You talk like you are familiar with the play and procedures at Seminole Hard Rock Tampa. Do you ever play there?

this is a great rule, it gives the whole table a shot at the money

oh, some make the game very juicy -- if you can figure out their "pattern".

I get the possibilities. I just think most low stakes players do most of those things anyway. The % they're doing them more in jackpot games isn't worth the money coming off the table for drops, the spots where it slows the game down...sometimes slows the game way down, etc. One of the first live games I played in was 1/2 nl, $500 max buy in, no jackpot. All of the things mentioned above were beyond standard just because low stakes players suck/like to draw to pretty hands/like to play "tricky" without any additional encouragement needed.

A poker room in a good area with little competition is going to be as juicy at low stakes without a jackpot as it is with one, at least I think it would be.

U r playin a limit game where big stack has no advantage and SPR is meaningless.

I hate it. Consider this. $1000 mini JP. 1-3 NLHE with $300 cap. Let's add in a 1/2 match the big option. Recently opened. Hero is big stack having won a hand $400. Villan is 2nd stack at $375. V wins the $1000 and adds it.

Now not only is hero out chipped 3.5:1 but hero can't even go to his pocket to match. The best he can do is play with half the big stack.

Max that can be brought into play should be limited by how the villain is capped.

It's not a tournament. Why does hero care about being "out chipped". I wish everybody'd out chip me every hand.

So in your room u don't know which half hour a hand starts ineven though the start of a hand has a specific by definition rule. But you do know which half hour the hand ends in even though other than the start of the next hand. Which u already admitted u don't know when they begin does not have an applicable definition. I am sorry but I don't buy it.

Me think ye doth protest too much.

Stack size has advantages in NL cash games. If this wasn't true why do u think there are caps in many or even most NL cash games?

I'm not following what it is you are getting at. I never said no one knows when a hand starts. I said if you are tying when a hand starts to whether it started before or after an announcement is made, in a room where many tables wont hear the announement is a problem. It's easy to say the hand started when the green button is pushed on the shuffler.

But when the high hand is hit, and the floor asks was the button pushed before I announced last hand, and the dealer didnt hear the announcement, what do you think the players will say? If is to their advantage to say yes, to win the current half hour they will. If not, they wont. And most players tend to remember when the deal starts, and not so much notice when the button is pushed. So IMO using an announcemet provides no more clarity then when the hand is over.

When the hands are tabled and a high hand is present, the dealer immediately yells out "supervisor". It's easy to determine by the clock which half hour that occurs in. And its transparent as other can hear it as well. Whereas no other table will see when the button was pushed. So that will lend itself to more suspicions of manipulation.

So i really dont understand what point you are trying to make.

Can you list any advantage that a guy with a stack of 1000 has over me when he is in a hand against me when i have a stack of 400 in a cash game? There's a reason they invented the term effective stacks.

To prevent the fish from going broke too quickly. The shortest stack actually has an advantage in any cash poker game.

To protect the fish to keep raking them and to keep the fish comfortable and coming back to keep raking them.

The times where it can hurt you mostly only involve villains who are better than you and have position, and every chip beyond your stack still doesn't hurt any. In low stakes games pray that every player outchips you by as much as possible at every opportunity.

Now shorter stacks than you, yes, they can have an advantage and you should jump on anybody who buys in less than minimum. They also absolutely kill the games in a rake trap environment (everybody loses/it becomes just a house game). If you're ever upset at somebody having you outchipped (for reasons other than they won those outchipping chips off of you) you're doing something wrong for the most part.

Plus many players are scared away by big stacks. These people don;t really understand, but I suspect its because many people started playing NL by playing tournaments.

If everyone has $900 in front of them in a 1/2 game, opening raises often get bigger as the night goes on. This makes it very uninviting to the players that want to sit down with $100 and play 'more appropriate' raise sizes for the given limits (their thoughts, not mine. I understand the differences and (dis)advantages)

Was playing 2/5 at Magic City earlier this afternoon and ran into a situation I hadn't seen before. This one involved the dealer intentionally delaying the hand rather than the player (but obviously still for his benefit). Two players were all in right at the end of one HH bonus period and just before the start of the new one. Both hands were tabled with about 30 seconds left in the period and the short stack had the winning hand of aces full. However, the current HH was quads so the aces full wouldn't have qualified for anything other than winning the pot. The dealer slowly counted out the short stack's chips and then slowly counted out the loser's matching chips and returned the excess to him. By the time he finished doing so, the new HH bonus period had just begun and he yelled out "high hand!!" to the floor. The aces full hand then went up on the board.

I must admit that I've never seen anything quite like that before. Ironically, all these machinations went for naught as another person at our table got quad queens a few minutes later. (And even that didn't hold up as a straight flush ultimately won the bonus for that period.)

A dealer should never ever initiate something like this. They are at the players mercy a lot of times when the players do it, but not the dealer. Even with that said, doing it for a hand like Aces full is even more ridiculous. That type of hand would only hold up about 1% of the time if it goes on the board 30 seconds into the time period anyway at a normal size room. This is just bad all around.

