Busto!!!

One day, a long time ago, after not playing poker for almost an entire year I decided to play again. I called up a few buddies and we all agreed on playing poker. Upon arriving, to my surprise we were not playing NL holdem as I have grown to love. Instead, we were playing a home grown game called Busto. After much pleading, whining, and reasoning they were unmoved. We were playing Busto.

Busto is simple. Its basically NL holdem with a slight twist in stakes. One dollar buy in with 10 and 20 cent blinds. If you know anything about NL holdem, everyone is incredibly short stacked to begin with. My plan was more or less this: Go heavy on pots with any Ace rag or a king. There's no reason not to. If you hit it big a few times you've gotten a huge edge on your opponent since you'll be instantaneously big stacked. Now mind you this was a fine balance to figure out when to be aggressive with bad cards but it was definitely worth the experience as my strategy seemed to have worked. This game soon became a lesson in how to play big stacked against opponents with little to no money left.

The counter thought to this was that if I was stuck short stacked against someone with a lot of chips, I would just leave and go home! =) But since they were friends (and since I depended on a ride home) realistically I would've given it my best shot and quit after 10-15 dollars.

I think this is relevant to regular poker ($1-2 blinds with 300 bucks is normal) in the sense that if you're caught with 20 bucks left, you should probably buy in with more money. Or the better move would be to leave and go home.