How to play a 25 BB buy-in cash game?

[Fida]

What would be a winning strategy when playing a 25 BB buy-in cash game, full ring? What adjustments to make preflop and postflop?

- What hands should I play? How to play them?
- Is calling with small pairs and suited connectors preflop profitable?
- How to play top pair?
- How to play draws?
- What hands should I 3-Bet preflop?
...

 

[eetenor]

What would be a winning strategy when playing a 25 BB buy-in cash game, full ring? What adjustments to make preflop and postflop?

- What hands should I play? How to play them?
- Is calling with small pairs and suited connectors preflop profitable?
- How to play top pair?
- How to play draws?
- What hands should I 3-Bet preflop?
...

Thank you for posting

Small pairs and connectors play best deep stacked when calling. If you are 25BB then you are mostly shoving pairs dependent on who is opening and folding connectors.

Is this game such that you can build a stack but not start with a stack?

If you have 25bb and the V's all have 100bb you will be using a standard short stack range. It is best to google short stack play. It is not used as much today as it was ten yrs ago but that is because most min buy-ins became 40bb to stop this strategy as it is very effective at 25bb when everyone else has 100bb

Hope this helps

 

[bioman420]

I play passively, without risking too many chips, but sometimes it's necessary to show strength in front of the opponent, so we even forget about the blinds.

 

[gustav197poker]

It is a super tight game with 25 bb in cash games. I have only used that strategy when I shot high stakes online of 5/10, I had $250 and the maximum buy in was 50bb. It's generally an awkward game and you should only push with high hands and good draws combinations. You must to fold many lows hands preflop and select your opening range well according to your position.
Greetings.

 

[SPYDER1998]

Don't ever play cash games with 25BB that is my advice.

 

[BelFish]

Don't ever play cash games with 25BB that is my advice.

And if it's Heads Up, then play the Nash push/fold chart ))

 

[Fida]

Thank you for posting

Small pairs and connectors play best deep stacked when calling. If you are 25BB then you are mostly shoving pairs dependent on who is opening and folding connectors.

Is this game such that you can build a stack but not start with a stack?

If you have 25bb and the V's all have 100bb you will be using a standard short stack range. It is best to google short stack play. It is not used as much today as it was ten yrs ago but that is because most min buy-ins became 40bb to stop this strategy as it is very effective at 25bb when everyone else has 100bb

Hope this helps

Hello eetenor

It's a game where you start with a small stack and build from there, indeed.

I'm a bit familiar with short stack play during tournament. I tried to apply it last time I played (pushing broadway cards and 66+ pocket pairs preflop, fast playing my top pair and my draws, folding speculative hands such as suited connectors out of position...), and I ended up losing 10 buy-ins very quickly.

Where did I go wrong?

 

[eetenor]

Hello eetenor

It's a game where you start with a small stack and build from there, indeed.

I'm a bit familiar with short stack play during tournament. I tried to apply it last time I played (pushing broadway cards and 66+ pocket pairs preflop, fast playing my top pair and my draws, folding speculative hands such as suited connectors out of position...), and I ended up losing 10 buy-ins very quickly.

Where did I go wrong?

Thank you for responding.

First we do not know if you did anything wrong as 10 buy-ins equals 2.5 100bb buy-ins and having a 2.5 buy-in down swing is so common.

However when you say you played your draws fast that concerns me.
One of the big reasons to play draws fast is implied odds-but when we are 25bb deep we do not have implied odds to rely on. We cannot raise the flop with a draw and expect turn folds or to get the 3-1 odds we need by getting paid turn and river.

If we are head-up for stacks on the flop with 33% equity the pot is only paying us 1-1 so if we lose 2 times and win 1 time we lose 50bb and win 25bb for a net loss of 25bb or 1 buy-in.

The draws we want to play fast are combo draws. You may want to hand review your draw situations and see how much equity you actually had.

The issue with 25bb vs 100bb stacks is we have very little fold equity. While a player 100bb vs 100bb stacks might fold 40% of one pair hands it is much more likely that the fold% will drop to 20% or less 100bb vs 25bb.

When we are playing 25bb deep vs 100bb stacks we are trying to get all-in preflop or on the flop with our middle strength hands 66-99 AK AQs etc. KK QQ we can play as shoves if our V are not folding.

Implied odds are not a factor so if we are IP with a draw vs a stack that is not folding- free cards are our friends. That means we also can check back monsters as we can get stacks in easily on turn and river vs non-folding V.

All of this is V dependent some will play for stacks on the flop- some you have to bet such that they make a crying call on the river when you have the nuts.

If you can post in the hand analysis section the hands you were playing that would go far to see if you were making mistakes or if it was just variance.

Let me know if you do post a hand and I will check it out

Hope this helps

 

[Fida]

Thank you for responding.

First we do not know if you did anything wrong as 10 buy-ins equals 2.5 100bb buy-ins and having a 2.5 buy-in down swing is so common.

However when you say you played your draws fast that concerns me.
One of the big reasons to play draws fast is implied odds-but when we are 25bb deep we do not have implied odds to rely on. We cannot raise the flop with a draw and expect turn folds or to get the 3-1 odds we need by getting paid turn and river.

If we are head-up for stacks on the flop with 33% equity the pot is only paying us 1-1 so if we lose 2 times and win 1 time we lose 50bb and win 25bb for a net loss of 25bb or 1 buy-in.

The draws we want to play fast are combo draws. You may want to hand review your draw situations and see how much equity you actually had.

The issue with 25bb vs 100bb stacks is we have very little fold equity. While a player 100bb vs 100bb stacks might fold 40% of one pair hands it is much more likely that the fold% will drop to 20% or less 100bb vs 25bb.

