I am a relatively long-time MTT player, new to cash. This week I've been practicing my short stack play at 1/2 trying to grow my tiny bankroll. Played two sessions earlier in the week, bought in for $100, left with $400 both times. Today bought in twice for $100, lost both buy-ins.

Having trouble playing both KQs and KQo. Seems too good to fold, but neither limping nor raising seems very +EV. I lost my first buy-in today on the following hand, curious if it is just bad luck or if a better line exists:

I am in the blinds with KQo. Had lost one hand, so my stack is down to $85. Have been at table for 20 minutes, so not much info. Most players have me stacked, if not all.

PF: 3 limpers, LP raises to $12, I call, the 3 limpers call.

Pot: $63
Flop: Qc9c5d
I shove my remaining $73, 3 folds, original raiser calls. He tables AQ and busts me.

It's not. I fold it to a raise all day everyday.

KQs is playable with multiway action, but don't get married to TP hands.

Start by 3 betting or folding KQ rather than calling with it. They call 3 bets so wide pre and give up easily. Keep the initiative and Make them make a hand

Fold preflop, or else checkraise the flop and fold to later aggression. If it checks through you have to evaluate the new board texture but you'll probly still be well ahead and can bomb.

Played correctly this situation facing AQ with a nice fat pot on the flop should cost you $85 or so depending on Villain's craftiness. You'll make it up against other hands, or you'll decide eventually to start folding this hand preflop.

If the board were drier you could check/call a proper cbet and snarl over a turn card heads-up.

Dont ever play shortstacked.

Other views/lines? Tricky spot.

completely table dependent. i play a lot of limped pots and it doesn't hurt to have kq in there, nor is it an especially strong hand.

in your example, pre is a fold.

I wouldn't bother. Just buy in full. top off if needed.

The only reason you should be playing a short stack strategy at a cash table is if everyone ELSE is short.


At $100 stacks, KQ sucks. Most times that other players are going to want to put in $100 they're going to have you beat. You're not really short enough to simply jam and get called by worse. So either fold preflop, or limp and try to play a small pot. But you can't call raises and then stack off. And you shouldn't be calling raises with a $100 stack and folding too often either.

tl;dr: Fold KQ, buy in full.

playing short is fine to check everyone out before topping up.

wtf ive never folded kq in my life

Folding kq pre is proably best in a lot of cases, at least against a raise. Unless the raiser opens light, with ur short stack only call raises with aq+ and pocket pairs if odds to set mine are there and ull be fine

You'll have to search, but there are several good SS threads in 2+2. I strongly suggest reading them. Playing short stack requires playing aggressively to win. You never have the implied odds to play a weaker hand than your opponent's. Therefore, you're either 3betting or folding pf in this situation.

As played, you took the worst line possible by donk shoving the flop. This lets the original raiser play perfectly. If he can beat any TP hands, he calls. He wins the max. If he can't, he folds and loses the min. I'd let him cbet to keep more of his range in.

The hardest adjustment for MTT players coming to cash is that the FE is considerably smaller in cash. In a MTT, you lose your stack, you're done playing. In cash, you just reach in your wallet and keep going. The second hardest is dealing with the wider ranges of hands one can face with deep stacks.

I am just learning to beat these low stakes games. Some of the best advice I got in the beginning was to be very careful with hands like KQ. You want to be the one raising with it in late position, not limping early. If you call a raise, and face a bet by a competent player when you flop top pair, you will often be against AK, AQ.

I never play short, but I guess if you were, you would want to be folding this hand early, putting in a raise in late pre and shoving when you hit.

hmm. i iso this hand every time im IP. wtf at limping with KQ lol

i also open this from UTG.

i come from online 6max background. should i be mucking this preflop at a 10 handed table?

exactly.

you have to understand stack off thresholds at the table, especially short stacked when you are in way more all in situations. if you can't get called by worse when you shove here, then its obviously a bad play. more often than not you are only folding out hands you beat and getting called by better.

the call pre is likely bad short stacked against a tight straightforward opponent

Don't call raises with KQo instead play volume pots with KQs.

AK

The hand is easily dominated, I mostly fold it to a raise but will raise myself in mid to late position.

You really shouldn't be calling raises OOP with KQ imo. Unless you are the aggressor it's fine to fold this types of hands bc you will be dominated quite often. The biggest thing I see when MTT players play cash game is they tend to over play marginal hands and try to play too aggro. When you are playing these small stakes game you are rarely going to be playing against pro grinders so the way you can book a profit in these games is to play TAG and solid

Playing 50bb ruins the playability of KQ.

This at 100bb would be an easy 3 bet. The cooler you ran into is just that--a cooler.

Most of time neither hit flop and we win with initiative. The KQ will have enough equity vs most 3 bet -calling hands to give us an escape hatch when we need it often enough.

And yes, we are even probably ahead of villains range, however that is not important.

Donk overshoving with a value hand on flop is pretty bad. All draws have obviously incorrect odds to call you but will c-bet a ton.

C/shove is so much better.

Generally though, OOP you should fold KQo as it has huge RIO when you hit in raised pots. KQs is a good hand multiway.

If you want to play with 50bb make sure you top up regularly, but i'd advise reading up and playing with 100bb minimum. Fish tend to make the most mistakes post-flop (calling too much generally) so the deeper you are the more you can take advantage of this.