The story
In the opening of my 4-year-anniversary post I mention the friend who initially got me into poker. He is exclusively an NLHE player, and when I first started I was as well. After a little over a year, I switched to LHE because I found it much more fun. After I had been playing that for a while, we had this conversation:
Him: "You've got to stop playing fixed limit - it's a recreational game, it's not real poker, you're never going to make any money!"
Me: "I can't play no limit - I can't afford it - I don't have enough of a bankroll to risk losing $200 on one hand!"
Him: "Then don't buy in for $200 - buy in for $80, wait for aces and kings and double it up!"
Me: "I've heard that you shouldn't buy in short because it reduces your ability to maneuver on the big money streets."
and he just walks away at that point - gives up
. He and I probably had that exact conversation at least 5 times between 2013 and 2016 - he's just besides himself that I've become an LHE player.
So early in 2017 I'm on a business trip to San Antonio and I'm reading Malmuth, Miller and Sklansky's SSHE book on the plane. The guy I'm sitting by says, "Oh, do you play poker?" I lit up like a Christmas tree hoping I'd actually have a chance to talk about poker with another live human being! I don't remember the whole conversation, but the guy was from Vegas and plays a lot of $5-$10NLHE. He seemed to be a "feel player" who would bet into a player who he felt would fold to the big bet yada yada, but he did seem to have at least a fundamental understanding of position, stack size, player reads, odds etc. Anyway, he asked me about the book I was reading and said, "Fixed limit?!?!? Why do you play that fixed limit crap? It totally takes the poker out of it - you can't bet someone off a hand!" I said (as you'll probably predict) that I can't afford to lose $200 on one hand. And he said (as you're probably predicting right now!) "then don't buy in for $200 - buy in for $100 - I buy in to $5/$10NLHE games for $500 all the time!". I started explaining to him what I'd read in books and on the internet, and at that moment a very attractive stewardess passed our row (we were in the exit row), and I kid you not, for the entire 55-minute flight I was completely invisible, this guy was flirting like his life depended on it
.
Anyway, right about that same time I had signed up for a Card Player Cruise (and, as a short aside, I could talk about cruising all day - I am a certified cruiseaholic - they are the best vacation there is, and when you can book one through a company like CPC where you get your own private poker room, it's about as close to Nirvana as a human can get down here). The first time I took a CPC cruise was in 2014, and my friend took it with me (and won enough money at the NLHE tables to pay for his whole cruise!). He was not able to do so this time, too many family commitments, and I couldn't find anyone else to go with me. If you're familiar with cruises, if you try to go alone you USUALLY end up having to pay double the price for the whole room. CPC has a service where if you're in the unenviable situation of having to go alone, they will pair you up with either a CPC employee or another CPC cruiser who's in the same boat (pun totally intended) so you can share the cost. I got paired with a man from Las Vegas who has been playing poker for 50 years. I had been chatting with him over email and he seemed like a super nice guy. Anyway, inspired by experience on the plane, I decided to ask him what he thought about buying in short. It turned out that he built his entire bankroll $80 at a time - he said he'd spent an entire year in the Shreveport area buying into an NLHE game with $80, doubling it up, cashing out, going to another casino, lather rinse repeat, and he did that for a whole year before starting to work in his deepstack game. He told me, "I have a book (I think it was Ed Miller's Getting Started in Hold'Em) that I can bring on the cruise for you to read that will show you exactly what to do." The book had like a 12-page section on playing with a short stack. I read the book and then practiced the strategy at the microstakes tables online, and he tutored me whenever I had a spot I wasn't sure about.
Here's a part that I found funny: I played some live NLHE on the cruise using the shortstack strategy, and whenever I actually followed it, I won, and whenever I DIDN'T follow it, I lost
. One example - I had been card-dead for about 2 hours, I limped along after 3 limpers on the button with QTo, the BB raised to like 4BB, everyone called, I flopped a Q, the BB bet out, I went all in and he called - he had AQo. Also, after being card-dead it's hard not to call with 66 or 76s on the BTN after a raise and 2 callers, but with a short stack it's wrong because you just don't have enough implied odds. Calling those hands because it was fun and then having to call a flop bet because I had odds to chase cost me some money. There was a night where my roommate was at my table, I was playing the shortstack strategy, and I had 66 on the button after a raise and a call. I really really really really wanted to play that hand but I was like, "He's sitting right there and he's told me specifically not to play this hand! If I play it he'll feel like I just disregard his advice and he won't be so keen to give me more in the future" so I folded. A little later he left the table, then a little later I got 66 on the button in the same situation, couldn't resist the temptation to play it, flopped an OESD and called a flop bet, then got bet out of the pot on the turn. 2 hands later I got AKo all in pre and doubled up through an AQo - if I hadn't wasted my money with 66 I'd have won a lot more!
It turns out that what I heard about why you shouldn't buy in short is true, but it's ONLY TRUE IF YOU'RE THE BEST OR SECOND-BEST PLAYER AT THE TABLE (which I NEVER am at an NLHE table!). If you don't know how to make correct decisions on the turn and river (or if you don't know how to manipulate the villains into making BAD ones), it doesn't matter how much money you have on the table, you'll just lose it.
To make a long story short, short-stacked NLHE is just too boring for me. I don't like it. I do believe it's very profitable, especially for an underrolled beginner, but when it all comes down to it, I play poker to have fun, and short-stacked NLHE just isn't fun for me. So I've given it up.
But I applied the lessons I learned to PLO and have managed to put together what so far has been a profitable way to play short-stacked PLO on a soft site.