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Q&A #46: Ace Magnets Strike Again »

Q&A #45: Short Stack Play on the Flop

Posted on Tue Jan 02, 2007 09:55:00 PM
Filed under No Limit Hold 'em, Premium Articles, Q&A, Short Stack Strategy

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Jeff asks,

Just got back from my first live cash game….although I didn’t play for that long – not even 30 minutes (once my friend busted out of the tourney I had to go).

$1/$2 NL

I bought in for the minimum – $60 (which was the short stack at the table, although not technically a “short stack” by your definition in GSIH).

I’m in the small blind with pocket queens.

A few limpers – comes around to me, I raise to $20.

I get 2 callers.

Flop is awful. A66

What do I do here? I had 2 callers – I’m thinking someone’s gotta have an ace.

I played it totally weak. I checked. The next guy checked. The guy after that raised it up – putting me all-in.

I folded.

Argh!

Should I have pushed with my queens after the flop? Did I do the right thing here? The player who pushed is a much more experienced player than me. Entirely possible he was just playing his position. Saw I had put in a big raise pre-flop….saw me check A66 – and just outplayed me. I don’t know.

In GSIH I outline a general preflop strategy for short stack play, and I mostly leave flop play as an exercise to the reader. I plan to talk a little more about flop play in future posts, but this question is a good place to get started.

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23 Responses to “Q&A #45: Short Stack Play on the Flop”

Anonymous
@ Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:58:46 PM
1

On your myspace page you wrote “it’s” instead of “its.”

J
@ Wed Jan 03, 2007 04:35:55 AM
2

I’m a total newbie and play micros so play differs there, but I would cbet here all in to provide cover for my other cbets and since I’m out of position. That maybe even gets an Axs of the wrong suits to fold.

J
@ Wed Jan 03, 2007 04:38:06 AM
3

Also, 10BB seems a largish raise with just 2 limpers. I’d raise 5-7BB.

Anonymous
@ Wed Jan 03, 2007 05:35:17 AM
4

10 bb is not too large if people are calling it.

J
@ Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:30:55 AM
5

Good point. Though I think with QQ you want one caller. With 87s you don’t want any. :)

Ed Miller
@ Wed Jan 03, 2007 01:48:11 PM
6

J,

I agree with the person who said 10BB isn’t too large if people are calling it. When you play a short stack and have a hand like QQ, you essentially want to raise as much as you can and still get called.

As for QQ wanting one caller, that idea has some merit when the stacks are deep, but when they’re so short as they are here, it’s not really true anymore. You’re happy to get as many callers as want to come along, as you’ll be getting far the best of it. If more players come along, it’s just more money that you’re getting the best of. You’re playing “showdown” poker, and QQ is going to do very well against any number of players in that scenario.

And beyond that, you don’t get to choose how many callers you get anyway. You get what you get. I definitely agree that with 87s in this situation, you certainly wouldn’t want any. :)

Your idea to cbet to cover other cbets makes sense. Many things in poker are on a continuum, and one continuum is how “cohesive” a strategy you need versus playing one hand at a time.

When you play against good players, when you play against them over and over, and when you stand to lose a lot by being read easily, it’s critical to “cover” for your plays to make them random and make yourself hard to read.

When you play against bad players, when it’s the first time you’ve seen them and you aren’t so likely to play against them again, and when your stacks are so short that it doesn’t matter as much how well they read your hand, you can make plays that violate that idea of “cover.”

Basically, what I’m saying is that if you’re playing against a bunch of boobs you’ll never play again, you can often throw “cover” out the window and do whatever makes you the most money on this hand. Cover’s important if you play the same players over and over, and if they are smart and will adjust and exploit your play.

AKQJ10
@ Wed Jan 03, 2007 02:10:12 PM
7

As for QQ wanting one caller, that idea has some merit when the stacks are deep, but when they’re so short as they are here, it’s not really true anymore. You’re happy to get as many callers as want to come along, as you’ll be getting far the best of it. If more players come along, it’s just more money that you’re getting the best of. You’re playing “showdown” poker, and QQ is going to do very well against any number of players in that scenario.

Good point, and it carries a subtlety that often confuses people. QQ will win less often against 3 or 4 opponents than against one, of course. But your risk in facing more drawing opponents is compensated by the much larger pot you win. And in brick-and-mortar SSNL it’s not rare at all to get a big raise like this called by a lot of people who feel lucky, don’t really understand implied odds, etc. It’s really a lot like limit poker — you get sucked out on more often, but win huge pots when your bigger hands hold up.

