Should we be tightening our ranges up when there's a lot of short stacks at the table? This is a problem I run into a lot because I regularly play when our room opens and there's never more than three people that buy in for $200.

Here's an example dilemma from today:

TAG on tilt straddles BTN for $5, with a stack of $70, loose passive UTG +1 limps, with a stack of $115, UTG +2 limps, with a stack of $90, and it's folded to hero with J 9 in CO who covers. What are we doing here?

Given stack sizes, I fold that, call on BTN and call JTs.

The adjustment we should make is to fold more SCs, baby pockets and small suited aces and focus on big pairs, big aces and broadways. Basically make TPGK+ and get it in.

The other thing is pay a lot of attention as to who is likely to start jamming a lot and factor that into your preflop gameplan.

I'd just all-in.

Making strong top pair hands becomes more important, because the spr will be such that u can just get it in and not have too much reverse implied odds vs 2pair+

Likewise, implied odds hands become less valuable because u will get paid off less when u hit.

This is why KJ, KQ, AT hands go up in value while hands like 67s, 22, A2s go down in value

I agree with the above except for the A2s example.

I think the curve of hand values might tend towards something more in line with the Sklansky-Chubokov ratings for hand strength in these kinds of spots therefor Ax and Kx hands will realize equity more often than SCs etc. This also assumes villians are not tightening up their opening requirements sufficiently wrt stack size:blinds.

If in example TAG villain with 60BBs is opening form the Button, his range should theoretically be much tighter than a normal 100BB button open etc etc. In which case, Qx (x < a 8 say) while still better than 67s is not faring as well vs this hypothetical range however vs other bad/rec players, it can fare much better.

I play my game shortstacks be damned. I play the hands I want to play. Most short stack players are terrible and have no idea what they are doing.

They call 6x raises with small pps having only 10bbs behind and then fold when they miss their set. They call raises with AK and fold if they miss. Yesterday in a 2/5 game a guy limp/called my $40 raise with his 85s. He had $55 behind.

Most of them are too bad to worry about. I ignore them and play my normal game.

It's going to be extremely hard to beat the rake in this game, and it will probably be boring and frustrating to play. Sometimes I've been stuck in games like this chasing a promo and it is hell.

If TAG is still TAG and not on mega tilt, I might try for a steal here sometimes and fold sometimes. Obviously, what you don't want is him shoving on you, and it's just kind of a read if this guy is straddling so he can shove tons or if he is just hoping to pick up a hand with the stakes raised. However, making it $25 or $30 will put a lot of these guys in a tough spot.

Never call. There's too much of what should be dead money. You want to just take it now and not pay rake. By being the third limper, you are inviting the button to shove. He can increase his stack by like 30%.

If the short stackers understand the situation well enough... i.e. if they get what hyperknit said, they are just going to make life difficult for you.

The daytime 1/2 games in my room almost always have 5-7 guys with $60-$100 and a couple with $100-$200 stacks. If you cant beat the rake in that game, I dont know what to tell you.

These aren't "short stackers" as in guys playing a good short stack strategy. They are horrible poker players who play buy in short so they dont lose too much money at one time. There is no reason a good player cant destroy that game for 10-15BBs/hr.

Yeah, these guys are almost always huge fish who you want at your table. Beating rake is not a concern at all.

Also, you weren't the one that said this, but I hate raising $25-$30. We should either limp, fold or shove with these stack sizes with limpers in the pot. J9s is just a bit too good to fold over limpers who have garbage ranges and only one player who's uncapped. Shove and win the pot 80% of the time and have decent equity when called.

It's just so V dependent, but here's why I wouldn't want to shove.

If the initial limper is trapping, I'd at least want the option of folding when he shoves. Obviously, people like to trap straddled pots and even pretty bad recs are observant enough to know that when a short, tilted stack straddles, he will raise or shove when limped to much of the time. So people trap here a lot.

There might be some really bad post flop play. As Mike said, someone might put in a huge chunk of their stack with 66 or AQ and then fold when they miss.

A shove looks pretty bluffy.

