Poker Short Stack Strategie

admin 3/29/2022

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This is a short stack strategy that I used years ago when I was first getting started in cash game play. Recently I decided to try it again. I played over 200 hours using this short stack strategy and netted $12.65/Hour At a 1-2 NO LIMIT TABLE I WOULD BUY IN FOR THE MINIMUM $40.

Therefore even if you have 30BB and your opponents have 20BB, you are still considered to have a short stack, and so you should continue to utilize a good short stack strategy. How to play with a short stack. Having a short stack means that you have less room to make plays at the poker table. After the flop you usually won’t have much left in front as a short stack so when you hit top pair with a strong kicker you should be thinking about getting all your money into the pot. If you run into a better hand, that’s poker, especially short stack poker. When the money goes in there are almost always outs to make the winning hand.

Being short stacked is a situation that happens in all game types. In hyper-turbos and spin-and-go’s, for example, you start with a short stack. And in tournaments, you can expect to be short often.

Here are seven tips that will prepare you for short-stacked situations.

Tip 1: Learn your preflop ranges.

When short stacked preflop, it’s important to use solid opening and three-bet-shoving ranges. You can determine those ranges with trial and error, and by studying good players.

(Better yet, you can borrow world-class pro Nick Petrangelo’s ranges by getting his new Upswing tournament course, Winning Poker Tournaments! Nick’s course comes with 250+ charts for six different stack depths.)

You can also use the SnapShove app, which tells you what hands to open-shove and three-bet shove (it does not provide opening ranges, though).

It’s important to adjust your ranges to how your opponents are playing. You should also stick to your preflop ranges until you have reasons to do otherwise, at which time you can adjust to target the particular mistakes your opponents are making.

Tip 2: Pay close attention to effective stack size.

‘Effective stack size’ is the least amount of chips in front of any player involved in a hand. It’s important to pay attention to effective stack size so that you can adjust your strategy accordingly.

Take a look at this example:

Player A stack size: $50
Player B stack size: $20
Player C stack size: $50

Player A Posts Small Blind of $1
Player B Posts Big Blind of $2
Player C Raises on the Button to $4

Here, the effective stack is determined by player B’s stack, which is $20.

Now suppose that player A is holding A A. What should he three-bet to? Obviously, he can three-bet anywhere from $6 to $50. But to determine the correct size, Player B’s stack size of $20 needs to be taken into consideration.

A standard three-bet size as the small blind would be $12. This achieves something: if Player B goes all-in for $20 and Player C calls, Player A can reopen the round of betting because the all-in is $8 more than his raise (also $8 more than Player C’s raise), thus allowing for more value preflop.

Tip 3: Consider post-flop playability.

‘Post-flop playability’ is how well your hand hits various flops, and how it plays after the flop.

Texas Holdem Short Stack Strategy

This is important in short stack formats because after a preflop raise the stack depths are often too short to maneuver post-flop. This means you’ll usually be all-in either on the flop or the turn.

When short stacked with a hand that plays poorly post-flop, but is likely to the best hand preflop, jamming all-in is often the best play. It allows you realize all of your hand’s equity and avoid tough post-flop decisions. Examples of hands to jam with include small offsuit A-x hands and low pocket pairs (22–55).

Just make sure to make this play only when under 20 big blinds deep.

Tip 4: Don’t shove all-in for too many big blinds.

It may seem like a good option to jam all-in for 25 big blinds from middle position with a hand like A 5. However, the risk-to-reward of such a play is poor. You’ll usually either win a small pot or lose a big one.

Instead, the optimal play is to use more standard sized raises, or fold when holding a weaker hand and/or expecting other players to three-bet. Save your stack for better spots and stronger hands.

Tip 5: Don’t be timid.

Inexperienced players are often too passive at shorter stack depths. They fold almost everything, waiting for a premium hand to double their stack.

Playing tight can be the correct strategy in some cases — most notably on money bubbles of tournaments. But playing tight too often will lose you more chips in the long run.

The same applies to limping on the button. As a general rule, don’t limp the button. Your opponents will notice, can assume you are doing it with weak hands, and can easily steal your limps by isolating.

Instead, raise either with the intention to win the blinds or to gain value from calls.

One final way of playing too tight while short stacked is to under-defend from the big blind.

Your opponents can profitably raise smaller with a wide range of hands if you fold too often from the big blind. Allowing them to pick up a free blind every orbit amounts to gifting them a 5 percent (or more) increase to their stack.

To stop opponents from abusing your blinds, defend by calling or raising a decent range of hands.

Tip 6: Never choose to be short stacked.

This applies to cash games and tournaments with add-ons, where you have the option to buy in for less than the maximum.

Choosing to sit with less than the maximum hurts your chances of beating every opponent in your game. It can prevent you from making the correct play, or from putting pressure on those opponents with equal or larger stack sizes. In short, it means you’re leaving money on the table.

Sometimes, however, sitting short is a good idea. Namely:

Short Stack Cash Game Strategy

To lower your variance when taking a shot at a higher stakes game.
When the strongest players in the game are deep and the weakest players are short.

Tip 7: Expect variance, and prepare for it.

Short-stacked poker can leave you with a lesser edge than you might have in deep stacked formats. This is usually offset by the fact you can play many more hands in the same amount of time.

But with a lesser edge comes heightened bankroll requirements. Hyper-turbos, for example, require more buy-ins than other formats. Failing to account for this can be your demise of even very competent players. So, it’s important to find out how many buy-ins you’ll need for your chosen short stack format.

Conclusion

Time spent studying effective short-stack play will lead to gains of knowledge and an increase in your win rate. Though, as always, studying is no substitute for playing. So get out there and try some short-stacked formats for yourself. And good luck!

