Short Stack Strategy - Part 1: The Basics

Please don’t publish any more about short-stack play. I’ve got a good thing going.

No share.

Please

Hi Ed,

I’ve read the SS section in GSIH and I’m looking forward to reading more about it. I’m particularly interested in examples of play after the flop and details such as when to leave the table. Really enjoying the site.

I wrote a program that calculated the near-optimum push/fold ranges for any stack size. Obviously it’s worthless at large stack sizes because players will be raising and calling and folding, but not pushing.

Hi Ed

When u publishing your next short stack article

Peter

Great article, Ed.

Very much looking forward to future posts, particularly on my favorite subject:

Shortstack play.

Incidentally, I’ve found a few sites online where (if you time things right) you can reload for one big blind.

Can’t say I registered a profit doing it, but it did amuse me that it was allowed. I picked 6 max LIMIT, as it seemed to have the most callers preflop.

This is slightly off topic, but in such situations … what hands would be best for calling, knowing the blinds are coming up fast.

Best,
Zim

“Also, rat holing is permitted. That is, between hands (but not during a hand) you can add or remove as much money as you’d like from your stack.”

Dumb question - is this just an assumption to illustrate your example or can you really do this in some B&M card rooms? I ask because I have a Vegas trip coming up and plan on taking a first live crack at 1-2 NL with the short stack strategy. The few times I’ve tried this online I’ve doubled and tripled and find myself with a medium to large stack at which point I usually leave use the winnings to enter a Sn’G. If this happens to me in Vegas do I call it a session if I don’t want to play deep stack or can I take my winnings off the table?

I would just like to make some general points, in reference to playing short-stack with 20BB.

#1 - Playing short-stack is not advisable on tables of 6.

#2 - If you are going to play short-stack you should be playing on tables of 10.

#3 - Playing short-stack is for beginners… it is a great learning tool, but for the experienced player I wouldn’t recommend short-stack play.

#4 - I agree with Ed when he says there is no calling raises preflop while playing short-stack, and for the most part you either push all-in or fold. However, this is very dangerous. Since you are short-stack the initial raiser respects less your all-in push therefore the fold equity you generate will be much less than usual…. AND you are usually pushing all-in against a very good hand… unless you are playing against total donks. Since your fold equity is so poor it will usually be pretty much a coin flip every time you are called with your all-in re-raise.

#5 - You must play extra extra tight while playing short-stack, because you have no implied odds to hit your weaker hands.

#6 - You may re-raise all-in with your AK, but an experienced player will call you with any pocket pair. And AK against ANY pocket pair is NO coin flip. In the long run your AK getting called by pocket pairs is a long term loser.

In reference to the last post.

“#1 - Playing short-stack is not advisable on tables of 6.”

Even though you are not playing “implied” odds type hands you can still compensate by understanding hand strength by position. This holds true regardless of your stack size. Granted if you are just learning to play then it may be more advantageous to play at full ring tables.

“#3 - Playing short-stack is for beginners… it is a great learning tool, but for the experienced player I wouldn’t recommend short-stack play.”

This seems to be a rather blanketed statement. Granted short-stack play is not optimizing your EV per table. But is it possible that a solid short stack strategy could generate a better hourly earn rate? Whereas your edge may diminish on a smaller scale as you add more tables w/a short stack strategy. So let’s say if you have a 5.00bb/100 playing full stack at 10nl x 8 tables but if you could win 2.50bb/100 at 25nl x 12 tables wouldn’t that be the way to go?

“#6 - You may re-raise all-in with your AK, but an experienced player will call you with any pocket pair. And AK against ANY pocket pair is NO coin flip. In the long run your AK getting called by pocket pairs is a long term loser.”

This statement does not seem to take into account such things as FE(fold equity) and dead money(blinds) limpers. Even if your FE is say 10% that could turn a marginal push w/AK profitable.