Yeah, but I play in an uncapped game and I like it. A lot.

I love it when I'm sitting there with three hundred in frong of me and two guys get in a pissing match and one guy pulls out 800 bucks and the other pulls out 1200. I know the game is about to get juicy as hell...

To the folks that somehow think there is some difference between playing a bigger stack and a buy-in sized stack look at it this way:

I think you're point it if player A has 100 and player B has 500, that player B may play differently than if he had 100 dollars, because of psychological considerations.

Ok, so lets say that he plays differently by open raising to 15 dollars, when all night long the standard raise was 6-8, he calls more bets, and he makes more big bluffs. He does all this because, psychologically, he's not affraid of losing a hundred dollars because he's up so much.

But suppose both player A and player B had one hundred dollars and now player B starts open raising to 15, calling too much, and making big bluffs - this time not because he's not afraid of losing, but for some other reason, he's on tilt, he's drunk, he usually plays 5/10 and the stakes don't matter to him and he's just screwing around. Would you say this is unfair to player A somehow?

Of course not. But that's exactly the same situation that a player with 100 versus a player with 500 is in. The math on every single play would be exactly the same, the pot odds would be exactly the same, the factors going in to the decisions would be exactly the same.

So yes, having a big stack size may change the WAY a person plays, just like any other psychological factor may change the way he plays. But it doesn't give him some kind of edge over the small stack (unless the changes make him play more correctly or the small stack play more incorrectly.) There is absolutely no real difference between the big stack covering the small stack by one dollar or by 900 dollars.

Oh, and one final note, a 50 BB buy in sucks. Ok, so very few people play true big bet poker these days, but at least at a hundred BB buy-in there is much more room for strategy and maneuver. At 50 BB's, you really tend to cripple the full range of options available in no limit.

Say you have 100 dollar stacks in a 1/2 game. You raise to 8 bucks and get 4 callers (if that seems to juicy to you, I would say that in my game an eight dollar bet would get you 4 callers somewhere in the 40-60% of the time range).

So 40 dollars in the pot. On the flop you bet 30 bucks and get one caller. On the turn you now have a pot of 100 dollars and you only have 62 dollars in front of you. 30 bucks would be a pretty small bet. All-in not only isn't that scary to your opponent given the size of the pot, he knows he isn't facing a river bet. Your options narrowed pretty fast.

But take the same scenario and give your self a starting stack of 200. Now you have 162 dollars on the turn, you have much more room to maneuver.

--Zetack

Let people buy-in at all times with a $X ($100 in your case, or more common, $200) max OR 75% of the biggest stack on the table.

There is definitely a difference at home games how the play goes in accordance with chip stack sizes. Let's face it, once the stacks get up to 300-400+ BB, the game no longer plays like $1/$2. Poker players tend to play according to their stack sizes, rather than the blind sizes. This makes a big difference to the short stack as he ends up pot committed very quickly in any hand he plays. When everyone at the table has $100, the preflop betting tends to be 3x-4x the BB - you get to see a flop for $6 to $8. When most players have $300+, the preflop betting tends to be $10-$15 or more.

Are you going to fold AK post-flop as the short stack with $80 left if you already have $20 in the pot and the pot size is $80 and the flop is all under cards? If you go all in and get called, you are getting at least 2 to 1 on your money (depending on how many players call). But if you are playing with a much bigger stack, you will no doubt play it differently - you've only committed a small portion of your stack to the pot.

I recommend letting players rebuy up to 50% of the big stack at the table.

So what? The fact that you have to adapt to changing table conditions doesn't somehow place the small stack at any greater disadvantage to the big stacks than if he had 100 bucks and they all had him covered by much smaller amounts, say by 20 to 40 dollars.

--Zetack

Can someone explain to me why people are against allowing losing players to buy in for more money?

How is it that a simple question about this brings out all the chest-beating about how playing the short stack is good for |33+ skillz and anybody who wants to buy more is a moron of poker?

Have I missed something here?

The original question was answered maybe 5 times. It has developed, as "conversations" tend to.

I prefer an unlimited buy-in game.

I don't think anyone is, if it doesn't risk killing off your game's growth potential and maintenance.

However, there's a reason that many people don't play in $2/5 NL games. Allowing unfettered rebuy levels can turn hundred-dollar losses into 4-figure losses and that, as I'm sure you know, can harm a game's long-term survival. There are other risks, as well.

I can't speak for others, but all I have been trying to say is that for most home games, the buyins need to be managed carefully. Now, this may be a smaller percentage of games posted here, if a higher percentage of knowledgeable players are involved.

lol. OK, I'm probably being leveled, but I'll play along just in case you really are stupid. Let's start here.

