Buying In For The Maximum

Things you will learn:

• The pros and cons of buying in for different amounts

Buying in for the maximum can give you the ammunition, but a short stack may enable you to play 'correct' poker. So which is better?

Deciding how much to bring to the table is never simple. If you are playing your ‘A-game’ and have a big edge over the other players, then buying in for the maximum is the best choice. However, if you are playing at a strong, aggressive table, there is a good argument for buying in with less than the full stack.

As always, knowing the traits of the players you are competing with could be the difference between making a good decision and a bad one. Here, we’ll detail the merits and drawbacks of either type of buy-in.

’Short-stack poker’ has been about for a long time, with players buying in for the minimum amount allowed in the hope they’ll ‘win big’ or ‘lose little’.

Whether you adopt the strategy depends on what type of game you’re playing. At strong, loose-aggressive, six-handed tables, a smaller buy-in of 50 big blinds as opposed to 100 might be a better idea.

Imagine you are playing in a $2/$4 no-limit game. You buy-in for $200 instead of the maximum of $400, in order to gain a feel for the table. This amount gives you plenty of room to manoeuvre, while having a stack deep enough to have that all-important fold equity in pots where it's needed. In other words, your stack is still big enough to pose a threat to your opponents.

Buying in for less than the maximum avoids you some difficult situations.

Let's imagine you’re dealt A♥ K♦ on the button, and raise to four-times the big blind. The big blind is a player known to you as being very aggressive. He has a reputation to play back at late positional raisers. He re-raises your $16 bet to $48. If you had more chips at the table, you would be in a tough spot here. You’d find it difficult to call, because unless you flopped an ace or a king, your opponent could raise you off the pot and you’d have to fold.

But with a short stack, you can afford to simply push all-in. Unless your opponent has a huge hand, he’ll usually fold.

When you buy in short, it can also affect your mentality as a whole. Your approach to the game is slightly different and it may be useful to use smaller buy-ins in order to get a feel for the tables before committing yourself to playing a deep-stack game.

It is best to buy in for the maximum if you feel that you have a significant edge over the field. If you’re at a table full of calling stations and players that badly over-play hands, you want to have enough chips to be able to win their whole stack when they make a mistake.

Buying in for the maximum enables you to play strong post-flop poker. For a good player, you can now protect your hand better in multi-way pots where there are a lot of draws on the board.

Let's say you hold 10♣ 10♥ and raise big pre-flop to $8 on the button at a $1/$2 table. You receive three callers and the flop brings a lovely 10♦ J♦ 4♠. The small blind bets out for the full pot of $32 and to your surprise both the big blind and the mid-position limper call. The pot is now $128 and you have $192 behind.

With your stack on this draw-heavy board, you can force players with strong premium draws to make a mistake. By moving all-in to protect your hand, you are protecting yourself from dangerous cards and forcing premium draws to pay too much and make an error according to the fundamental laws of poker.

1) It makes your decisions more clear-cut. Situations where you might be losing equity with a big stack can be reversed with a shorter stack, eg, folding kings pre-flop can be done with 200 or 100 big blinds, but not with 50.

2) You get paid more often. Flopping a set against an overpair will often not get paid to the maximum if you have a full buy-in. But with less money to lose, deeper stacked opponents are more willing to pay to see the goods.

3) It makes multi-tabling easier. Playing with less money at the tables helps to focus your efforts on strong starting hands, and rejecting losing or marginal holdings.

1) You can capitalise on players over-playing marginal hands like overpairs and other non-nut hands, eg, straights/flushes on paired boards.

2) You protect your big hands and have the clout to force other players to make mistakes.

3) It enables you to play deceptively, raising with marginal hands on the occasion that when you flop big, you can get paid off handsomely. You can also make fancy plays and big bluffs in pots where tight opponents will not be in a position to call.