Great points about “cover”, too. I really miss your posts on 2+2, Ed, but I’m glad you have this blog going.

So Cal Lurker
@ Wed Jan 03, 2007 02:30:24 PM
8

What do you consider “pretty compelling evidence” not to call?

Ed Miller
@ Wed Jan 03, 2007 02:57:02 PM
9

So Cal,

That’s an interesting question. Generally (not talking specifically about this example), it will be either one very tight player betting, or it will be two players, a bet and raise, or sometimes just a bet and call.

In this case, depending on what you know about how the players play, you might fold if you checked, one player bet, and the next player called, even though you’d be getting even better odds (7-to-2 instead of 5-to-2). If you called in that case, you’d be betting either that the caller is nuts, or that both players started with pocket pairs.

Even so, 7-to-2 is very compelling odds, especially considering that you’ll make queens full 8.5% of the time. I’d be more comfortable with folding if there were $60 or $80 left and it went bet and call as opposed to the measly $40.

J
@ Thu Jan 04, 2007 12:21:51 AM
10

Ed, thank you very much for your advice, I agree now re: both short-stack QQ simply wanting more money into the pot and “cover” being useless against ignorant players.

Still, assuming I believe there is little chance the hand gets checked down (and we’re calling any bets), then do you think it is OK to cbet to get Axs to fold or it is not worth it and better to get a value bet from JJ and TT or a bluff from anyone else?

I guess the answer probably is “it depends” depending on the estimated bluffing and calling frequencies of your opponents.

J
@ Thu Jan 04, 2007 12:24:45 AM
11

And what if the stacks were deeper? I might be wrong, but I would feel even more inclined to cbet as I feel I cannot just give up on QQ any time an A pops up.

Ed Miller
@ Thu Jan 04, 2007 11:28:23 PM
12

You can’t “just give up on QQ any time an A pops up,” but at the same time, as the stacks get deeper, you have to risk more and more for the same reward, the pot. At some point, the risk is too much, and you have to get careful with your queens.

As for whether it’s better to bet or check, yes, it depends on your opponents. If they are nuts enough to call $20 preflop with ace-rag, then fold for $40 when an ace flops, then sure, bet. But I don’t know many players who would fit that description. It’s a pretty crazy play to make. I think in general you don’t have much shot to get a weak ace to fold to a bet.

AKQJ10
@ Sat Jan 06, 2007 02:33:53 PM
13

J,

Regarding deeper-stack pocket pair play against an ace, you might find this recent 2+2 thread somewhat thought-provoking. QQ is slightly different because a king can beat you and because it’s one less underpair to bet into you on the turn with the worse of it, but not that different.

John
@ Sat Jan 06, 2007 04:23:46 PM
14

Thanks i found this very interesting. Can you answer something in relation to the maths of this question. Is it just that we discount unknowns cause the below was something that really bothered me when i started thinking about it.

29% is the break even mark and we come from behind 8% of the time. So you say that we need to be ahead 20% of the time to make this a call. If we are ahead then surely we are against two overs at least. And the villian is drawing to 6 outs. Maybe even a flush, don’t know suits.

So lets give this a weighting, say that when we are ahead we are against 7 outs. We are probably staying ahead 65% of the time. Our 20% we needed is now only worth 13%.
Its now a -ev call.
We need to be ahead about 40% of the time ?

Thanks

Ed Miller
@ Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:27:12 PM
15

John,

I’m not sure I understand. How can someone have two overcards when you have QQ on an A66 flop?

But I definitely approximated when I added 8.5% to 20% to get the 29% win rate. It’s not a simple addition like I made it seem… I just approximated it that way because doing the actual math is mostly prohibitive when you’re at the table.

John
@ Sun Jan 07, 2007 12:00:22 AM
16

Hey

Thanks for the reply Ed

Sorry yeah it was a different example i was looking at but the same principle was involved. So the 2 overs obviously does not apply in the example you gave.

Its not really the addition that bothers me. Let me use the example you have with the A66 and QQ and make up a hand we are against if thats alright.
Ok so we have QQ on this A66 flop lets say we are ahead but are up against a flush draw when we make the call. This means we will get drawn out on alot.

