Our Cash Game

I arrived back in Sitka to find my old cash game in what I considered to be disarray. When I left three years ago we had two standard formats. Mostly we played .05/.10 blinds, with a $5 minimum and a $20 to $25 maximum. When we really wanted to throw money around, we would play a .10/.25 game with a $10/$50 min/max. The result of our 200+ big blind maximum was obvious to an experienced player. Differences in starting hand values were reduced because of the implied odds that a deep stack no-limit game presents. Playing solid poker, it would be very difficult for a player to get felted in one hand. Players who excelled at decision making post-flop were rewarded consistently.

Currently the games that are run use much shorter stacks. The .25/.50 game allows a buy-in of only $20, or 40 big blinds. The results are obvious. One of the first games I played in saw a very high percentage of all-ins (with calls) in the first 20-30 hands. On the first hand a player raised with pocket eights and had a couple callers. The flop came out something not so coordinated like Jx-7x-4x. It was checked to the better and he made a standard continuation bet. The player in the big blind check-raised, and the original better considered his options. He re-raised all-in and was called and beat by something like a J9o.

How do you lose your whole stack when an overcard falls on the flop in a cash game? With 40 BB, you might not have a choice. There are 75 cents in the pot to start. The raise made it $2 to go and was called by two players; let's say they were in the blinds, making the pot $6. Both blinds check and the original better makes it $5. He gets check-raised to $12. There is $23 in the pot and it only costs $7 to call. In a deep stack game, he might call to see if the turn is an 8, 9 or 10 - he's getting over 3:1 odds for the call. However, now he only has $13 behind if he folds. With $23 bucks in the pot, he's getting the same odds to move all-in and attempt to win $36 with his $13 as he would get with a flat call here. Given a loose-aggressive player on the big blind, he might have something like A7 with three of one suit, or 74 for a beatable two-pair. Given an overly conservative (not to be confused with tight) player, he might lay down 99 or TT here to a re-raise. So it's easy to see why a player would move in with merely pocket eights in this small stack situation.

There is another factor that may have influenced the move. House rules stated that a player can't chip up a short stack unless it falls below the $2 mark. Now a player with $13 behind is forced to try a tournament-style pre-flop move with strong hands. Otherwise his $2 raise commits too much of his stack.

The other game played is a $1/$2 game with a $50 max - only 25 big blinds!!! I refuse to try it because I can't afford to have my aces cracked and end up tabling $100 in a single night.