The two that this question is about were in the first 4 hands of the session. So no reads.

Hero $197 button. Hero straddles for $5 gets AKdd. 2 limps. Hero $20, SB and 1 limper call.

Limper with $80 in front makes it $30 on K74 rainbow. Hero makes it $70. SB ($160 to start hand) shoves for $145. Limper and hero call. SB has 44.

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Very next hand: Hero is getting chips from brush that arrive after cards are dealt. Hero looks down and sees AA. Asks dealer if $45 in play or $300. Dealer says $300.

Hero makes it $15 after 1 limp. BB and limp call. short stack limper (different player than hand1) donks out again, hero raises again, BB ($150 to start hand) shoves. Hero calls. BB flopped two pair with K9 on K98r board.

Is it a mistake to raise the initial donk bets essentially committing to the hands? If we flat donks and the check/raisers in both hands shove can we get away from our hand on these dry-ish flops with no reads?

Q1: Hell no.

Q2: Mostly, yeah. But that still doesn't make raising wrong. You generally want to commit with overpairs vs short stacks.

In both hands somebody donks, you raise and a 3rd villain shoves over top. That is a very strong line. You can usually fold one pair even on a wet board. You are generally way behind or somewhat ahead. Don't let pot odds draw you in when you are almost always beaten.

In hand 1 there are no draws and the shove already has a call. That one you can fold pretty easy.

Hand 2 is a judgement call because OESD are possible and you beat AK. I would still favor fold when a 3rd party jumps in.

Even without reads, we COULD give the re-raising Villains credit for actually having a big hand.

Maybe especially without reads.

Hand 1- I do not know why you only have $197, blinds? Is the max buy in $200? If this is the max so be it, but if not you need to be buying in for the max(Usually $300 in 1-3/1-2) if uncapped I would advise a minimum of 300 and a more if you feel comfortable/ bankroll can handle it.
- Buy in for more

You straddle for $5, this is a terrible idea 99% of the time. Unless you are in an incredibly nitty/passive game. From what position did you straddle? from the action is sounds like the button?
-Stop straddling

New to the game with no reads and no image raising to $20 is fine you could maybe go as high as $30. Adjust later in the game when you know more about the people you are playing with.
-Good raise, nice start, stop straddling

I think you made a huge mistake raising the flop bet of $30, not just he raise itself but the size. What are you trying to accomplish with this raise? If you are trying to get the limper all in heads up you should minimum make it the rest of his stack $80 or even better go all in giving the person behind you the best oppurtunity to fold and the worst odds to draw. If you plan is to draw maximum value you blew it because you will only get hands that beat you to call and force every hand you beat to fold. In this spot I am a fan of calling the $30 seeing what the person behind you does with a general plan of dragging value from weaker Ks, Radoms A's and over played pocket pairs. The short stack will most likely get it all in on the turn and the guy behind you will pry spazz shove his set which would be a huge red flag and a sad but easy fold. Though TPTK is very strong here you will usually only get big and fast action from hands that have you crushed while still being able to get reasonable value from hands slightly behind.
-Do not over value/spazz play your hands for no reason

H2- You did a terrible job of describing this hand and you are a bed person for it. I have no clue whats going on except your $300 is in play, you have AA and lost big. Did you call a shove pre flop or on the flop? If it was the initial $15 on the flop and all this action happened on the flop you way over valued/ over played it again. Why are you re raising? With your stack size it should be a call or shove,Pretty easy fold when you are multiway and someone shoves over your reraise. A sad frustarting fold but a fold non the less.
-Do not over value?spazz play your hands for no reason.

If it makes you fell any better, I did pretty much the exact same thing two nights ago with JJ,KK,AA in that order to the tune of -$400...although I think I did fine with the JJ.....I ****ed KK and AA up bad....so bad....

2nd hand goes like this?

1 limp
Hero raises 15
BB calls
Limper calls

Pot 45

FLOP
K98r

Limper donks (unknown amount)
Hero raises (unknown amount)
BB shoves 135
Hero calls
Limper does unknown

Turn x

River x

BB shows K9 (suited/offsuit????)
Hero shows AA

Problem with this hand

really hard to follow the action
No idea on limpers position or hero's position
No reads on both villians (they OMC or crazed maniac)
No ranging on villian (could go with reads)

Think of a conversation with your friend about his new car
Hero: hey nice car
Friend : yeah thanks
Hero : how fast it go
Friend : yeah it is red
Hero : ?????