So we found that we needed to be ahead 20% to be able to make the call. Does this not increase hugely because of the number of times are opponent will come from behind and draw out on our QQ to beat us after we make the call and are ahead going to the turn ?

In the same vain that we have factored in the number of times we will come from behind to beat our opponent when we are behind after making this call do we not need to factor in the opposite of this and our opponent coming from behind when we are ahead after making the call ?

Thanks
John

John

John
@ Sun Jan 07, 2007 12:25:31 AM
17

So an actual example for instance

A66 flop and we have QQ

So 2 things happen if we decide to call

Number 1
We are behind and we need to win 20% but lets say we are behind we still have 2 outs 8.5% so this means we actually only need to win 29%

Number 2
We are ahead. But on a number of occasions our opponents hand will come from behind to beat us. Lets say for an easy one he turns over JJ and has two outs against our QQ. So 8.5% of the time he will still win.

It means that we still need to win 29% of the time to break even.

Surely we need to factor this in as our opponent will rarely be drawing dead after we can. Do we not need to give some weighting to his number of outs ?

Thanks for the help , hope i have explained it better now.

John
@ Sun Jan 07, 2007 12:32:21 AM
18

Sorry in number the 20% and the 29% are the wrong way around but hopefully you know what i am getting at.

Ed Miller
@ Sun Jan 07, 2007 01:46:55 AM
19

John,

You’re absolutely right. The reason I didn’t mention it in this example is because you are way ahead or way behind and because you are getting generous odds to call.

So when you are ahead, you’ll usually be 85-100% to win. Let’s say it’s 90% on average. But you only need an additional 20% wins… I said that means you need to be ahead 20% of the time, but you’re right, you need to be ahead enough times that you’ll WIN 20% of the time.

That means that you really need to be ahead 22% of the time, as 90% of 22% is about 20%. I didn’t think the difference between 20% and 22% was important enough (especially given how fuzzy any estimate would be to figure out how often you’re likely to be ahead) that I needed to mention it.

What you’re talking about plays a much larger role in reverse implied odds hands. Generally speaking, that’s when you are either way behind, or you’re slightly ahead. Like, for instance, if you had T5 on a T86 board with two hearts. If you’re behind, you have little chance to draw out. But if you’re ahead, you could be drawn out on in any number of ways, and your opponents likely have significant equity against you. That fact means that even with a little money in the pot, you should still sometimes fold because you will lose so often when you happen to be ahead, and you’ll lose almost always when you happen to be behind.

So yes, what you’re talking about is extremely important, but not so much in this particular example because you are WAWB.

John
@ Sun Jan 07, 2007 11:34:42 AM
20

Thanks Ed the other example i was looking was when we were up against two opponents and one of these was All in and even more short stacked than us. So this means while our odds for calling only increased slighty i thought the odds of getting sucked out on by two opponents was making it a very close fold or call. I just wasn’t sure if i was right in including this in my calculations.

But i see what you mean in this example and why it is not that important.

Thanks

Binions
@ Mon Apr 23, 2007 05:13:05 PM
21

“To break even, you have to win at least 2 out of 7 times, or about 29% of the time. Whether you should call or fold boils down totally to whether you think you will win 29% of the time or not.

First of all, if you’re behind to an ace, you have two outs. You’ll win about 8.5% of the time in that case. So that means you have to be ahead about 20% of the time to get to your 29% percent break even point.”

**************

“Let’s say it’s 90% on average. But you only need an additional 20% wins… I said that means you need to be ahead 20% of the time, but you’re right, you need to be ahead enough times that you’ll WIN 20% of the time.

That means that you really need to be ahead 22% of the time, as 90% of 22% is about 20%. I didn’t think the difference between 20% and 22% was important enough (especially given how fuzzy any estimate would be to figure out how often you’re likely to be ahead) that I needed to mention it.”

*******************

Isn’t the formula, where X = the percent you must be ahead:

8.5 + .9X = 29

or X = 21.5/.9

or X = 23.8%

Binions
@ Mon Apr 23, 2007 05:18:03 PM
22

Is there a way to edit?

My subtracting skills are lacking.

20.5/.9 = 22.8

Greyzy
@ Thu Jul 12, 2007 08:13:49 AM
23

Ed,

you might want to delete the comment right above. :(

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