This dealer gets 15 KITN for not just being a douche bag, but being a stupid douche bag at that!

I agree with everything you wrote. As I said, I've never seen a dealer do this completely on his own. The player never even encouraged the dealer to do this, although he obviously was pleased with the dealer's course of action.

I have played in 20+ active table rooms with a high hand promo and the 'when the hand starts rule'. NOT ONCE have I seen an issue with the dealer/table knowing which half hour a hand was started in.

Your yelling "supervisor" won't work in such a room. He may be across the loud room running down a clock at the 5-10 PLO game playin deep with a $15K or more pot. He ain't worried about your measly $100 or $500 high hand. He will get to you when he can.

Pretty much everything you claim about making the start of hand won't work apply just as much to the end of hand method plus you open the game up to these delay tactics.

Now will some players/tables/dealers "lie" about when the hand started, sure, it might happen. But I suspect there will be at least one honest person at the table who will let the floor know (probably on their way out not wanting to play with cheaters.) And if the dealers have personal stake in keeping game honest (i.e. time off if they don't), they are going to know also.

It really is NOT that hard and it works everywhere I have ever played (including a little in FLA, but not South FLA)

There is a reason why Stack to Pot Ratio is important also. Short stack gets you pot committed and takes away from the options you have.

Others have mentioned some other issues here. But if we want to debate the strategies around stack sizes, etc we should move the discusson over to one of the strategy forums like LLSNL.

Edit: Plus even if it is not an actual advantage, if some players incorrectly believe it is then it has an impact on the game. Might be good/might be bad, but changes the game.

Me personally, I have no issue sitting with a $400 stack with only one stack bigger stack at my table with $1400+. Now if I have $400 and the rest of the table ALL have $1000+ and some north of $2000 (and I have seen tables like that at 1-3 NL stakes), I am chipping up or leaving. If I open the action with a $50 bet (well over 2x a normal 1-3 open bet at a "normal" 1-3 table), it will probably still be called in 4 or more places. Now what do I do on the flop when I miss? or worse flop 2PTK? I either push or fold to any bet; I have no other option. Entirely different dynamic if I am the one with $2K and V has $400.

Finally, I remember a discussion Phil Ivey was having with someone. He said, "I hate capped. I am probably the worst at capped. I can't ever when capped. ..." I am sure that is because he could not buy in short in a capped game. It would never be because he couldn't buy in big. I mean we all always saw him buy in for the absolute min on HSP. Ooops, I don't think I ever saw him do that.

It works everyday at the Tampa Hard Rock. Smoothly. As I've mentioned many times ITT, no one is complaining about any problems with the system as it is.

I'm not saying the announcement system doesnt work. I believe in a large noisy room like THR there could be issues of knowing exactly when the announcement was made. Just as tourney tables screw it up even though we have an automated systen where a taped voice announces when the last hand of a level is and the TVs show it. Yet they still have tables that go 5 minutes or more with the wrong blinds.

But again, the issue is that no one at THR has an issue with the current system, so there is no need to change it.

If you can 17x it and get called in four spots and think it's a game to leave...well, no money in poker and all...

The original explanation included, "keep the fish comfortable". Just sayin'.

There is no "even if" in the "even if it's not an advantage". Effective stacks.

As for you Ivey example, what do you think he does if everybody but him @ one of the hsp games is allowed to buy in for 10 million, they all do so, and he alone is capped at 1 million? I can guarantee you the answer isn't chip up and leave. It's probably more along the lines of thanking the devil for including that spot in their deal than chipping up and leaving.


eta - and I would guess by "capped" PI meant "cap limit" very common in high stakes games. The issue in those games has nothing to do with stack sizes.

SPR does not trump effective stacks in cash.

If a guy with 400 BB calls a raise from a guy with AA 100 BB when he cannot win enough to make that decision profitable, it's a mistake.

If three sloppy big stacks make that decision, it certainly lowers the equity of AA, but it is still an error made by each individual sloppy player.

In cash games chips have a fixed value and the only relativity is based around how much each individual player gives a deal about money.

This is very different than tournament ICM where the value of the chips varies relatively depending on multiple factors including SPR.

The Ivey reference is totally inapplicable here, IIRC he was discussing his dislike of a very specific type of PLO game where the maximum risk you could take in a single hand regardless of stack size was capped. Ex: 2/5 PLO, once a player puts a total of $200 in the pot all betting is done and people can call, watch the board run out, and then showdown.

I once was playing 1/3 at Aria with 100 BB, raised with AA, got a caller with 200 BB, bet a 3 rag board, called, bet K turn, c/c J river and watched the guy roll over KJ. He didn't make that decision because he had superior SPR, he made that decision because he was a terrible, money losing card player

Saying you don't want to play guys who buy in big and play sloppy sounds like being mad because you took a beat because they play bad.

Also, the SPR equation in cash games as laid out by Ed Miller is effective stack size/pot size, so in a 10 BB pot, a guy with 100 BB and a guy with 1000BB have the same SPR, 10 BB.

WTF does any of this SPR **** have to do with purposely delaying to win a HH promo?

this