Keep a Big Stack in No-Limit
Every time I talk about NL cash games, I find myself, at one point or another, insisting how bad it is to play short-stacked in a cash game. In a tourney, of course, you'd prefer not to play short-stacked, but shouldn't quit just because you are. However, I firmly believe that you are usually better off quitting a cash game than playing in it with a short-stack.
To understand why it is such a waste to play short-stacked in a NL HE game, we should first consider what makes a NL 1 game profitable. Jennifer Harman says in Super System 2 that "in no-limit [HE], if you play your cards right, you can trap your opponents for all their chips" (p. 209), and Bob Ciaffone notes in Pot-Limit & No-Limit Poker that, in NL, "you take aim at the person's entire stack" (p. 6). Although many players don't realize it, it is widely agreed that the fundamental principle of a NL game is to get everything your opponent has on the table.
This principle is actually a corollary to poker's fundamental goal: winning as many chips as possible. In limit poker, we accomplish this most often by value-betting and value-raising our strong hands and extracting calls from players holding weaker hands. In NL, our strategy is somewhat different. While we certainly seek to value-bet correctly, we also want to convince our opponents not just to call a value bet (or a series of them), but also to commit their entire stacks when we are a statistical favorite to win.
The betting structure of NL demands this, if we are to pursue poker's fundamental goal. If we misplay our strong holdings in limit poker, we are penalized a big bet or two that might have been called. When we misplay the same hand in NL, we may be passing up situations that could have yielded our opponent's entire stack. This could be a profit in the amount of hundreds of big blinds 2!
This key difference in limit vs. NL means that the bulk of introductory poker literature, which typically focuses on limit, gives no priority to full extraction on strong holdings. When prioritizing introductory material, the author must focus on the basics. In poker, that means good starting hand selection, disciplined folds when hands fail to improve, and the like. Only advanced limit players begin to encounter material that helps to maximize profits in tougher games. However, because of NL's nature, even new players must learn this concept early, because, in a NL cash game, they cannot adequately pursue poker's fundamental goal without it.
Yet, I rarely see this point raised in the (albeit limited) NL cash game literature, perhaps since it is obvious to the expert player. (Those two quotes above are the only places I've seen it stated outright.) I see the need to say this explicitly: a player gives up substantial EV in NL cash games when playing short-stacked.
The most simple and straightforward proof can be given with the simplest (and perhaps most profitable) of NL HE situations: AA vs. KK, all-in preflop. There are cases where an experienced player can lay down KK preflop, and you should learn how to. But, most of your opponents will not learn this. When you are lucky enough to hold AA in this situation, you'll usually get all the money in preflop, with an 80% advantage. However, when this situation occurs in a $200 buy-in game, and you have only $80 in front of you while your opponent holds a full $200 buy-in, you gave up a full $96 in EV (80% of the $120 you didn't buy-in for) by playing short stacked.
More subtly, consider this scenario. A player is down on his luck for the evening, and having bought in originally for $200, he's down to a meager $60. If he gets lucky and doubles through someone, he'll have $120. He now needs to earn another $80 (nearly another double-through) to be even for the night. He's climbing uphill to get back to where he was.
Imagine, however, if this player rebought to the maximum buy-in of $200. He's now into the game for $340. However, in this case, if he is fortunate enough to double through someone, he won't still be struggling to be even. He'll instead be up $60 for the session!
These examples show a clear fact: playing short-stacked keeps you from capitalizing on your opponents mistakes for the maximum possible. However, short-stacked play has additional disadvantages, too. For example, playing short-stacked can frustratingly induce calls from your opponents when they are mild statistical underdogs, yielding more "bad beats". In NL play, when you aren't trying to trap your opponent for his whole stack, then you are seeking to force your opponent to fold hands that are (or could become) the winning the hand if played to the river. How can you do this with a short stack? In NL, more than any other form of poker, the intimidation power of a bet is not merely the bet itself, but the likelihood that, as the play of the hand progresses, larger and larger bets will be made. If you have a short stack, your power to intimidate your opponents in this manner diminishes. You will not be successful in inducing folds of strong draws and (possibly) winning hands.
For example, in a $1/$2 blind NL HE game, suppose you raise before the flop to $8 with your small $60 stack holding the A
A
. You are left with only $52 to bet after the flop. Suppose you are called by four opponents (not terribly uncommon in a typical loose NL game). The pot stands at $40, and you see a flop of 8
5
3
. This is generally a pretty good flop for your holding, but you now have only one move: all-in for your last $52 into the $40 pot. Because loose players love suited cards, it is highly likely that a heart flush draw will be live. And, you're a favorite to get called!
Indeed, your flush-drawing opponent, even if he believes you when your represent an overpair, does not really take all that much the worst of it to call! The pot lays him 1-to-1.76 and he is only a 1-to-1.9 dog to win by the river. I recently made a call like this myself (and was elated to see that my read had been right -- the opponent representing AA held only AKo -- which made my pair outs also live and leaving me nearly even-money to win, and making my call mathematically correct). But, I don't for instant consider that call with money behind.
Indeed, compare my AA example above, with the same cards and betting sequence, but when you instead have a full buy-in behind you. Instead of a $52 all-in on the flop, you'll probably make a $40 pot-sized bet. Your flush-drawing opponent can call if he likes, but his odds aren't even close to being right. You've offered him 1-to-2, which would be pretty good odds if he could see the hand through the river in an all-in situation, but he can look over and see you still have a whopping $152 to bet at him on the turn when the pot is $120. He knows that he must make his flush on the turn to call such a bet, and therefore he is essentially seeing only one card at 1-to-1.9, but he's a 1-to-4 dog. In other words, with the threat of future bets from your big stack, you have the ability to stop gambling players from trying to get lucky on your vulnerable made hands!
For the tight-aggressive player, the advantages of playing a full stack rather than a short one are clear. When you do trap your opponent for his whole stack, you are sure to get maximum value. When you have a hand that cannot really trap, but is clearly the best, you can win a small pot and make the odds prohibitive, so that if your opponent does get lucky on you, it will have been when he had the worse of it.
Footnote 1: Throughout this article, I refer to NL games, but I believe nearly everything said here applies similarly to PL games.
Footnote 2: It has always been common practice for limit players to track their winnings in big bets (BB) per hour or per 100 hands. With the advent of so many NL HE cash games, players needed a record-keeping formula for NL games rather than pure dollars. Big blinds (also abbreviated BB, to further confuse everyone) per hour (or per 100 hands) has become a de-facto standard. So, you often must take the abbreviation BB in context. I avoid using it myself unless the full phrases become too cumbersome, because many of my readers are still learning these terms.