I believe this a flawed thinking in a few ways but specially because sitting with 150bb is not deap stacked and imho is what I consider short stacked in a llsnl game.

With that said I know a lot of people who buy in short and play that game very well. It's not for me, its not for everyone but it can work very well. You also have to think, when you buy in short what do people think of you when you get it all in? And you USE that to your advantage, and that's one reasone I think people can make it work so well. But it has to be for you, it wouldn't work with my style.

Ya ok, 150bb is short stack when most of the llsnl players are buying in less than 100bb.

Short stacking has its place, but the majority of juicy games will have full stacked or deep stacked fish that you will want to cover.

If your game doesn't have full stacked or deep stacked fish, you should probably be table changing anyway.

Short stacking also forces you to play fewer hands. This usually reduces your win-rate a lot unless you are short-stacking a higher stake game where you would be -EV playing full-stacked against full-stacked regs at the higher stake

Also short stacking actually increases variance

FWIW, short-stacking will not reduce your variance much.

If you have a short bankroll, short-stacking won't reduce your risk of going busto much.

The only thing that will seriously reduce your risk of ruin is a solid win rate. Everything else is unimportant compared to improving your win rate.

Most posters would be better off focusing on their poker fundamentals instead of wasting time debating correct buy-in sizes.

This works both ways. If there is a mega fish or 2 deep stacked at a certain table then all of the good players will gravitate to that table. If the other games are relatively short stacked (ie 100bbs or less) good players will gravitate away from those tables leaving very soft tables ripe for the pickings.

As a short-stack player (60bbs) I only have one concern in regards to stack sizes...that the majority of players cover me (opposite of conventional logic). At 1/2 I could see this being an issue but at 2/5 and 5/10 it is extremely rare for me to find a table that does not meet these conditions.

It allows you to play less hands PASSIVELY, but if you play TAG and I play LAG I will still be playing far far more hands than you will.

Agree completely. I would guesstimate that it reduces my variance by maybe 10 to 15% tops...not very much at all. I essentially go by the same bankroll requirements whether I play short stack or full stack.

Short stacking does not reduce variance >

Myth and lies

Decreased WR, increased STD DEV = more variance

it just makes it easier to have a positive winrate

This +1000

Great post here. 2+2 nerds fail to understand the true merits of shortstacking but buying in deep is stupid until you see a deep fish making big mistakes in big pots- otherwise everything in above post is spot on, and it lures 2+2ers to assuming you suck and are short of $ and they play horribly against you

You have to risk it to win it, buying in short will only reduce your hourly. Unless you suck at deep stacked.

In the grand scheme of things, it probably does affect your win rate negatively. However, the reason why most people short stack is to be able to have more bullets to sit in higher stake, presumably to gain higher return.

If the choice is to sit shorter at 2/5 or sit at full stack in 1/2, I would choose 2/5 any day. The potential loss of EV is negated.

+1

Okay, to 11t and bubonic, in case you didn't read my post completely (I'm guessing you didn't):

I am not a good deep stack player. Short-stacking, therefore, DOES increase my winrate.

11t, when you claim that short stacking increases variance, do you mean variance dollar per dollar? Or variance in buyins? It would have to more than *double* buyin variance to increase absolute dollar variance. I highly doubt that it does.

Your swings will be greater in terms of BB's

simple math dude, you aren't playing rivers which is the most profitable street. Most good players have a pretty high won money when at showdown % or won money at the river.

basically your winrate will be smaller and your SDV higher so the absolute height of your swings in terms of BB's will be greater.

I am pretty confident that this is mathematically correct, search the uNL arches, lots of short stacking posts which will confirm what I've said.

I read your post, whether or not it is more profitable for you is a personal problem but I'd suggest just getting better. I also said that the real reason why short stacking is "good" is that it is easier to be profitable.

why dont you just get better at deep stack

Short-stacking increases dollar-for-dollar variance but you are playing a smaller game so you can get by with a smaller bankroll than somebody playing deep. The variance of a correctly played shortstack is nuts though and makes me think the guys doing it to reduce variance are playing pretty poorly.

I do plan to get better at deep (or just plain regular) stack play. I just posted a thread in goals and challenges.

Since I don't have a bankroll, my plan for improving my deep stack play is to do so online. I have enough to play 50NL with proper bankroll on Bovada, but I know I'm not good enough for 50NL. I'm going to start all the way at the bottom on 5NL, play until I'm reasonably sure I'm crushing it, and move up to 10NL, rinse and repeat. All the while I will be studying the game.

What kind of winrate/100, over how many hands, do you think I need before you'd say I'm solidly beating a game? I plan on only playing one table at a time, to pay as much attention as I can to other peoples' hands.

Also I asked this in the Bovada thread, but I need a stat tracker that works for that site...I only need to be able to track my own stats to keep track of my vpip, winrate/100, all that jazz.

Upon reviewing the wisdom and experience of the posters here, I now recommend everyone in this thread to embrace the short-stack style.

Since all the good players are playing deep-stacked games, we might as well bum-hunt the short-stack games because they are softer.

In most 2/5 games that I have seen, everyone suck beyond 200-300bb, and most are pretty crappy < 80bb.

I have most probably played more hands of half stacked NL poker then anyone itt. Half stacking and short stacking are two completely different animals. Those negatives mentioned such as higher variance and decreased win rate do no apply by any means in as big a way to half stacked poker as as they do to short stacked.

lol at my sample size, but i'm running at 51/hr over my last 300 hours at 2/5.

Got a question for the higher-rolled players. I'm sitting on a 16k bankroll at the moment. What would be a sufficient amount to take shots at 5/10? The games in my area play pretty deep. The 2/5 game I regularly play is a 20-200bb buyin, while the 5/10 games have a 500bb max. The dilemma I've been facing is that there are times when the 5/10 looks softer than the 2/5. What kind of BR should I be looking at to take shots when this circumstance arises?

If you can beat the games, then 10k is enough. If not, just game select far more aggressively.

hah

lol

If you are buying in 2/5 for 1k. Mentally you are already a 5/10 player already. Of course you should shot take if the games are good.

Where do you play? Your games have very deep caps.