It's not the size of your stack, it's how you use it.

It's not the size of your boat, it's the motion of the ocean.

That all makes sense, except that he is trying to be a winning player. Knowing that spots where the losing players are wrong and you're right, seems like where profit comes from. The fact that he feels bullied by a big stack, rather than seeing it as a spot where everyone else at the table is handing over huge chunks of equity based on feelings seems nutty. This especially in a $200 buyin poker game from someone who takes 5 and 6 figure stock option positions on a regular basis.

Yeah, it's bad for him to think that if it makes him feel bullied when he has a small stack. But if he always has a big stack, it's good for him to know how it will make other players act.

I agree with Wolfram in the sense that it's more psychology than math. Given the actual buyins (around here, typically 20-50 bb), it's hard to point to an obvious difference between a 200 bb and 500 bb stack. But you just get a certain BDE from it and that's what people pick up on.

Like when I slummed it at 1/2 NL while waiting for 30/60 LHE, I gave off the impression that I just had an endless pool of $100 chips in my pocket and even if I had $150 on the table, people would think I'm just pushing the table around slash randomly getting it all in on coin flips.

I agree obviously that you shouldn't play as if the big stacks have some sort of advantage. But its good to at least realize its happening and adjust to it.

Playing Stud8. On 4th I have 6-5-3-2 and then brick, brick. The guy w/ open Aces checks the river, the guy w/ what looks like a weak 8 bets (he shouldn't have, imo) and I pick up my river card the J. It's rare for me to hold a card funeral in LHE but Stud8's another matter. Then, just as I'm about to toss my hand in, I realize I have a flush, raise, get called and get half of a big pot. Another lesson learned.

What was the lesson? Hold more card funerals? Play more Stud8?

Don't focus only on the hand that you're trying to make, keep an eye on everything.

If I have four spades and four babies I am trying to make a bunch of hands, some of which scoop.

I'd ask for a paternity test first.

The point is is that I didn't notice that I had the four-flush which is embarassing to admit.

I'm still not able to do this. Even at the most recent WSOP I flopped open-ended. I was so fixated on hitting the big end card that I didn't notice I hit the low end until I showed.

Two of my three lifetime straight flushes in cash games, I didn't know I won until other people told me. For all I know I folded straight flushes.

Fun 4/8 hand from this past weekend. I complete 62o (both cards are red) in the SB and we see a flop 7 ways.

Flop: T83
All 7 players check
Turn: 7
All 7 players check
River: 2
All 7 players check

I fastroll my flush (playing the board). Slowly everyone else turns over their hands and no one has a club. 7 way chop.

"Mini-jackpot" is available 1-5p, AAAJJ beaten, usual rules apply, meaning both cards in both hands have to play, etc, etc.

Flop is AAJ and people in hand (of which I am not one) start mumbling about mini. Turn J, river A and everyone's getting excited despite an obvious lack of betting action, and this is turning into a very difficult board for a jackpot to happen (AAA23 or something where kickers are not as much of an issue for instance, would be preferable.)

5 people end up tabling their hands, and out of those 10 cards, exactly one of them plays (one guy had A6, and he's not excited because he knows it's not a jackpot) and yet a couple guys people start losing their minds, calling floor, etc.

The only thing they got right was that it was between 1-5p.

A few years back, I was walking through a casino with a friend and we went by the poker room. They had some sort of promotional spinner where you would get a certain number of spins from some drawing (probably high hands). There were some dollar amounts and some multipliers, and maybe some other type of jackpot prize.

Overheard when I was passing by: "So if I get '2 times' and '3 times' is that '5 times'?"

I played a band forever ago where 12 or the 13 clubs went to showdown. Nuts.

Sounds like a music competition!

Best fast food to eat with a glass of red wine? Go!

(I had a couple of McD's sausage breakfast burritos with a cab tonight, not too bad. I'm thinking really fatty foods will work best.)

Anything cheesy would be good imo. Anything with bbq sauce is a no-no. Funnily enough, red wine goes pretty well with spicy food, so maybe mexican?

Burger and fries from In-N-Out, IMO.

Runner up, and only because you aren't supposed to pair red with poultry: chicken from El Pollo Loco.

Steak on a stick

If that’s a real chain, I’m moving to Colorado. Tomorrow.

Generally players are allergic to value betting because players are also allergic to making big calls for a lot of money. So keep this in mind when you arrive at the river with a good but not great hand, or a bluffcatcher.

People also seem to way overvalue draws and way undervalue made hands before the river. Like it wouldn't be uncommon to see someone check call a bare flush draw for 3/4ths pot OOP on J63hh-T but fold KJ.

Ed Miller's stuff is good -- The Course reduces beating 1-3 to three fundamental points (a big one being don't pay off big bets because big bets mean they have it, at those stakes). Jonathan Little's NLHE cash games are very good, and he has a little half-size book aimed at small stakes.

I haven't read the Janda book suggested above but the "For Advanced Players" makes me think it's not the right starting point.

Biggest single move from LHE is to learn to reevaluate hands based on implied odds and context. Against someone who's been folding hands waiting to flop that elusive set, unimproved AA is not a stacking off hand. Against someone who'll pay off three streets with worse, it's definitely a bet-three-streets-and-get-stacks-in hand (and many aspiring NL sharps don't realize that). Learn to tell the difference.

I figured the sb and bb ev of a preflop reraise war for 50bb no limit holdem with my morning coffee today.

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