I'm about to play in a home no limit hold-em game where the buy in is 40 BB--no more no less. You cannot reload--if you bust out the first person on the waiting list sits in and then you get on the waiting list. The game is 8 handed by the way.

My guess is the proper way to play in this type of game is to nit it up. Am I right? But what exactly does that mean? UTG are we talking JJ+, AKs or are we talking more like 88+, AQs, AK? At what position should you open top 10% of hands, what position do you open top 20%?

This 40BB buy in has me in a funk. I'm going to be a shortstacker!

With a short stack, you're looking for hands that will either be TP or hit TP on the flop. That means a lot of A and K combos(good kickers though) with 88+ for pairs. Forget about set mining/SC, etc. Position is of less importance. If there's a raise pf and you have 5BB+ raises (common in this type of game), TP is getting their stack anyway.

Thanks. I had not considered that part about position being less important in this type of game.

And post flop I already figured that you play top pair good (broadway?) kicker like the nuts or at least close to it. So K10o is fine to play from any position?

It depends on how others are playing.

KTo is an easy fold from any position. You're kidding right?


Its a garbage hand when 40BBs deep. Its not as bad really deep since you have more room to maneuver and your cards matter less since you play all 3 streets (e.g. you can float and steal pot on turn, etc.)

No, I'm not kidding, but I admit I am confused.

My original thought was I should just nit it up because I won't have the implied odds to play speculative stuff.

But if top pair good kicker is good enough to get it in with when you are playing 40BB effective stacks, why is is K10 not playable? One of the troubles with this hand when you are playing deeper (at least as far as value is concerned) is that you could lose a lot of money when you flop top pair. Here, it is no big deal.

And, trust me, I'm willing to learn here. I'm guessing that maybe you can't spew of 1/40th to 1/10th of your stack on the chance you get to see a flop that has a small chance flopping top pair AND you get any action with it. And you still have to win with it. Is that the argument?