Quote:
Originally Posted by LunaEqualsLuna
For 20-40BB poker you are comfortably playing TPGK and better for stacks.
For 40-60BB you can probably play high Over pairs and better for stacks.
For ~100BB poker you are playing probably two-pair and better for stacks
for ~200BB poker you are playing proably only top two pair/sets and better for stacks.
and so on... as stack sizes increases massively even sets are not good enough to get it all in by the river etc
You logic is flawed because it is based on the assumption that you should be getting all-in with every winning hand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LunaEqualsLuna
Well to rathole or not is a touchy issue, I have no problem with people doubling up through me and ratholing, so i don't lose any sleep over ratholing someone else
Ratholing is unethical. It is really just as simple as that. All the arguments and e-peen waving about how shortstack poker isn't poker aside, true as they may be, ratholing is simply unethical.
Whether you chose to live your life by a code of ethics is another question. Whether you believe that certain parts of that code are waived when playing poker is yet another question.
I don't mind the fact that shortstackers reduce poker to a slot pull, because they are invariably bad at making decisions and I am very +EV against them.
Quote:
If i don't want to play 100BB+ poker its my choice not to.
This, ultimately, is the argument all shortstackers reduce to. Yes, it is your choice to shortstack. There are no rules against it. You are also technically permitted to rathole online because it is impossible to write rules to make it illegal without making the games unfair.
In a live casino it is explicitly forbidden to rathole. If you get up from a table with 4 buyins, you cannot sit at any other table (for a certian amount of time) with less than 4 buyins. The reason for this is because poker is an almost-zero-sum game. Except for the rake and tips, money only goes from player to player. When you win a pot from a player, pick that money up and leave, you make the game a non-zero-sum game and un-level the playing field. Unscrupulous players will find loopholes and technical arguments to back their claim that this is perfectly ethical because it is perfectly legal, but law does not legislate morality and most ethical people understand and accept this. But because ratholers are unethical, casinos had to force players to behave ethically in this regard in order to keep the games fair -- and this is why the explicit "no ratholing" rule exists is most casinos.
Online poker is different in one particular regard that makes this rule difficult or impossible to enact in that forum -- it is possible to multitable online where it is not in a live casino. You run in to a major problem when trying to create a no ratholing rule. The logical solution would be that if you get up from a table with n$, the next table you sit at you must bring at least n$. This falls apart however because it makes it possible to exploit the maximum buyin for the table, which, again, would make the game unfair for a table full of 100 BB stacks when you are able to sit with 350 BBs.
So it is not possible to enforce the no ratholing rule online without making the games unfair in another way. But again, law does not legislate morality and it is still unehtical to rathole online for the same reasons as live.
Ethical people understand this. Ratholers do not, or decide to reject it.