Message Board : Blindstealing with a shortstack (NL)?

Do we really need to steal with 17 BB? You are risking a quarter of your stack to gain 1 and a half BB, with little leverage after the flop. In a tournament it is a different proposition, as each blind counts towards survival, but in a cash game you do not have this urgency to accumulate. In my experience, when experimenting at the lower levels (50c/1, 1/2) with a SS, I found many players who were willing to gamble when you have a solid holding. Raising AK and a blind man raising you all in with A-10, or raising JJ and being re-raised with 55 is not all that uncommon. With players like these it is only worth stealing if you are up against blind players who will not call a SS being sure they are calling AQ or better. Otherwise I found more success in playing the gamblers or those who do not understand what you are doing with a SS. Fortunately there are many players out there who buy in for 20BB, call and make raises with 67s, 22, Q-10s, securing you action with 'good' cards.

FingerFlinger said:

When playing the NL shortstack strategy, is it profitable to widen your range and try to steal the blinds if it's folded to you on the CO or Button?

Don't thinkof it as stealing.  You're not stealing.  You're playing a wider range of hands and a bigger pot when you have a natural advantage.  It's very similar to tournament play when you are that short. 

Raising 74o on the BTN.  That's stealing.  Probably not worthwhile in a cash game, but can worth while in a tournament, especially if the blinds aren't going to defend well.

Raising T8o on the BTN.  That isn't really stealing.  It's taking what is rightfully yours.  It's an awful hand, but you have about 33% equity in the pot against 2 random hands.  When you raise coming in, you are going to win more hands just by taking the initiatize and your downside is muted by being short.  So, you shouldn't be raising a lot because you are in steal position.  You should be raising a lot because you have position against 2 random hands.

Threads,

 I agree a small PP is a legitimate Raise/Push hand short stacked against the blinds.

Todd,

I understand against two random hands 10-8o may be the best hand going in and you will take what is 'rightfully yours' more often than not but the problem I see is when you are called. When you raise with a SS you are looking to get all in with a pair or over(s). When you are called wth 10-8o, pre-flop, your are likely called by a better hand and your positional adavantage is not that great with 13BB left to bet. A lot of blinds will call this bet  with one overcard, bottom pair, etc (ignoring for now how questionable this play is) leaving you needing some sort of hand when all in. As you are a pretty much commiting yourself raising with 17 BB the downside seems to outweigh the upside; when all in you will often have much the worst of it.

I am probably missing something here and would welcome any comments.

Flingerfinger

 As the blinds will defend with much weaker cards than those you listed (not fearing the short stack) then I would agree with loosening up to the degree you have but include all PP's

Todd said:

FingerFlinger said:

What will you do when the Flop comes Q 6 4 rainbow and it is checked to you?

…snip… 

My range from the BTN is: 44+, A2s+, A7o+, K8s+, KTo+, Q8s+, QTo+, J8s+, JTo, T9s

That's around 24% of the hands and playing loser with a shortstack may be -EV. But that's just my opinion and I am interested in what other players are thinking.

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What do you do if it is checked to you?  What would you do if you had JJ and it was checked to you?  You bet.  If he calls or raises, you are likely done with the hand.  More often than not, he will fold.

The thing about being short is that you are never in the situation of having to put 80BB at risk with second pair.  If you have 15 or 20BB, you can get that all in with 2nd pair and not feel bad about it.  You may get a lot of loose calls by bigger stacks.  But, that isn't so bad.

But the point is, with JJ I have no problem to put my remaining stack in, even with an overcard flopped, because I would love to be called down with pocket 9s or A6. But that's not the case when I have T8o and miss the flop completely…

Todd,

I understand against two random hands 10-8o may be the best hand going in and you will take what is 'rightfully yours' more often than not but the problem I see is when you are called. When you raise with a SS you are looking to get all in with a pair or over(s). When you are called wth 10-8o, pre-flop, your are likely called by a better hand and your positional adavantage is not that great with 13BB left to bet. A lot of blinds will call this bet  with one overcard, bottom pair, etc (ignoring for now how questionable this play is) leaving you needing some sort of hand when all in. As you are a pretty much commiting yourself raising with 17 BB the downside seems to outweigh the upside; when all in you will often have much the worst of it.

I am probably missing something here and would welcome any comments.

So, let me say that I don't think that T8o is a good hand, nor is it one that you should take great joy in playing.  I also don't think it is a hand that you neccesarily will raise every time on the button.   It is just an example of a bad hand that really isn't as bad as you think when on the button.  It is one of those hands that is at the tail end of the top 50% of hands.  When you are short, it wouldn't be unreasonable to attack with the top 50% of hands.

I'm also not advocating that you raise with 70% or 50% of hands on the button (I honestly think you could, but I'm not advocating it), but the number that is profitable is certainly way more than 24%. 

You are right, when you get called by T8o, it is almost always by a better hand.  But, very often, it is still a hand you will win.  Not can win, but will win.  K4 is a much better hand than T8o head to head.  You'll get a lot of calls with a bare K at the low levels.  When the flop comes Q75, most of the time it will go check, bet, fold.  Not every time, but enough to make it worth the raise.  You will occasionally end up getting stacked with a really crappy hand, but I guarantee you and I have both gone off for a much bigger number with a quality hand.  Most flops miss most hands and taking the betting lead is often good enough to earn you the pot.  The button is a premium spot to pressure the blinds.  Don't let them off the hook.

In reality, you could probably raise any two cards when folded to you on the button and still come out ahead.  

In a cash game, you aren't going to raise all that often because it doesn't get folded to you that often.  When you do raise,  follow up on the flop.  You'd be surprised how many times you can dig yourself out of the ditch.

threads13 said:

T8o sucks when it is called.  We all agree that it puts us in a position where we don't want to c-bet because we are pot committing ourselves.  So, what about pushing preflop?  This is likely profitable.  I think the S-C numbers could aid in this conversation.

