Small stack no-limit strategy

I used to log an entry for every online sit-n-go, live session, tournament, dealing or hosting gig, etc and kept really nice records of my poker-related time/money/resource investment on a website called Poker Charts. The value of that sort of information gathering should be priceless, but my cheap, short-sighted, stubborn attitude against subscription services got the best of me when they started collecting fees. Couldn't have anything to do with lack of discipline or anything like that. Anyway, I'll set something similar up with some details maintained privately, but in the interim, I'll try to post most of my sessions here and see if I get some feedback that will be useful to me as well.

My first playing session in Vegas was a minor setback. I soon learned that the buy-in resulted in a constant war between small stacks taking shots at the big stacks. Action was a bit like a christmas party I dealt a few years ago in south houston. Everyone wanted to see a cheap flop, then get aggressive, bluff, or over-value tenuous draws. I stayed out of the way for awhile, trying to get a read on everyone's tendancies. There were drunken calling stations, several couples softplaying their partners, a young aggressive player, an overly tight young woman, and a couple with deep stacks who seemed to use them wisely. Sometime during the first hour, I did pick up a premium pair and open-raised to $7 and got no callers. I was certain that I would have to play against my table image, but for the next few button rounds I went card dead and never had anything remotely playable in position and faced uncomfortable position and big raises with modest holdings. Then after six limpers, I looked down at pocket kings in the second blind. I was concerned that even a pot-sized raise would result in no action, so I made a modest raise to $5 and hoped not to see an ace on the flop. Of course, this time I got five callers and was far too short stacked to protect my hand no matter what came. The flop was pleasant, T-6-2 rainbow and I had to act first. The problem here is that three of my opponents have between $150 and $300 in chips and I have just a few more than are in the pot. I decided to lead out with half of them to indicate I had no problem commiting the rest and got two callers. After a 4 hit the turn, I pushed the rest and got an immediate call, by 5-3 offsuit. Nice.

Game on, I thought. Just let me catch a hand or two and I know which of these mooks will call anything. Get me some chips and then I can play a little more aggressively or trap with a vengence and they will have to respect me more. Never happened. I rebought a couple of times and ended up down $85 over about a four hour session on one of the weakest tables I recall ever playing on (includes bar poker). I never saw much to play with, and when I did get my chips in, I was outdrawn, understandably, by someone with enough to chips to make those calls. Pot odds were simply never a factor, as implied odds against future bets rarely mattered.

There is a similar restriction on the 5/5 NL game at Isle of Capri in Lake Charles. I heard some stories about one of the south side game hosts going all-in blind with max $300 rebuys until he was lucky enough to accumulate about as many chips as the table big stacks. Perhaps a rebuy tournament strategy would have worked best here. I was a bit cash-strapped and looking at some up front expenses for this summer job, so even though that crossed my mind, I resisted and tried to play solid poker. Had I been able to double up once or even pull a few modest pots, perhaps that would have worked out ok, but alas, this time it didn't.