Your questions about the hand are so vague

As the reads are unknown.
If the villian's was a maniac or donkey/fish then yes raising might be the right play against the donk bet.
If the villain's are solid/tighter players then I might more incline to call/fold

While this might sound condescending or just plain rude, making a easy too read post that people can understand with some even basic reads will make people want to help with your questions and not just scoll on past.
In turn giving you their opinion on the hand and some insight that you didnt think of before and thus improving your poker ability.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Given how:
1) You're very shallow (a $5 straddle means you're only 32bbs effective)
2) The SPR is fairly low (3-3.5 SPR in both cases)
3) The board isn't super dangerous (no straights/flushes, not many 2pr combos)
4) Villains had not done anything overly aggressive until you'd put more than half your effective stacks in (checkraises are way stronger than donk bets, but you didn't face the x/r until you had already put most of the money in.)

We're going to be stacking off in both scenarios. You played fairly well. The only thing I could criticise you about is some of your sizings, particularly your decision to only make it $20 pre when there's a $5 straddle and 2 limpers (should be going $30-$40 here).

Pretty much do the opposite of whatever this guy says. Flop 3bets are always nutted. Ditch your one pair hands.

Raising the donks is fine however when you have TPTK/overpair type hands because they will generally continue drawing to 3-5 outs.

H1:

I might make it a smidge more preflop thanks to the straddle and a couple of limpers, but overall we got in 10%+ against our opponents so nice.

SPR is like 2.5 - 1 against both opponents, so I'm feeling pretty committed on this flop. Having said that, I don't think there is any reason to raise the flop donk from the small stack. I think we're fine with inviting along weak hands from the other guy plus we don't want to entice the small stack into an amazing hero fold, especially on this fairly dry board (on wetter boards, sure, go ahead and raise). I'd flat to get the rest in on the turn on this board.

Facing the cold 3bet shove really sucks, especially on a fairly dry board (where he can't really be bombing any draw, unless 65?). I doubt we can get away here against all but the ABC nittiest of opponents though.


H2:

Kinda similar to first although board is slightly more drawier (so more reason to raise the donk) plus AK could easily think they are the nuts (and yet we're ahead). The shorter the stacks are and the bigger our preflop raise is, the more we probably shouldn't be folding here even though they are super uncomfortable spots.

GIwouldn'tbeatyourselfuptoomuchaboutthesespotsG

1/2 NL: Hero $300. Cutoff position. 4th hand at the table. No reads.

Unknown limpet MP ($100) calls. Folds to Hero who makes it $15 with red AA. BB (his first hand just sat down) $150 calls. Limper calls.

Flop: $45 K98r. Limper bets $30. Hero raises $75. BB shoves for $135.

I had $197 b/c I sat down in the BB w/ $200 ($300 max). I like to buyin for $200 first buyin and top off after an orbit to make sure there are no extreme players. I still top off if there are, I just like to know the guy raising $50 on my first hand is or is not raising $50 half the time.

As far as straddle, raising the straddle is so common where I play you can raise and under-rep big hands, so I tighten up pfr range some as well as get to see a lot of flops in position usually very multi-way.

Thanks (mostly) for the input. In retrospect, and based on comments the raise in H1 I think is a mistake regardless of outcome. I was trying to just iso the limper and take an easy pot from his KQ, KJ type hands. But given the stacks, not necessary to raise him to giaa by river.

I agree with most here H2 is just cooler because of the wetter board texture.

Buy in full and stop straddling. Deeper stacks allow you more flexibility in your play so you don't just stack off every time you have a pair.

Your explanation about why you think straddling is ok is confusing... "raising the straddle is so common" but you also see a lot of flops in position multiway? Sure, you don't mind if other people straddle because most players misplay it. If it's a UTG straddle then you are putting money in blind in terrible position and reducing your stack to 40bb. Keep track for a week of how you really fare in the straddle position and then reevaluate. Mark down all the garbage hands where you waste $5 and all the spots like this where you "automatically" stack off with ok hands because the pot has been bloated and your effective stack cut by 60%.

Deeper stacks make playing TP hands more difficult, not easier.