You have $100. Your opponent has $500. How exactly can this opponent make you more "busto" than a $100 opponent?

"The big stack has the advantage of being able to be the aggressor in pots without much worry of going busto."

Without "much" worry? How much worry does he have against a $100 stack would you say?

I concede that it's POSSIBLE for a $500 stack to have some sort of psychological influence or intimidation over a $100 stack. However that intimidation is groundless in poker theory. For that to exist, the $500 stack player would have to know
a) the $100 stack player doesn't know much about poker
b) specifically, that he is more worried about losing his $100 stack to a $500 stack player rather than another $100 stack player.

How could you know this about the $100 stack player? I guess if I had a $500 stack at a table with a player named Triantafilydis, then I would know to push him around with my $500 stack, but other than that I don't know how I'd know if the player were ignorant of that aspect of poker theory.

In reality, it's more likely that a $100 stack can push around the $500 stack. Not because of intimidation of stack size, but because of willingness to commit with weaker hands. A clueless $500 stack player might be counting on implied odds too much, and call large preflop raises from the $100 stack player. For example, if you have $500 and you have suited connectors or a pair of 2s (hoping to flop a set) and you call a raise of $20 from a short stack player, you are going to get your ass kicked all over the place. Against another $500 stack player, you might make this call correctly though.

Having said all that, yes of course I'd prefer to have $500 rather than $100. Mainly because I'd be $400 richer. But also because I'd be able to compete for big pots when other $500 stacks were in the hand. That assumes I'm better than them.

If I'm the best player, I want everyone else at the table to have stacks as big as mine. If I have $500, I want the worst player at the table to have at least $500. Note that I'd prefer for him to have a much LARGER stack than me, say $2,000,000. He certainly has no advantage over me with that stack. In fact I'd prefer it because if I win $500 from him, he is now playing for $1,000 effective stacks against me. Now I can win $1,000 from him if he screws up, instead of just $500, whereas if he had only $500 he can only rebuy for $100 and then I can't win as much from him. And he can make much smaller mistakes against me.

It follows, logically, that if I'd prefer my opponent to have $500 rather than $100, and I'm the best player, then the optimal thing for that player to do would be to play with a $100 stack, not a $500 stack. This is in direct contradiction to your assumption. He has an ADVANTAGE by playing with $100 instead of $500, not the other way around of me having an advantage over him. (This "advantage" comes in the form of less negative EV).

You would think so, but in practice people who don't know how to play well
- make many small mistakes with a smaller stack
- make 1 big mistake with a big stack

Probably comes out around even. For example, calling large raises with a small stack is a mistake with hands that require very large implied odds. Players who are stack ignorant (or effective stack ignorant) don't know how to play this differently.

True, but how would you determine you had that advantage? Before making "intimidating" plays with a big stack, you'd have to be convinced the short stack player was clueless enough to think you can bully him. How would you know that? You might know he's clueless about poker in general, but you wouldn't know he was clueless in that very specific way.

Look at the sign on the door. It says "Home Poker". We know our opponents well.

I can see valid points from multiple angles, and I think there are far too many variables for sticking rigidly to any approach in practical application. But I believe the vast majority of us here are not playing stakes high enough or with stacks deep enough for most of the theory being thrown around to be applicable.

For small stake, shallow stack, fixed time limit poker ... which is what most of us in Home Poker experience on a regular basis ... I feel the short stack has a distinct disadvantage. Theory is good for the infinite in a vacuum, but we are dealing with the finite in smoke-filled rooms. I want as many chips as possible to take advantage of every mistake. I want to be able to take the hit of variance without having to keep rebuying. I want my opponents - most of whom aren't even aware of the concept of "bankroll management" - to fear my Stack of Shorty Crushing +5, or, failing that, my Rebuy Bag of Holding.

Relating this back to the OP, I think the cap on initial buyins and raising cap on later rebuys is really the same concept in action...

* At the start of my games, I don't want the better players to intimidate the lesser players. I want the people who will donate $40 at a time to feel it's a game they can handle. And this is really important here... you can talk game theory all you like, but I'm talking psychology of weaker players. They want to get in there and mix it up, not sit on their hands and wait for huge hands to jump into a multi-way pot against opponents with 10x their stack size who are forcing the game to play bigger.

* Later in the night, as stacks grow and the game plays bigger through evolution, I want to allow larger rebuys. Firstly, it's so I can rebuy if I need to and take on the big stacks. But mostly it's so the folks who will donate larger amounts at a time feel like they have a shot to get their money back more quickly. (Yes, I know I could very well be fitting in that category, too, but so far so good.)