The game I'm imagining is a bunch of older people who want to be at the table for a long period and don't want to lose all their money when their AA gets cracked. The kinds of people who like to check it down with each other HU and get a boner when they get to chop. They want to play weak-tight, first level poker and not worry about implied odds and tough spots.

If they are taking $80/hr off the table and Vs have like $600 combined, and are playing short to avoid being punished for weak tight play, I don't know how we are going to be making $30 an hour. Just by stealing the blinds?

Still seems extremely boring.

Now, if these are just crappy players who buy in short and then keep rebuying, that's great. But if that's true, there should be more money on the table because someone should be winning.

I guess that's the bottom line to me. No matter how bad the players are, if there's much to be won, somebody should have chips, if only through luck.

If there is anything but a 10% rake, like if they are taking a $1 promo drop otf... It's just really going to suck imo.

Maybe I just don't know the right tactics. But the thing is, I don't remember ever really seeing other players beat up these games much either.

This.

Short stackers IME are usually either the old guys who call too much preflop and then fold post until they hit their miracle flop or people who chip down usually by playing like a spud and they look for any hand to limp/jam ~40bb preflop, usually way too wide e.g. 66 or A7o. I've seen one player who plays shortstack OK, I don't think he's playing optimally but I wouldn't be surprised if he's a small winner.

Over the last 1157 hours at my 1/3 NL game I've moved from my previous medium stack BI strategy (BIing and keeping a $300 stack topped up) to a shorter stack BI strategy (BIing and keeping a $200 stack topped up). IMO, you should tighten your preflop raising range *way* up. Like nit tight. Like rock tight. Like maybe not even raise until LP and even start open limping CO/Button with speculative hands you would normally have raised when deeper.

The number of pots you'll steal preflop and postflop with a cbet will drop dramatically, of course (although, interestingly enough, you might actually be able to steal more pots postflop in a limped pot where people will be playing more face-up than in a check-to-the-raiser spot). But raising with speculative hands will often just simply get way too much of your stack in preflop, plus destroy you when you run into dominating hands in low SPR pots (where you won't be able to get TP to fold like you could perhaps in a high SPR pot). The large amount of small heavily raked pots you win will not make up for the smaller amount of big pots you lose, imo.

In this particular case here, I'd either fold (especially since we won't be guaranteed position and it's possible tilty straddler might raise) or overlimp (where our worst IO case against the shortest stack is still an okish 17+:1). Raising / shoving will obviously take down some relatively smallish dead money some of the time, but the times we are called and are way behind will destroy us overall, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Ur such a personality on this forum it’s funny ^_^

Playing 1/2. Button straddles $5. BB calls. UTG calls. I raise to $20 with KcTc in MP. UTG calls Heads up. UTG only has $40 behind.

Flop Qd9d5c. He checks. I have a gutshot and an overcard. Good enough for me. I jam. He folds.

I do that stuff all day long to the short stacks. They simply call and then fold the flop too much.

They are calling raises with pps and folding the flop too much.
They are calling trying to hit TP and folding if they miss.
They are calling with suited trash.

Even if he showed me a pp or middle pair, I still almost have enough equity to make this play correct. Dont be afraid of the short stacks. Abuse the hell out of them.

But you're acting as if this happens like 100% of the time, when it clearly doesn't. In fact, given that there's only $40 left in a $40 pot, I'm sorta surprised this is happening at all when they catch any piece whatsoever (and I've seen enough "well, I'm guess I'm going home if you don't have AK" calls with 4th pair here to not be convinced).

I won't argue that your opponents obviously aren't playing moronically, but raising often lets them play even better (by correctly committing weaker when they wouldn't have in a limped pot, and by having you raise their pots for them, often with dominating hands, when they should likely be the ones doing that).

GcluelessNLnoobG

It doesnt happen 100% of the time but it doesnt need to. It needs to happen often enough to be profitable and most 1/2 players are terrible. Almost all 1/2 players who have sub $80 stacks are really really terrible.

Who cares if villain calls with 4th pair? Having him call 4th pair is probably even better for us, actually, but he already lost the game by l/c pre-flop, which is the point.

