Being a short stack in a cash game may not be optimal but for the reason of being -EV is not one of them. It is +EV.

Paul

Pesonally as a player I would prefer no short buys but I also think this is the most reasonable short buy policy, if there is one.

In my experience it is not a difficult policy to enforce, but I work in a smaller room.

Obviously OP's scenario was not a short buy.

Paul

I had the extreme example happen to me a year or two ago. Was playing 1/2, lost an all-in and had $1 left, just wanted to donate it to the next pot or see a funny hand. Dealer wouldn't give me cards until I met the minimum buyin. Tried adding $1, not allowed. Had to be minimum. Tipped the dealer and left.

This seems correct to me.

I've been under the impression that the distinction between "having chips" and "being busted and need to rebuy" is the ability to cover the Big Blind.

Paul C

I've never understood the logic to letting someone with $2 add on $5 if the table min buy is $100. But it's common. I would have no problems at all if everybody changed the rule to require that anytime you add chips to your stack you have to end up with a chip stack somewhere between the table min and table max.

I know one strip room tried to implement this rule once, and it got screwed up and was being interpreted wrong by the floors (or was worded wrong in the rule change). They were having "trouble" with FL 2/4 short-stackers (believe it or not) who were buying in for the $20 min, and then kept their stacks at $10 at all times during the aces-cracked promo--they wanted to be sure they couldn't lose more than a few dollars on any hand, but needed to be sure they could get $20 in the pot so their cracked aces would get paid. The room manager was trying to put a stop to the constant "sell me $2 of chips" every hand nonsense that was driving the dealers crazy by tweaking the rule. Not sure if it ever got reworded or implemented as he intended.

Mind you, I admit to having coached a player once to add on before he was felted because he had stated he didn't have enough for a rebuy and had already done his allowed short buy. He was 100% guaranteed to give his stack away and as there was no waiting list of potentially deeper-stacked players, I helpfully suggested to him, as he sat with $5 bemoaning the fact that he was gonna have to leave if he lost 'cause he only had $40 more, that if he added chips now, he could avoid having to come up with the table minimum. He thanked me and whipped out his $40. I didn't get it, but it did stay on the table when the player left 10 minutes later.

I had a player complain to me a few days ago about a short buy situation that happened the night before.

It was about 4:00AM and only one game was running, 6 handed, where the min buy in is $40. A new player wanted to buy in for $27.

He asked the Floor Supervisor if he could short buy and join the game. The Floorman said he could, but one player (a known full-bore nitty PITA) objected. Our house rules allow one short buy, with the caveat that the Floorman "may allow shortbuys at his discretion". This was the new players first buy in.

I explained to the PITA that it was in the best interest of the room that the player be allowed to enter the shorthanded game - after all it was a shorthanded game in the early AM so why not get another player in there to keep it from breaking? I thought this would be a no brainer, but I caught a lot of heat about it from the PITA.

He said "A rule is a rule, he shouldn't be allowed to short buy". After explaining our house rule allowing one short buy and my reasoning about why I thought it would actually be good to get another player in there, his responded with "You don't know what what you're talking about. He could take down the whole table."

People who see the rules as obstacles have a very difficult time viewing them as guidelines.

I often wonder if these players would feel the same way .... if they were pulled over for speeding and just as the cop was telling them that he was going to let them off with a warning, the guy in the pasenger seat piped up with no way .... last week I was speeding and I got a ticket ... rules are rules... you can't let him get away with a warning .....

Ha! Awesome.