When we are playing 25bb deep vs 100bb stacks we are trying to get all-in preflop or on the flop with our middle strength hands 66-99 AK AQs etc. KK QQ we can play as shoves if our V are not folding.

Implied odds are not a factor so if we are IP with a draw vs a stack that is not folding- free cards are our friends. That means we also can check back monsters as we can get stacks in easily on turn and river vs non-folding V.

All of this is V dependent some will play for stacks on the flop- some you have to bet such that they make a crying call on the river when you have the nuts.

If you can post in the hand analysis section the hands you were playing that would go far to see if you were making mistakes or if it was just variance.

Let me know if you do post a hand and I will check it out

Hope this helps

Thanks for you reply,

By playing draws fast, I did mean combo draws. I may get where I went wrong: I did not take into consideration villain tendencies. Whenever I had a drawing hand with good equity, I went all-in without thinking twice if villain may fold or not.

It was a home game few weeks ago, so I don’t really remember the hands. I recall shoving preflop in position with KQ or KJ a couple times, and getting called a lot by Ax. Or shoving with a combo draws on the flop and getting called by top pair or middle pair, and I missed my draws a fair amount of time.

 

[eetenor]

Thanks for you reply,

By playing draws fast, I did mean combo draws. I may get where I went wrong: I did not take into consideration villain tendencies. Whenever I had a drawing hand with good equity, I went all-in without thinking twice if villain may fold or not.

It was a home game few weeks ago, so I don’t really remember the hands. I recall shoving preflop in position with KQ or KJ a couple times, and getting called a lot by Ax. Or shoving with a combo draws on the flop and getting called by top pair or middle pair, and I missed my draws a fair amount of time.

Thank you for responding.

Just some posting tips for next time to be more efficient.

You may wish to include data like Home Game- Live and state low stakes mid stakes etc.

The number one asset we have when we play live is not math. It is player tendencies.
As we walk into the game we want to be thinking about how do these villains play.
Even if we never played any of them before we can have built a player pool diary that tells us how live players play standardly. This is how I knew to say there would be a reduced fold % which you confirmed above even though I did not know it was live.

So live players fold less often if at all 100bb deep, add in you with 25bb them with more and I would have to know a player very well to even bother semi-bluffing which means we do not play our draws fast until we start hitting and they start folding for fear of us hitting. Which is the only time standard live players fold.

The advise I gave about shoving applies to getting some fold equity. If we are not getting even 20% fold equity we never shove unless we have the nuts or near nuts.

We need to make a hand to win so we take free cards -we blocker bet to get free cards- we set mine all the way up to 99 V dependent of course. We make huge 3 bets with AA KK QQ but not AK AQ we smooth call those hands as we have to make a hand to win and those hands are great trap hands when we hit post flop. By trap I mean they have Ax as well and an Axx board and they call off for stacks after we bet big flop shove turn or raise flop shove turn or shove flop.

When we have more skill than our V we want to go all-in much less often without the nuts. We want to see more streets and we will use bigger bets when we make hands. Check flop 2x pot turn shove river type of plays with flopped 2 pair+ or turned 2 pair+ hands.

We also check back more often and use smaller bets to pot control 1 pair hands and draws.
We bluff 5% of the time and only when the V tells us with their actions they have nothing or fear a card. Often in live games a single bet bluff does not work not even a shove. They just do not want to believe you. The problem is at 25bb we do not have a 2 bet bluff strategy vs standard live players.

Hope this helps

 

[ronn6583]

What hands should I play? How to play them?
Early position: JJ-AA; AK
Play through a raise. In case of re-raise – all-in.
Middle position: 99-AA; AK; AQ
Late position: 77-AA; AT; AJ; AQ; AK; KQ
Is calling with small pairs and suited connectors preflop profitable? Not.
What hands should I 3-Bet preflop?
JJ-AA;AK
Depends on whether you can determine the style of play of your opponents.
You need patience and discipline and of course luck, especially in ZOOM.

 

[Fida]

Thank you for responding.

Just some posting tips for next time to be more efficient.

You may wish to include data like Home Game- Live and state low stakes mid stakes etc.

The number one asset we have when we play live is not math. It is player tendencies.
As we walk into the game we want to be thinking about how do these villains play.
Even if we never played any of them before we can have built a player pool diary that tells us how live players play standardly. This is how I knew to say there would be a reduced fold % which you confirmed above even though I did not know it was live.

So live players fold less often if at all 100bb deep, add in you with 25bb them with more and I would have to know a player very well to even bother semi-bluffing which means we do not play our draws fast until we start hitting and they start folding for fear of us hitting. Which is the only time standard live players fold.

The advise I gave about shoving applies to getting some fold equity. If we are not getting even 20% fold equity we never shove unless we have the nuts or near nuts.

We need to make a hand to win so we take free cards -we blocker bet to get free cards- we set mine all the way up to 99 V dependent of course. We make huge 3 bets with AA KK QQ but not AK AQ we smooth call those hands as we have to make a hand to win and those hands are great trap hands when we hit post flop. By trap I mean they have Ax as well and an Axx board and they call off for stacks after we bet big flop shove turn or raise flop shove turn or shove flop.

When we have more skill than our V we want to go all-in much less often without the nuts. We want to see more streets and we will use bigger bets when we make hands. Check flop 2x pot turn shove river type of plays with flopped 2 pair+ or turned 2 pair+ hands.

We also check back more often and use smaller bets to pot control 1 pair hands and draws.
We bluff 5% of the time and only when the V tells us with their actions they have nothing or fear a card. Often in live games a single bet bluff does not work not even a shove. They just do not want to believe you. The problem is at 25bb we do not have a 2 bet bluff strategy vs standard live players.

Hope this helps

Thanks for all these valuable tips! I'll adjust my play accordingly next time.