Introduction

My bankroll at Cake poker is now hovering around 100 dollars after about 1 month of playing and I have generated about 15 dollars in rakeback so that would represent a more than doubling of the initial $50 bankroll I started with there.  I have mainly utilized my short stack strategy there and while getting drawn out after shoving in with the best hand, whether preflop, on the flop or on the turn, is certainly frustrating, I am again reminded of the need to view long term results.  As the poker theorem go, you should always be happy when others keep drawing out on you, this shows that you are always getting in with the best hand.  If you keep shoving in with 70% chance of winning, in the long run, you will win despite the high short run variance.

While playing short or medium stack actually simplifies decision making in the sense that you never worry about turn and river decisions since your decision making basically ends on the flop when you decide whether to shove with your TPTK or overpair,  However, to improve and to be a good player, you cannot run away from the need to play 100BB stack poker.  By playing games with 50BB or less, you are focusing on short term success at the cost of developing as a poker player.

One of the major leaks, the leak that make me so reluctant to move to full time 100BB play is with overpair or TPTK hands.  With a short stack, it is never a mistake in the long run to shove on the flop with those hands but that changed dramatically when you have 100BB.  Reading Dan Harrington latest book on NL cash games reinforced the same point.  Here are some important lessons I have learnt from Volume 1

1) Hand normalization when you are playing with deep stacks

In poker, “strong” hands are hands like premium pairs and AK while “weak” hands are small pairs or small medium suited or unsuited connectors.  An interesting principle Dan noted was the following:

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As the stack sizes get larger, the difference between hand values gets smaller: Presumably that's because speculative hands like small pairs and suited connectors will get bigger payoffs when they hit. Conversely, premium hands, like big pairs and AK, won't win more when the stacks are bigger. Typically, with a premium hand you'll raise preflop; then you'll bet the flop and everyone will fold.
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In short stack play, hand selection is dominated by premium hands, pairs, and big cards.  Since your stack isn’t big enough to cover a long series of escalating bets, your basic strategy is to wait for a good hand, bet it preflop, then continue to push it on the flop unless the board is very unfavorable.

After a few bets, most of your stack will be in the pot (example: you begin with 20 BBs, bet 3 BBs preflop, 8 more BBs on the flop, and now only have 9 BBs left and the pot may be 20 BBs, so, if your opponent puts you all-in, you’ll be getting 3-4:1 pot odds and probably won’t be able to fold top pair).  If you’re likely to get all-in early in the hand, focus on cards that have a good chance of being the best hand quickly, so play pairs, especially big pairs, and high card combinations.  You can’t play trickier hands like small pairs and suited connectors because those hands need time to develop, and you don’t have time with a short stack.

With a deep stack, everything changes because hands normalize, which means that the gap between “strong” hands (premium pairs and AK, for example) and “weak” hands (small or medium suited or unsuited connectors) gets smaller and smaller as stacks get larger and larger.  When premium hands like big pocket pairs and AK win pots, they tend to be small, but when they lose, they tend to be big pots because experienced players won’t put much money into a pot unless they can beat a hand like TPTK.  This is indeed the key to understanding how switching to 100BB games means you must adjust and recognize not to overplay your premium hands who often make "small pot" hands, which is precisely what overpairs and TPTK hands are.  With a 20-50BB stack, it is fine to stack off with such hands because the pot will never be big. 

Premium hands lose big pots in 100BB games because you have a problem when you flop top pair or an overpair in that you can’t always fold when an opponent calls your flop bet and bets on the turn because that betting pattern is easy to read, but the geometrically increasing nature of the pot means that you can lose big when you stay in when actually beaten.  Some poker players call this the WA/WB principle, meaning that with such hands, you are either way ahead of your opponent or way behind.  To compound the problem, there is asymmetric information here because when you raise preflop with pocket aces and they call, and when you do a continuation bet on the flop, they will know what hand they are up against but you do not since they could have called with position with a wide variety of hands.

Premium hands are profitable hands because they win many pots, but those pots are typically smaller than the pots that they lose, so premium hands are not as profitable in deep stack games as they would be in short stack or limit games, so, the beginner’s strategy of waiting patiently for premium hands doesn’t really work well against good players.

2) The geometrically increasing nature of bets on flop, turn and river

NLHE cash games are usually played with stack sizes that seem very large compared to the blinds, but these amounts are somewhat deceptive, because, what actually matters when betting a hand is not the number of big blinds that you have, but the number of bets you have, and when you convert your stack size from big blinds to actual bets and raises, a surprising picture emerges.