To take it from a results oriented perspective, in both cases the speculative hand mining opponent got rather horrendous preflop odds of about ~9:1 and ~11:1, respectively. Even if we stack off every single they outflop us (noting that in the second example we still had equity) we'll still be profitable (and even moreso if we raise a smidge more preflop). Deeper stacks make playing these hands a lot more difficult.

Now of course this has to be weighed against the benefits of playing deeper (especially if we're much better than our opponents preflop), but with these TP type hands the smaller starting stack is a benefit, not a hindrance.

And on top of that, in both of these cases it was rather moot (as we had our opponents covered).

GcluelessshortstackingnoobG

Deeper stacks amplify the positional advantage, which makes playing most non-nutted hands more difficult, obviously.

Other factors excluded, I don't necessarily agree that it makes it that much harder. We just have to remember that TPTK is not an automatic 3 streets of value hand and play accordingly.

If you're talking about preventing pot odds for small PPs and FDs pre, then yes, it's obviously harder, but it is just as hard for your opponent to do the same to your range.

grunch

first hand - you're not 100 BB effective, you're 40 BB effective since you straddled. I think your raise size is slightly small although not terrible in position.

On flop, I would flat call the short stacks lead. No need to try and raise people off hands on such a dry board.

As played it's a pretty rough spot. Probably a shrug call but given the strength you've shown by raising flop, it's hard to imagine he's jamming KQ or worse.

second hand - raise makes more sense on this flop since there are a lot more draws. Calling the jam is probably fine here given pot odds.

You guys do know that there are plenty of situations where you actually make more money by NOT having a full stack, right?

The whole "always buy in fully stacked" argument is a bad one.

There are times where being deep is an advantage and times when its a disadvantage. There are times where being shorter gets you called much lighter and times when being shorter costs you money when you hit a big hand and someone has a big but secidn best hand.

Its all situational, but I dont believe for a minute that you have to play fully stacked to be a good player. Besides, OP started the hand with 99BBs which is more than fine (not talking about effective stacks post straddle)

I'm rather confident that if you're better than your opponents at poker and you are properly rolled, that you make the most money off of them if you have them covered.

The only way that playing shorter is better is:
1. You're not the best player.
2. You don't have the bankroll to buy in larger but want to play the soft game.

raising a K74r board with aces from a donk lead seems like lighting money on fire

hand 2 is fine

as far as buying in full, you can rape the table of equity if the max buy in is 100bb by buying in for the minimum, if anyone remembers the day of the shortstackers online, they were able to suck tiny bits of equity from the table

there are different strategies but if you are the best player you should buy in full, if you aren't as good you should buy in short because you can use the shortstack as a weapon

i prefer very deep stacked games where the short stack can't be used as a weapon in the game, as long as you can buy in for 200BB the short stackers can't steal your equity

but yeah if the max bi is 100bb then it's definitely not necessary to top off, it's better to have the short stack if you know how to use it

But they could have made MORE money (assuming they were good) by buying in full. They bought in short because they didn't have to be good to make that easy equity.

Can we NOT encourage short-stack play?

It's bad for the game and the longevity of poker.

Who said OP is the best player?

Again, there are scenarios where you can get a 50BB bet called when you are all in or only have a little behind where if you had 150BBs left the guy will just fold to the 50BB bet because he knows he can lose a lot more in the hand. The shorter stack can make more money in lots of hands like that.

Overall, is playing deep stacked better for a great player? Of course, but its ridiculous when a guy has 99BBs to start a hand and people here are telling him to play fully stacked.

99BBs is not short stacked and actually deep stack poker is what is bad for the game. Fish go broke too quickly and the games dry up. Thats why you almost never see uncapped games anymore.

Mike, I respectfully disagree.

The last thing we need is non-thinking nits to sit in games for the min buy-in and never top-off and try to employ a short-stack strategy of being super patient and only playing high cards like this is some kind of tournament.

These types of games cause the big donators to steer clear of the poker room or to tighten up themselves.

If everyone plays a 100BB stack, everyone can convince themselves they have pot odds and start gambling it up a little bit. Seeing more flops is good for the game.

OK, but we arent talking about playing a 40-60BB stack. OP had 99BBs and people told him to buy in full. Even if the max buy in is 150BBs, 99 BB is 100% fine.