Buying in big

As regular readers know, it has long been my habit to buy into $1-2/$1-3 games for $100, and build from there, even though table max is typically $300 (sometimes more, sometimes less). I even wrote a longish post about the whole subject last December (see here), outlining my experiences and justifications.

But, truth be told, the most fundamental reason I continued to do it was inertia. We develop habits and patterns, and it becomes hard or uncomfortable to break them. As the previous post indicates, I was well aware of the pros and cons of this particular choice, at least in the hypothetical, but I actually had very little experience with doing it any other way, so it was not a decision formed of objective comparison trials.

The first crack in the armor came in February during Cardgrrl's first visit after we had become e-quainted. After playing at the same table with me a couple of times, she commented on my practice: "Your style really seems more suited to a big stack."

Now, I had heard occasional comments from the electronic peanut gallery about my buy-in habit, but never before from somebody who (1) had watched me play for a while, (2) was paying attention to the pros and cons of the decision as they applied specifically to me, and (3) was somebody whose game and opinion I had reason to respect. It got me thinking.

I didn't change anything right away, but that one little comment kept eating away at me. What if I really was doing something fundamentally wrong? What if I'm leaving a bunch of money on the table that I could otherwise be taking home?

Now fast forward some. March, April, and May were positively brutal for poker for me. It was, in fact, a deeper and longer losing streak than the one from last summer that I described here. My worst ever. It was so bad that I was in a way glad to have very convenient excuses (the WSOP writing work, the resulting profound sleep and mood disturbances, and wanting to spend time with Cardgrrl while she was in town) to avoid playing live poker for most of the month. (If you noticed a decline in the number of tales from the felt during June, you were not just hallucinating.)

Something had really gotten poisoned in my game, and I needed some major head-clearing. As I thought about it through June, I realized in retrospect that as the losing streak lengthened, I had gradually adopted a kind of "learned helplessness." Cardgrrl wrote a great post a few months ago about the psychological consequences of running into invisible walls over and over and over again. You start walking more slowly, feeling your way, terrified that the walls are everywhere.

That's what had happened to me, and it required an extended absence from the tables for me to see it. My style had become overly wary, fearful, cramped, crabbed, scared of my own shadow. At some level that I hadn't overtly acknowledged to myself, I was playing in a way that would try not to lose too much, because of how terrified I was to see my bankroll shrinking day by day.

So when early July rolled around, Cardgrrl was gone, the WSOP was done, and I finally felt ready to hit the "reset" button and take to the felt on a regular basis again, I knew I needed an overhaul. I needed to be bold without being insane, take big risks when appropriate, etc. Mind you, this generally characterized my play for the time I've been in Vegas. It was just in the March-May time span that it kind of fell apart on me and went into "turtle" mode.

I decided that one of the ways I would implement this was, for me, roughly the equivalent of desensitization therapy for phobias: I am going to expose myself to the thing that I had come to fear excessively, namely, losing money. I am going to put money on the table, and then I am going to win. I am not going to be afraid. Moreover, I am not going to play as if I am afraid. This is what I told myself, forcefully and repeatedly. And the most concrete part of the plan was that I was going to be bold enough to experiment with buying in for the max, because to continue my previous habit was to invite the accompanying fears and bad, timid play that had become accreted like barnacles to the small stack buy-in.

If I can't cut it in this business, I thought, then I'm going to flame out boldly and spectacularly, rather than fizzle away a few tens of dollars at a time, which was just too pathetic a thought to endure.

I should tell you what was the final, definitive factor in my decision: It was having watched Cardgrrl play the uncapped $2-5 game at Rio during the WSOP Main Event. Watching her move stacks of chips around with an admirable fearlessness, using them as the tools and weapons they are, was what finally made it click with me how pathetically weakly I had been playing. I had, on some level, reverted to a truly paralyzing mode of thinking of the chips for their real-world monetary value, and thus being perversely afraid of losing them.

I really like the way that Antonio Esfandiari expressed this concept in his book, as excerpted in a Poker Gem I posted almost two years ago--see here. I had not exactly forgotten that bit of wisdom, but I needed to have the truth of it pounded back into my head. Cardgrrl's play had that effect. (Thank you, my friend. I haven't told you previously that letting me sweat your game that day did this for me, but it did.)

And whaddyaknow--it worked. Things have been going much better since my break from the game. What's more, they're going better because I'm causing them to go better. On most days now, the game is feeling relatively easy, like it has for most of the time I've been playing in Vegas. I'm still no poker prodigy--probably never will be--but I'm feeling appropriately confident, and I'm making money again.

Anyway, this is venturing a bit far afield from what I had in mind to write. (Have you ever noticed that I tend to ramble and go off on tangents? You have? Oh. Sorry. Never mind.) I set out to tell you specifically the results of my experiment of buying in for the table maximum rather than my habitual $100.

In short, the results have been stunningly good. SPECTACULAR, I'd say. So good that I am kicking myself hard for not having opened my eyes and my mind to the possibility before. There have been at least five occasions in which having $300 in front of me early in a session has clearly, unquestionably, definitively resulted in making $200 (or close to it) more than I would have in a hand if I had been sitting behind just $100.

