None, find another table where you can make more money without having to worry about being squeezed on both ends. It's good to play out of comfort level, because you can learn a few things along the way, but not at the expense of your own bankroll.

Why would you say that? Please don't troll me over a light hearted comment in this thread because some people (not even me, I might add) don't agree with you. That's not cool, man.

Thanks, Diablo, for the advice!

This is very wrong...firstly gross number of pots won is largely irrelevent in discussing poker because what's important is amount won.

Secondly, 35 - 30 all ins = 5 net all ins. What makes you more money, a 100bb stack x 5 or a 250bb stack x 5?

You need a lot of extra EV to make up for buying in short. If you want to do something like this, I would suggest buying in for a weird amount like 107 bb or something and top up manually.

I'm not trolling.

He's asked a question, disagreed with the answer, despite it obviouslyh being correct and then talks about fish in a patronising manner.

It just made me smirk.

10% VPIP 3-handed? He's probably damn bad, this might be a $700. Easy $80 if he's a good aggressive player instead since we're OOP to him 2/3 of the time.

and why is that so? 80$ if he's a nit - we won't win any big pot from him but he may catch us of line when we're battling the whale. So 80$ is enough to take all the small/medium pots from him.

The deeper your stack is, the more postflop play there is and the better you will have to be at playing three streets. When you short stack, all of the action is pretty much preflop with some flop action. That's why they can play off a chart.

Most micros players are pretty lousy postflop players. Even the regs. You might not have an edge on them now, but you probably should be learning to be the best at your particular stakes. And there is so much more value to be had at being able to play postflop competently. If this is not something that you're interested in, then short stacking is fine. But competent opponents will adjust to a short stacker much easier than they can adjust to a good deep stacked player.

I knew this would happen if I asked this question. People feel very strongly on it,; I'd add buying in full at this stake is 250BBs, I feel comfortable with 100BBs - so I will stick with what is profitable to me - that is the point of it all, isn't it? Thanks for chipping in, Reg.

The point is to get better. You should be comfortable playing all sorts of stack sizes. Most tables cap at 100, so most people learn that. If you are playing against people with 250BB, if you are better than them at it, you can make more.

It's not about what makes you immediate profit today, at least that's not the case for most micros players. The point is to get better and move up in stakes and own the lousy regs at higher stakes.

If that is your goal, then learn to play 100BB stacks. Learn to play 250BB stacks.

If improvement isn't your goal then go look at your HUD and find out what stack sizes you are the best at and then stick with it.

I'm not sure I understand your response. You seem to be agreeing with what I said, but it's not clear. Is it, in fact, the case that size of buyin relates to profit by means of percentage of large pots won?

This is the kind of analysis I was looking for. Thank you.

DDAWD, thank you - That is a point I wasn't really thinking about. I'll have to give it all some thought and decide what's best; I feel most comfortable with 100BBs, but for the sake of improving and moving beyond the micros, perhaps I'll mix in some higher and learn to play deeper.

Thank you again for the feedback!

If you are a losing player then you can minimize your losses by buying in for the minimum.
Some friendly advise that will likely just draw a bunch of hate, but it's true and I'm feeling kinda nice.

.. or play 20bb cap tables.

Heh heh, I've been winning at these stakes.

I'm not sure if this is a dumb thing to say, but I find if I sit on a table with 100BBs, most the time anyway, I've got more than anyone else, aside from maybe one guy who's sitting with a lot of money, obviously on a heater/a really good player.

I find it more comfortable sitting knowing I have more chips than anyone, but also knowing if guy on heater is wild and gets me with a bad beat, I'm not losing the full amount... so from most I can win the maximum, but against guy who's running hotter than the sun, I am somewhat safe... I don't know if this is a stupid way of thinking, and I should ignore it or what.

Thanks.

I misread your post...I agree you would want to be winning more all ins than you lose in order to make buying in deeper a profitable activity.

I'm just going to grunch this with some simple EV math using your specific suckout concerns.

Get in 200bb vs 100bb 60/40 favorite:
200 * 0.6 - 200 * 0.4 = +40bb
100 * 0.6 - 100 * 0.4 = +20bb

70/30
200 * 0.7 - 200 * 0.3 = +80bb
100 * 0.7 - 100 * 0.3 = +40bb

etc.

As you can see it's a bit silly to reduce buyin and thus reduce your EV ceiling out of fear of the unlikelier negative of 2 events. If you're the better player at the table and will end up on the positive side more often you should buy in full. Note that in the case of the 70/30, if you decide you're going to play with 100 instead of 200, you've already lost 40bb relative to your potential on the next 70/30 situation before you even sit down at the table, essentially guaranteeing yourself an inherent relative loss trying to minimize an unlikely one.