This is clearly worse for the game. Topping up is fine. Just don't top up with a red chip every time the BB goes past you and you're $5-$10 under the max. $5-$10 under the max will make such a minuscule difference in your win rate its not worth the effort to reach into your pocket.

Surely you can wait until you're at least $25-$35 under the max on a 2/5 table?

There is the argument of:

EV of topping off.

vs

-EV of red flag signal to rec and rec fish.

Has anyone established the negative value of red flag signal or at least some form of perimeter to evaluate such action?

It would seem necessary before we dive deeper into whether topping off $5-$10 every hand is "minuscule" or not.

If topping off every hand is enough to drive away 20% of whales who average -30bb/hr at the table, it's pretty easy to see why topping off 1-2bb every other hand is a huge -EV move.

Id love for anyone to show with some math that they can add more than $1/hr in win rate by topping up from $490 to $500 every time they drop down $10 below max buy in (Or from $990 to $1000) in a 2/5 game.

Its not going to happen unless you get all in at least once every 2-3 hours AND the other player always has the full stacked amount.

My last 2 sessions I got all in 3 times in 8 hours.

Max buy in is $1000 in all 3 hands

1) All in for $600 each. I won and had villain drawing dead. Topping off to $1000 would've made no difference. He only had $600

2) All in for $335 each. I lost and had 61% equity (after seeing his hand). Topping off would've made no difference. He only had $335

3) All in for $440 each. I won and had 65% equity. Topping off wouldve made no difference. She only had $440.

In hands 2 and 3, if we both had full stacks, we have to take equity into account as it pertains to how much extra we can win or lose by topping up to full stack. Id love to see some more examples of all ins. I bet if some people post their all in hands from the last few sessions, if we get 10-20 All in hands posted, we will see how little per hour extra can be made by topping off to these tiny amounts.

I have zero extra in the last 8 hours.

If I can gain $1/hr by reaching in my pocket for 2 red chips, why wouldn't I?

Even if I can only get 50 cents/hr reaching in my pocket, why would I not?

.50 x 1000 = $500.

If I can make extra $500 every 1000 hours by reaching in my pocket for 2 red chips, it would be rather stupid not to do it.

I thought it was pretty obvious that you can't convince people not to do something that's clearly positive EV on its own, until you establish that the effect of doing it is negative EV and negates the overall positive EV.

I already know its -EV to be seen as a super serious grinder by the recs and whales. They wont give you as much action. There's no doubt about that. They make loose $25 preflop calls against me all day long. Much more than they do against the obvious grinder types. Then they flop some piece of something and get stuck in the hand and lose more.

We will never be able to measure how -EV that is to get less action or how often it happens, but IMO its a lot more significant than the tiny amount of extra EV you can get by topping up in $5-$10 increments.

You'll never be able to get anywhere near $1/hr by topping up that often for those small amounts. I just showed a little math as an example. As I said, my last 8 hrs I have zero extra EV compared to being fully stacked.

Maybe Ill keep track for the next 100 hours just for grins.

Obviously human behavior on small sample size is impossible to measure accurately, but it should be fairly easy to plugin variables with plausible scenarios to determine range of EV.

Though it's kind of funny that you can speak with such conviction of your position in the same sentence that you are declaring how it is impossible to evaluate your position.

Again, an interesting tendency to raise a question, then answer it with absolute position yet without any actual evidence.

That I will agree with. Seating changing and then obviously attacking a fish with position will tick people off fast. It is certainly a bigger issue then stacking up, which is at worse one of many factors in your image as a player in the game.

Who said I was topping up after dropping $5-10? Not only is your overall argument poor and invalid, but so are the underlying assumptions.

Um, you did?

Enough with the bickering back and forth, folks. If you've made a point and it didn't convince people, don't make it again.

No one is paying attention to you, especially not the recreationals. Each to their own, but I make sure my stack is never $50 less than the max.


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That's perfectly reasonable. $5-$10 is not. That was my only point.

I think you’re looking at this too much from a 2/5 players perspective. It’s largely stakes dependent. If someone was playing 1/1, $10 top off is probably not unreasonable, just as $50 is not unreasonably at any $5 big blind stakes. And conversely, a $50 top off would probably be considered ridiculous at 25/50.

In conclusion, top off when you want and smoke em if you got em.

At one time I started all of my posts with "top of to the max after each hand" (later appending that with "if you're much better than most at the table"). Finally M said it likely wouldn't make nearly as much difference as I'd think, and he was likely right.

Regarding harm to the game, obviously just be self-aware for the game you are in. My 1/3 NL game has a $400 maximum BI now; ain't no one gonna care too much if the obvious biggest nit at the table takes out a $5 chip every now and again to OCD top up his $200 stack. Obviously things would differ in an more unlimited bigger BI game regarding table hopping / seat hopping the whale and killing his good time; be aware and tactful as possible.

GcluelesstoppingupnoobG

This thread is kinda ridiculous, so I'm just gonna jump in with my strat. I play 1/3/5/10/20/40 $100 antee now a days, that's 100K cap. I usually build a fort of racks filled with $1 chips. I keep several trunks of loose, unracked, single dollar chips & rolls of pennies beside me for topping up. One of the trunks has a seat built in. I call it my "sitter." I've cut out holes in the sitter with sliding covers so I can reach in quickly top up any time I drop below $99,997.00 Everyone else has about 12.5k in front of them, so that way I'm covered in case one of these short-stacking donks stacks the entire table in a hand; like guess what buddy, we're still just even.

TTHRIC