For most of the people with most of the games here, no cap at all is a sure way to kill a game. Me, I want my game to continue to grow and thrive.

Well that is true. If you play with the same guys over and over, you'd probably know what they thought about the game. People talk at the table and let you know what they know.

I played the other night and it was funny to hear what some guys were saying about my play. One hand I was all-in and during the long delay waiting for a call, it was enlightening to hear what they all thought I had based on how I play (which they had little to no clue about.)

Later another discussion started about how I always play ace-rag (ha!). "Oh he's beaten me with A-rag many times." "Yeah, but he won't raise with it." "Yeah, but he'll call raises with it." (Like I wasn't in the room.) This was so hilarious because I basically never play A-rag. One time I checked with A5 in the BB and flopped 2 pair and felted a guy who held A9. Apparently this was enough to convince the guy I play it "all the time" and "call raises with it".

Another time a guy had QQ and lost a big pot. He failed to raise preflop and let some trashy hand in. He couldn't control himself when he flopped an overpair. Afterward I jokingly said "Gotta watch slowplayin' them queens ;-)" He said "I didn't, I raised them." I said "Yeah, but I meant before the flop." He said "Look, I know you're the chip leader, but you don't know how to play queens. You can't put money in with them until you see if there's an ace on the flop. You know how often an ace comes on the flop?"

Another time a guy was bluffing heads up in a tourney, and he had the other guy covered. He bet the turn, and got raised all in. He had to call something like 4,000 in a 10,000 pot. He auto-called with 4 high, no pair no draw, board was like KJ98. I shook my head and said "Not sure about that one." He chewed me out to the effect of "Pay attention man, are you watching what's happening here? I'm pot committed. Do you even know what that means? I have to call here."

It's all just too funny.

Classic... and we have similar backgrounds, evidently.

good strategy

Let them rebuy for any amount they want. That's the whole point when we say that big stacks can't "bully" small stacks.

I think this is the best post in this thread. People who are new here (and to poker) should read and re-read this so they start to get an understanding (even at a basic level) of stack theory.

I absolutely 100% agree with this post. Strange how so many people are arguing that there's no basis in poker theory to believe that a short-stack is disadvantaged at a table full of bigger stacks, yet everyone has ignored this post.

I don't know about you guys, but I most certainly, in addition to the ratio of the pot to my stack, consider the stack sizes of the others at the table when figuring out how to bet. If I have $500 and am playing 9 other players, 8 of them having $500+ and one of them with $100, you'd better believe that I will play the hand less aggressively against the big stacks than I would the short stack alone. If you can agree with this, then you can't deny that the $100 stack is going to be "bullied," even if not intentionally, by the other players. The simple fact is that $1/$2 NL home games can quickly turn into the equivilant of $2/$5 or even $5/$10 games, without raising the stakes, by pure virtue of the number of chips on the table. By the end of the night at my $1/$2 games, an opeining raise of $18+ becomes fairly standard. I would NOT want to re-buy at that stage with $100...

Some of us didn't "ignore" it, we're just debating as to whether poker reality matches theory.

That really depends on the players, wouldn't it? I think if I were in a game where I'd be much more afraid of the big stacks than the small stacks, I need to find a new game or switch to limit.

Isn't that somewhat counteracting big-bet theory? In fact, aren't you in a sense confirming the bully theory? If the short stack knows that the big stacks are going to be very aggressive against him, then it becomes a card-catch game preflop/flop for the short stack, severly limiting his playing options.

In the short time of a home game night (yes, most people think in sessions rather than long term, as we all know), that could be an important playing factor, correct?

We agree far more than we disagree, Larry.

My point is that both examples support the fact that the short stack is in a tough position. As you say, he's limited to a card-catch situation when he's facing action from other players (as in my example). When he does get a playable hand that he leads out with, the big stacks are less likely to give him action due to the poor implied odds they're getting (as in the example I quoted). Either way you slice it, there's a disadvantage to being trapped into a short-stack re-load in a home game.

Now, if we have unlimited cash and the game goes on forever, as many posters seem to imply, then the theory might take on some new traits, but that's just not the reality in a home game situation.

I haven't read all of the replies, but the few I did read seem to be moving away from the original question.

A simple answer would be that a player be allowed to buy-in for any amount up to 1/2 of the largest stack assuming that one or more players has more than the original max buy-in. I have played in casinos that do this and it seems to work out well.

I didn't read all eight pages, but maybe have it so that if you go bust, you're allowed to rebuy for the max. amount someone has on the table? Already suggested perhaps?