouldn't worry about the "mistake" of being passive with SCs and PPs too much. It's potentially OK to have a raising range that doesn't include all ranks of cards - people do it in limit all the time and it works fine if correctly tuned.

I would make sure there are all ranks of cards in your limping range - limp some Ax suited etc so taht people can't simply assume a high board missed you because you limped. That's about the extent of the deception I would worry about unless I started having a specific problem.

[AKQJ10]

Good response. People forget that raising with suited connectors is essentially a counterintuitive, "incorrect", deceptive play. Increasing the stakes so you can play for stacks if you hit is irrelevant, because you'll be playing for stacks anyway. So all you'd be doing is erroneously cutting down your IO.

The deception might matter in some online small-stakes or live higher-stakes games. But if you're playing in a $1-2 game where you need to raise 87s for cover, you're in the wrong damn $1-2 game.

Small pairs can be raised for value in a very tight game in position. If you have 33, you don't want to give the J7 big blind a free flop with six outs to beat you. But again, if this matters in your live $1-2 game, you have the single worst table selection of all of Two Plus Two.

[beecass]

You guys thing its hard to adjust to playing 50BB cap. At Crown Casino in Melbourne, they have tables that are capped at $60 for 1/2NL. Basically haave to go to the races a few times before your stack is decent enough to play with.