I'm seeing more of a specific tactic from some SSers I hadn't really noticed before. It goes like this:

SSer limps in middle. CO or button does your standard raise if not much action in front. There's 0 or 1 other limper. The blinds may or not come in, but the SSer pushes all in.

Most of the time the late raiser isn't gonna be in great shape for an all-in, right? And indeed they get a lot of folds and pick up a fair bit of dead money.

When it's gone to the AI, the SSer usually has a middle pair or AQ/AJ, not cards a SSer should raise in middle except maybe AQ (IMO), but this tactic looks a good one for SSers in middle position with decent but not typically great SS hands. (I'm assuming we're talking about a generic GOOD SSer here, not the more common terrible one).


Anyone else noticed this one? I'm certainly watching SSers who do this closely, to get a clear line on the ranges they pull this stuff on, so I can retake the initiative.

I'm kinda surprised you're surprised by this. I see this somewhat regularly. Usually when there's a fair bit of dead money from players calling a raise and the raiser is in LP (therefore having a wide range). It's a squeeze, but because villain is short stacking, it becomes a push. Most often this is a mid or small PP - A hand they'd overlimp with, rather than raise, but which they think is beating or coin flipping the raiser's range. And they assume they have fold equity a lot of the time because the raiser is unlikely to call with JTs.

Here's an example from this week-end.

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 7 Players
LegoPoker Hand History Converter

UTG: $33
UTG+1: $30
MP: $95.40
Hero (CO): $178.75
BTN: $126.40
SB: $90
BB: $100

Pre-Flop: A K dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG calls $1, UTG+1 calls $1, MP folds, Hero raises to $6, 3 folds, UTG calls $5, UTG+1 raises to $30 and is All-In, Hero raises to $54, UTG calls $27 and is All-In

Flop: ($97.50) 8 7 8 (3 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: ($97.50) 6 (3 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($97.50) 7 (3 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $97.50 Pot ($3 Rake)
UTG showed J 9 (two pair, Eights and Sevens) and LOST (-$33 NET)
UTG+1 showed 4 4 (two pair, Eights and Sevens) and LOST (-$30 NET)
Hero showed A K (two pair, Eights and Sevens) and WON $94.50 (+$61.50 NET)

Not just the medium to small pockets in $25NL and under. I've been slumming since August and have been amazed at the pushes in this exact situation.

FTR, I think I'm ahead when holding 55+

He said good shortstackers. Neither of these guys is good. I think thats the difference that diebitter was pointing out. This is a pretty terrible play by both of the shortstackers involved.

What would really help people play better against shortstacks is getting someone who datamines to post the stats and showdown hands of good shortstackers to get a better idea of their opening/shoving ranges.

as for the beginning: awesome. thanks a lot!

a couple questions - do many people datamine? what information do they get and how accessible is a random player's info who drops at their table?

Thanks

Tre

I hate them too !

$0.1/$0.2 No Limit Holdem
10 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($4.00)
UTG+1 ($22.54)
UTG+2 ($20.00)
MP1 ($9.95)
MP2 ($9.40)
MP3 ($33.94)
Hero ($18.92)
BTN ($10.90)
SB ($4.35)
BB ($4.88)

Pre-flop: ($0.30, 10 players) Hero is CO K A
4 folds, MP2 calls $0.20, 1 fold, Hero raises to $0.80, 1 fold, SB raises to $2, 1 fold, MP2 folds, Hero raises to $6.80, SB goes all-in $2.35

Flop: K 4 J ($11.55, 2 players)

Turn: 7 ($11.55, 2 players)

River: T ($11.55, 2 players)

Final Pot: $10.30
Hero shows: K A
SB shows: J J

Hero wins $1.65 ( lost -$5.15 )
SB wins $8.65 ( won +$4.30 )
MP2 lost -$0.20

I just wanted to say thanks and congratulate you on this post. I would bet that this single post has made more of a difference in my overall profit than any single piece of knowledge I have gained in 32 years playing poker.

Great job!

BUMP

A well-timed bump in light of recent conversations. Sticky, imo.

hah, beat ya by 2 min

The main points of this thread:

- This thread isn't really about pro-Choo Chooers who play mid-stakes+ and really know what they're doing. There's some stuff here than can help you and get you started but against the real experts you're going to need to do a lot of adjusting and readjusting and leveling as they're probably better at playing against full stacks than you are at playing against them since they get to concentrate on just honing their strategy against the full stacks.

- At micro stakes most short stackers are either bad or very bad and amount to free money.

- Understand what kind of short stacker you're dealing with. They don't all play the same and you need to make different adjustments against LAGs or nits playing off a chart.

- Against very bad or very good short stackers don't fold too much. Good short stackers rely on fold equity and forcing you to make bad folds. Bad short stackers just want to get their chips in the middle and try to double up. In both cases be aware of your equity and pot odds. You often need to be prepared to call their shoves with less than optimum hands (value calls) because you're either ahead of their range or getting great odds. Or both.

Hello ShortStackHaters,

My name is pokerbot_exe and I am a 20bb short stacker

I have been playing SSS up to NL50 quite profitably (3-4 bb/100) playing a 9/7 type of game using a ABC formula that take into account position, cards and opponents. The nice thing of SSS is that it is very simple and multi-tabling 18+ is easy as well. I'm starting to impliment those same equity equations in the article to adapt my play even more. Most players lower than NL50 don't really adjust accordingly to my play and that's where the profit is. They would still call for set value and see everything as a bluff...Often my AK goes unimproved on flop and they call my push with middle pair. That's ok because they do that when I have JJ+ as well or they play A-rag like the nuts...

At Nl100 and above I know that my tight way of play will not be as profitable, but with datamining and pot odds calculations I can develop a profitable game. It becomes very situational the higher you go.

To beat the ABC tight SSSer in the higher limits:
1. Steal blinds
2. Note position of SSSer and deduce hand range and decide if: your hand > SSSer and continue if that is the case. Stay away for marginal situations.
3. Use stats to see if they stealing blinds or not, etc.

To beat the excellent SSSer that also uses stats and adjustments would be very tough and you would have to look at your own stats and decide with which hands the SSSer will play against you etc. and you would have to go through the same effort as the SSSer in terms of equity calculations. Then it will become a mathematical battle leading to no winner. The advantage of the SSSer though is that very few people will go through that effort.

My advice would to try to avoid tables with too many excellent short stackers.

Over and out

ty OP - your post is gold!
+1