Why don't you come up with reasonable pre-flop and flop continuing ranges for villain and calculate the EV of our c-bet? If it's so profitable to bet the flop when we miss, imagine how well our range as a whole is doing.

Also, why don't you give ranges to limpers and calculate the EV of shoving J9s here? The amount of dead money here is not small, and we have a lot of equity even when called.

It has to happen enough of the time for the times we run into crushing / dominating hands to work out well for us. While I certainly agree with the last sentence, I'm not convinced stealing enough small pots preflop / mediocre pots with a flop cbet is going to outurn the times we simply barrel preflop/cbet into a better hand and basically help our opponent play their hand correctly (and you could also argue that if you're doing this a lot in position after limpers that taking a passive line with big hands would actually be a decent strategy for some of your opponents).

GnotconvincedG

As I've said in this forum many times before, a huge part of my profit simply comes by limping in and having some cowboy overvalue lol J high after 3 limpers. And while that is an intentional tactic on my part, it still doesn't mean there aren't others limping in with huge hands cuz "I never win with AK / JJ" or whatever.

If you want to do this with deep stacks where you have some real FE postflop and can play some postflop poker in position, fine. Highly doubt any worthwhile shortstack strategy revolves around constantly getting in huge chunks of shortstacks preflop/flop with the worst of it.

GcluelessNLnoobG

The pot isn't that small preflop for a 1/2 game. There's $50 in preflop.

Its pretty simple....

Im going to miss the flop most of the time.
He's going to miss the flop most of the time.

He cant win when he folds so often post flop.

Whats your definition of me barrelling into a better hand and letting him play correctly? He could have Ax including big aces like AJ/AT. Hes going to fold when I put him all in on a Q9x flop even though hes ahead. He could have me dominated and hes still going to fold. Ive seen many guys limp /call with AK and fold in spots like this and show their hand disgusted because their AK always misses.

He could have any number of small-mid pps and fold this flop. He should just reraise all in preflop with hands like that instead of calling and folding most flops, but that's not what 1/2 players with small stacks do.

I could actually be ahead or even dominating him preflop. These guys will limp/call with hands like JTs / T8s ect.

I cant tell if you really dont understand this stuff or if you just cant fathom it because you wouldnt play hands that way when short stacked. No good player would, but again, these guys are terrible.

If I never win any pot when he calls, this will be still be profitable enough to make money because hes going to fold way more than often enough. Figure in the times when he calls and I do win, and this is free money.

Well, I'm not going to do this with J9s after a gobbledyeek limps in.

I want to know if the ranges you assign villains fits your narrative, so how do you range villain in Mike's example here?

"Playing 1/2. Button straddles $5. BB calls. UTG calls. I raise to $20 with KcTc in MP. UTG calls Heads up. UTG only has $40 behind.

Flop Qd9d5c. He checks. I have a gutshot and an overcard. Good enough for me. I jam. He folds. "

That's fair enough, but after 3 limpers or whatever there's an ~ok chance there's either someone like me in the mix or someone with JJ who limps cuz he hates JJ (and even moreso if someone like you / Mike is constantly raising in position).


Even his whiffing range can easily be a crushing range of AK/AJ/AT/KJ/KT/88- (that thankfully has decided not to limp/3bet for the last of their lol chips), not to mention the part of his crushing range he could easily have (AQ/KQ/bigpairs/etc.) which he just didn't happen to have this time. And while I understand that when they both whiff Mike can often steal the pot, the question is whether he can steal it enough of the time (especially with his super short opponent considering themselves committed most times with any piece) to outrun the times he simply torches money with KT vs AT on T high flops / etc.

You're really going to have to point me in the direction of a shortstack strategy that suggests going about things like this with very mediocre hands against multiple limpers very short. Everything I've read on it suggests the exact opposite (and for good reason, imo).

GcluelessshortstackingnoobG

Im pointing you to one right now. I guess it would be more credible if it was in an actual book?

Those aren't full ranges. A single flop hand vs. range EV problem is easy to solve if you give ranges both for villain seeing the flop and calling our shove. You don't have to spend a lot of time mulling it over. Just give me a range you think is reasonable and I'll show the EV of shoving KTcc along with some other hands in our range.