According to the S-C numbers you should push T8o in a SB vs BB confrontation when you have a stack of 7 BBs or less, so pushing from the Button should be a clear mistake with 17 BBs.

I don't think it is a correct strategy for a shortstack to get stacked with a crappy hand, the main power of this strategy is to push your good hands and try to be all-in on the flop to reduce the tactical options for a big stack and that's not what you want with junk hands.

Stealing with the top 40 to 50% of the hands may be profitable for a full stack but I doubt that a shortstack will be profitable with such a wide range over the long run. 

A good timed move often involves a bet on the flop and when called an even larger bet on the turn and with a shortstack you can't bet big on the turn. 

That's my point Threads.

We surely should widen our range in LP, especially when we know the Blinds are very tight, but not as much as a full stack, because postflop we will rarely get a better hand to fold, which is possible with a big stack.

With a shortstack we're not after winning many small pots but we try to double up. And even doubling up is normally not a big net win (usually around 15-20 BBs). It's clear that a good shortstack has a BB/100 which is smaller than that of a good bigstack. Therefore we have to avoid losing 7 or 8 BBs when we hold a crappy hand.

One of the advantages of a short stack is that you are mostly immune against tactical moves from a big stack. But that implies also that the tactical arsenal of a shortstack is also greatly reduced. And true steals belong to the tactics of Holdem.

Perhaps one should consider, not always making a continuation bet on the flop, when you try to steal with your lesser hands. Instead, take the free card and look what the turn brings and decide then. When taking this line we bet 4 BBs to win 1.5 BBs. We need to win immediately 3 out of 4 attempts to make a profit, which is not unrealistic. And when called it's not the greatest error to give up with your worst hands. And sometimes even bad hands hit the flop hard

BTW, I am talking about a full ring game with 9 or 10 players. When playing in a 6-max game blindstealing/defending becomes much more important.

I would like to thank you all for your constructive input into this topic. I learned a lot so far.

It would be interesting to hear Ed's opinion about this, as he was the one who wrote about this strategy first in GSIH. 

Todd said:

I agree that you shouldn't always make a c-bet.  But when you should pass is when you can't get a better hand than yours to fold.  Imagine if you have 88 on a KJ7 board.  You really can't get anything that beats you to fold.  Great time to pass on a c-bet.  Now if you have 32o (exageration of course) you will get a lot of hands that beat you to fold.  C-bets are for when you miss the flop.  That is the time when you will get the largest volume of hands that beat you to fold.  You won't get hands that connect with the flop to fold for the most part, but that's ok.  Those hands are the minority of hands. 

In your 88 example don't you think we can ge Jx and TT-99(maybe even QQ) to fold?  

I see your point, although my counterpoint is that you aren't getting much help with a free card when you only have 2 outs.  If your hand was A7 I would agree more.  I would much rather c-bet with fewer outs.

Todd said:

In your 88 example don't you think we can ge Jx and TT-99(maybe even QQ) to fold?

I see your point, although my counterpoint is that you aren't getting much help with a free card when you only have 2 outs. If your hand was A7 I would agree more. I would much rather c-bet with fewer outs.

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I don't think you get 2nd pair to fold a lot. You do have a better chance of getting 99 and TT to fold. You never get QQ to fold unless he's really weak. Putting yourself in the BB, would you ever fold QQ to a button raise just because a K came? Unlikely. You wouldn't feel great about it, but you still have a lot of hand.

That's not to say it never happens, but 2nd pair is often the best hand. It probably shouldn't be folding much.

I our particular case, I don't see any of those paired hands seeing the flop without raising. QQ is absolutely going to raise us pre-flop. 99 and TT should raise the majority of the time as well. All 3 of those hands should happily get in for 15BB to a button raise. You do see those called a lot, but I think those are raising hands.

If you raised pre-flop, you might get trash like J6s to fold with a c-bet. But then the jackass that called a raise with J6s is going to call with 2nd pair as well.

I see your point about taking a free card. You are right that drawing to 2 outs doesn't leave much room for hope. I also agree that A7 falls in much the same category as 88. I don't think of it as taking a free card, though. You are just letting the hands that don't yet beat you that would fold to a C-bet draw to 3-6 outs. Sometimes you get bluffed out of a pot by a hand like A7. I think you check it down a lot when the villain has a hand like T9 or 67. If the board isn't to scary on the end, you can often call a bet made by a hand like 67 or A7. When the villain checks the flop and leads the turn and there are 2 or 3 overcards, you are usually beat with a hand like 88. When the villain leads the river, that's a different story and much more of a judgement call.

I wish I could find the link. I read a piece of an interview with Chris Fergusson that expressed it much better than I can. All of it goes in the generally category of bluffing with your hands that don't have much value, betting the ones with great value and trying to get to a cheap showdown with the 'tweeners.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying. 

Although, not totally :). 

I think a lot of opponents at the lower levels are willing to let go of middle and bottom pair when they are faced with a lot of aggression.  I am not saying that they SHOULD, I am saying that I believe they DO.

My point with the A7 hand is that you have more of a chance to improve than the 88 hand so getting to see a free card is more likely to help you.  I am not saying which one should be bet, I am saying that I am more likely to bet a hand like 88 with two overs as compared to bottom pair.  I can get rid of 88 when I am raised, but I can't as easily with A7.  As far as saying you think you are giving free cards with A7 more than you are getting free cards.  Obviously, this is very opponent dependent.   However, I don't think that bottom pair GENERALLY is a value betting hand in full ring - which is what you are talking about.