So far I have really liked the action at gaming club but there is one thing I do want to bitch about. I really hate how cheap they allow you to buy in. Playing the $50 tables and some guy is allowed to buy in for $5 what is that crap. Sit down and look around the table and 4 players have less than $15.

Rhound, that definitely happens at GC, but to my mind it's a plus, not a minus.

If they sit down short, they're fish. They won't pay you much but they will pay you. Then if you're lucky they'll rebuy and pay you again.

Among other things, these players always always always violate the 10x rule when calling raises -- so when you get AA, KK, QQ, and raise to more than 1/10th of their stack (which you will always do just by making a regular raise) and they call (which they love to do), you know for certain they are not getting the odds to call right there. It's a very easy +EV situation every time.


So shortstacks are almost always fish. Even on the big tables. I watched a GC 6-max $100/$200 blinds NL game - max $20,000 buy-in -- for a while the other day. More than half the table at any time had $5,000 or less -- 25 BB or less. All the time. Only two people had more than that, and (surprise, surprise) they kept on winning money from everybody else who sat down short. One guy won more than $10,000 in like 20 minutes while I watched.

Here's a memorable sequence. One guy's preflop aces are cracked by kings (raise but not reraise preflop, K on the flop, they're both shortstacked so when KK pushes, AA has to call). AA guy swears and swears and rebuys another $5,000. He then goes all-in from UTG on the next hand preflop. Folds to the BB (another shortstack) who, um, calls the $5,000 bet with, um, [9s]. UTG has AJ and takes it down. Craziness.

One strategy that I have noticed recently on UB $10 tables is for someone to buy in with $2.50 or $3 and wait for "any two face cards" and go all-in hoping to double up. I even asked one of them the other night and he admitted that was his plan. One thing I've noticed, though, if they do succeed in doubling they tend to stay, at least for awhile. It is almost like they feel they are playing with "your money" so it is not hard to take it from them. I try to stay away from the double up phase and chip away afterwards. I look for these tables. For a grinder like me, it is my bread and butter.

There are, of course, the hit and run artists that bet strong from the first hand - take as much as they can- then split. They tend to only be around for a few hands. But that is a fish of a different color.