Poker Short Stack Strategies

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For a guide to beating short stack poker players, check out the 'Crushing Shortstackers' concept video.

There are always going to be times in your poker career where you will find yourself as the short stack at the table and probably having a smaller stack than the rest of your opponents.

It may be because you are in the middle of a tournament and had a bad run of cards, or because you simply enjoy to buy in to cash games with a short stack.

But for whatever reason you are playing with a relatively small amount of chips, it is good to be able to understand and employ a good short stack strategy.

What is a short stack in no limit Texas Hold'em?

The typical short stack in any cash game or tournament will have 40 Big Blinds or less.

However, there are varying degrees of short stack poker as a 10BB stack will require a slightly different strategy than a 40BB stack, and it is important to be aware of these differences.

You may have noticed that the term ‘short stack’ is determined by the size of your stack relative to the blinds, and not relative to the stack sizes of your opponents. Therefore even if you have 30BB and your opponents have 20BB, you are still considered to have a short stack, and so you should continue to utilize a good short stack strategy.

Poker Short Stack Strategy Cash Game

How to play with a short stack.

Having a short stack means that you have less room to make plays at the poker table. Bluffs and advanced moves (like float plays) are formed from being able to make educated checks, bets, calls and raises on each round of the hand, so having a short stack will reduce and sometimes eliminate any room for special manoeuvres by both you and your opponents.

Furthermore, the general structure of a no limit Texas Holdem game is that the bigger bets will be made on the turn and river, as the preflop and flop rounds are usually set-up rounds that build the pot and prepare the hand for action. The fact that we have a short stack means that we will rarely be making it past the flop in terms of betting as we will not having enough chips to continue.

With a short stack, most (or all) of the action will be taking place on the preflop and flop betting rounds.

Hands to play when short-stacked.

The fact that we have little room for movement and that our betting will cease at the flop means that we should be playing big heavy hitting hands that will make strong hands at the flop, rather than smaller hands that have ‘potential’.

We should avoid hands like suited connectors and small pocket pairs, as these hands are profitable when we have a deep stack, as our implied odds are there to compensate for the likely event that we miss the flop. In general we are best entering pots with are big suited cards that can make top pair or better at the flop, although we should exercise some flexibility in starting hand selection depending on the size of our short stack.

Below is a table of the hands we should be looking to play depending on our situation:

Starting hands chart.

Note: This starting hands chart is designed for tournament games where you are pressured to make more moves as the amount of chips left in your stack decreases. This table is not designed for short stack cash game strategy where you have the option of reloading again and again.

40BB or less.

30BB or less.

20BB or less.

10BB or less.

As you can see, a lot of emphasis has been placed playing big cards that can make top pair or better, which will often be the best hand on the flop. As you should remember it is unlikely that we will make any more bets past the flop betting round, so we should be more than happy to be making a good pair and get our money in on the flop.

You may notice that hands that include aces have been given a lot of weight, especially if you are a very short stack. This is because of the fact that as a extremely short stack, it is more than likely that you will be pushing or calling an all in on the flop regardless if you have caught a piece of it or not. Therefore if we are holding an ace, we will have a better chance of winning with a high card against an opponent in the event that they did not make a pair either.

How to play these hands.

When we are dealt any of the above cards that are within our range depending on the effective stack sizes, we should always be raising when entering the pot. It may seem like a good idea to limp and try and catch a good flop for cheap, but it is more profitable to raise and build the pot for when we hit our hand, which we are more likely to do if we are holding a strong starting hand.

With a stack of 10BB or more we should be looking to raise around 3 or 4BB if we are first to enter the pot. However, if we have 10BB or less, it will not be too bad of a play to push all-in straight away, as any call from a 4BB raise will leave us completely pot-committed anyway. With 10BB or less, you can think about using the stop and go play also.

On the flop we are usually reduced to going all-in or folding as a short stack. The smaller the size of our stack, the more inclined we should be to calling or pushing all-in as we are more likely to be committed to the pot. The shorter the stack, the less the flop will matter to us. However, if we have around 30/40BB, we can be a little more selective because we will not be pot committed and have the opportunity to wait for a better spot.

The shorter your stack, the less post-flop action you are going to deal with. So it's important to have a strong hand that has a good chance of winning after all 5 community cards have been dealt.

Nevertheless, if we are pot committed and will be moving all-in regardless, it is always better to make the all-in bet rather than calling if possible. This is because by betting we are giving our opponent the opportunity to fold the best hand or a potentially winning hand, which is something that is not available to us if we are calling the all-in bet.

Short stack tips overview.
Play simple ABC poker. Avoid attempting to bluff and just bet when you have a strong hand.
Only enter pots with premium hands.
Fold small pocket pairs and suited connectors as you have do not have implied odds.
Make strong 4BB raises before the flop.
Be prepared to move all of your stack in to the middle before or on the flop.
Leave the table if you win a big pot (and intend on playing short-stacked).

Short stack strategy evaluation.

Good short stack strategy is all about pushing every little edge that we have. Just because we have a smaller stack, it does not mean that we have less chance of winning any individual hand, it just means we have to adapt our play a little differently to each situation.

Nevertheless, we will be facing an up hill battle if we are in a tournament as each pot we enter is more likely to involve putting our tournament life on the line. At some poker sites, the structure of the faster tournaments will mean that you will spend the majority of the game as a short stack, which is a good way to learn how to play good short stack poker.

We should always look for the most profitable situations and get our money in when we think we have the best of it, and we should always prepare for luck to play its part in each outcome. Playing a good, sound short stack strategy does not guarantee to save a tournament life or secure a double up, but it will improve your chances of coming out on top in the long run.

In cash games, you cannot expect to win every all-in, but you can still play a profitable game by picking the right situations and trying to get your money in with the best hand.

Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.

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