Assume 100 BBs, you raise to 3 BBs preflop, one player calls, so there are 7.5 BBs in the pot.  If you decide to make a pot-sized bet each round, how many pot-sized bets can you make before you run out of chips?

Since the pot is 7.5 BBs on the flop, you bet 7.5 BBs and your opponent calls making a pot of 22.5 BBs.  On the turn, you bet 22.5 BBs, and again, your opponent calls for a pot of 67.5 BBs.  Since you only have 100-3=97-7.5=89.5-22.5=67 BBs left, you can’t even make a whole pot-sized bet, so you push all-in and your 100 BB stack wasn’t even enough for four pot-sized bets.

Thus, the implication emerges: If you begin with 100 BBs, you can only make five half-pot-sized bets, four two-third- and three-quarter- pot-sized bets, and only three whole pot-sized bets before you run out of chips.

The lesson from this is that the number of bets that you can make in NLHE is severely constrained, even though the stack sizes seem huge, because the bets are increasing geometrically.  The first two bets are relatively cheap, while the third bet is a sort of transition bet, and the fourth bet and beyond threaten to involve most of your stack.

3) The importance of pot control in deep stack poker: Small pots for small hands, big pots for big hands

Putting everything together, small pot hands are overpairs, top pair with top kicker, or worse.  They are often the best hand on the flop, but have limited upside/improvement potential, and, barring unusually good turn and river cards, they’ll at best improve to three of a kind or a good two pair.  Two pair on the flop is an intermediate hand that is likely the best hand on the flop, but can easily be caught/passed on the turn or river [and only has four outs to improve, so, no draw really].

Big pot hands are sets or better, or a hand with a strong draw to a straight or a flush. Sets are good hands themselves, but are also good draws to full houses.

These are only broad generalizations, but always let the situation dictate, for example: If you have TT against two opponents with some action on a flop of QsJsTs, you have a set, but you don’t want to play a big pot because you have a small hand for the situation and would be happy to end the hand there.

When you have a “small pot” hand, your goal is to keep the pot small and see if it is the best hand.  This is where the turn play becomes crucial.  With TPTK and overpair hands, when you had position, you should check behind.  By making another large bet, you’re creating a large pot, which your hand doesn’t justify. But, of course you want to charge draws instead of giving them a free card to beat you, but poker is a game of balancing conflicting objectives. You needed to charge draws to try to beat you, AND you needed to ensure that the pot didn’t get too large for the strength of your hand, so, you needed to choose which objective was most important since they were in contradiction.

Which should take precedence? You should decide which is more likely to hurt you on average, and pick the other one. If you overbet your hand, you are 100% guaranteed to build a pot that is too large for your hand, but if you fail to charge a potential draw, two things must happen before you get hurt:  your opponent must actually have the drawing hand that you’re worried about and your opponent must actually hit his draw.  For me, definitely flush draws are less hurting than straight draws since the latter is easier to concede. 

Thus, you should often check with top pair/top kicker--even when there is a flush draw on board. Top pair/top kicker is a small pot hand because it often leads to a situation where you feel you are either way ahead or way behind--and you don't know which. "What's my opponent calling with: second pair or trips?"

At best, a way head/way behind situation is neutral EV. That occurs when your opponent also feels like he is in a way ahead/way behind situation. If you both play all the way to the river, sometimes you will win and sometimes your opponent will win.  At worst, a way ahead/way behind situation is negative EV. If your opponent knows where he is in the hand, he will fold to your bet when he is way behind(e.g. he didn't flop anything), and he will call your bet when he is way ahead(e.g. he flopped trips).

To play top pair/top kicker hands profitably, you should try to keep the pot small. For example, suppose that preflop you have AKo and make a standard raise to 3 times the bb and the small blind calls. The flop is:

Kc 9c 2d

To keep the pot small, bet half the pot. If the small blind calls and checks the turn, then check behind. By reducing the number and the size of the bets, you will keep the pot small. You don't really want to give your opponent a free card, but you also don't want to build a big pot, so you have competing objectives. Since the probability that your opponent is actually playing a flush draw and then he hits his draw is small, that should tip the balance in favor of checking.

Conclusion

Wow, that is a lot of concepts to learn from that single volume.  I am going to put all the principles into practice by always playing Pokerstars 2nl games with 100BB buy-in from now on.  For Cake, I will still do the SS strategy at least until I have 30 buyins for the 10nl level, which will be $300.