I have described a few of them in Twitter messages:

******

Biggest pot of the day: 2-6 in big blind, no raise. Flop 3-4-5 rainbow. Felted a guy who had A-2. 8:29 PM Jul 10th from web

Given my recent run of luck, it's astonishing that he didn't have the 7--8, or even catch a 6 on the river to chop. 8:30 PM Jul 10th from web

Sorry--I meant astonishing that he didn't have the 6-7. 8:31 PM Jul 10th from web

*****

Doubled up when 2-4o cracked AA (as if that's even newsworthy). Uptick $225. 12:00 PM Jul 11th from txt

Victim is still going through thesaurus finding every synonym of "idiot" to call me. 12:02 PM Jul 11th from txt

BTW, lifetime investment in the 2-4: way, way positive. 12:06 PM Jul 11th from txt

Another BTW: Recent experiment with buying in for max instead of my habitual $100 v. profitable so far, the 2-4 hand being only one example. 12:21 PM Jul 11th from txt

[I also described that hand in more detail here.]

*****

Extremely drunk guy came back from a long restroim break, flopped a set, and felted an opponent. (More to come) 5:00 PM Jul 15th from mobile web

He then loudly announced that his change in luck was because he had masturbated in the restroom. Thanks for sharing. 5:02 PM Jul 15th from mobile web

Doubled up through our drunk masturbator, a process made easier by him showing his hand before river action. $600+ pot. 6:06 PM Jul 15th from mobile web

Once again, v. v. v. glad I bought in for max. 6:09 PM Jul 15th from mobile web

[Details don't matter, but I had A-J, flop A-A-K, made aces full when the river was another K, and drunk guy had a K for the under-full.]

*****

I also told the story here of a hand just a few minutes into a session at Bally's where I made $200--not a full double-up but definitely a lot more than I would have if I had been sitting on a $100 stack.

And there are others. Today, for example, I was playing at the Venetian. I bought in for the $300 max. There hadn't been much stack movement up or down when this happened: I was on the button with J-Q offsuit. It's a pretty unspectacular hand, but I had been playing very tight and decided to give it a go. There had been several limpers. I raised to $15, and got five callers, making a $90 pre-flop pot. Which is nice, except that realistically I can't expect to win that nice pot even half of the time, under these circumstances.

Unless, of course, the dealer puts out a flop like Q-Q-K (two hearts). Oh my! Guy in middle position bets $25. I raise to $75. Everybody else folds. He calls. Turn: Offsuit ace. Opponent moves all in for his last $155. I call. He has Ah-3h, so flopped the nut flush draw, added top pair to that on the turn, and probably thought I just had A-K or maybe K-J or K-10. I had him covered. So I took his entire stack ($15 + $75 + $155 = $245), whereas if I had been sitting on $100, that's what I would have made from him.

On July 19th, I was playing at Mandalay Bay. I had been at the table for only about half an hour when a little set-mining paid off big-time. I won't try to recount it blow-by-blow, but I had 8-8, called a big pre-flop raise from the table big stack, flopped a set, trapped him, and he just couldn't let go of his K-K. Doubled up on that hand. Absolutely it put $200 in my pocket more than I would have had under the old practice.

Yesterday at the Palms I stacked a guy for $225 or so when I correctly read him for a mediocre hand, shoved despite his check-raise, and my measly overpair was indeed good. (I had 10-10, flop had been 8-high, and he had K-8, undoubtedly think that his top pair was good.)

There have also been at least two occasions when I suspected (correctly) weakness from an opponent, and made an all-in move, early enough in a session that under my former practice I would not have had enough chips to push the other player off of a hand, but with a $300 stack, I was successful.

Of course, the down side of this is that there have been occasions where I have lost more than I would have under the old practice. For example, at the Rio Saturday, I had bought in for $300, and it had drifted down to about $200, when I found the two black aces in the small blind. The UTG player limped in. Next guy (very tight) raised to $20--the biggest raise I had seen him make. I pumped it up to $80. To my great surprise, UTG (a classic Crazian from SoCal) hemmed and hawed, but then called, as did the raiser, though he had a bit less than the full $80 and so was all-in. Flop was 9-J-Q, all red, two diamonds. I'm first to act. I have about $120 left, and the pot is almost $240. Of course I shove. Frankly, it's hard to think of a flop on which I wouldn't shove under those conditions. Get insta-called by the Crazian, who--naturally--had called a pre-flop reraise to $80 from bad position with K-10 (but it was sooooted--in crubs), and had flopped the nuts. Felted me.

There have not yet been any other instances of being felted for the whole large buy-in, or even most of it. There have, however, been two or three times when I lost between $50 and $100 more than I would have with a short stack buy-in.

But even just counting the occasions like these where there is virtually no doubt about what the outcome would have been under both conditions, I'm way, way to the good here. I suppose that shouldn't surprise me. Theoretically that should be the result if I am better than my average opponent at getting the big money in when the odds are in my favor. But the number of times in which such double-up situations (or nearly so) have occurred early in a session has, frankly, been a revelation.

I think perhaps I was insensitive to them before, because if I doubled up my short stack, I would rationalize something like, "He wouldn't have doubled me up if I had had three times as many chips." But if my first month of experience is any indication, there are plenty of situations in which people really do just hand over their entire big stacks without much good justification. I need to be ready to receive the full bounty of their generosity (or stupidity, or drunkenness, or inexperience, or whatever).

What's more, I think, though I can't prove, that there have been other intangible benefits. While being bold when necessary, I am also more aware that I have a lot of money in potential jeopardy all the time. It makes me take my time on the big decisions more. It makes me more willing to let go of hands in marginal situations where I'm basically just guessing at where I am, and wait for spots in which I'm more clearly ahead. It allows me to play some speculative hands earlier in a session than I used to (though I have to watch that tendency--I know from my past that I can get to seriously overdoing it, and the stack erodes before my very eyes). It likely also projects an image of more strength to opponents. Players coming to the table after me don't know whether I bought in for that much or won it.

I am left to wonder how much richer I would be today if I had been doing this all along.