So, I live in L.A....every cardroom here has a crappy short buy-in structure ($1/$2 - $60 max...$1/$3 - $120 max).

So, with that said, I play fairly well short and am definitely a winning player at these stakes (it took some adapting from playing fairly deep all of the time, to short). However, there's one particular scenario I'm faced with semi-frequently that always makes me question the optimal way to play it... Example:

$1/$3 - I have $140 behind, UTG has me covered.
UTG raises to $10, two callers, I'm on button with 98 and call
Flop ($43) : 9 2 3
UTG bets $20, folds to hero... ?

I'm completely bewildered in spots where I'm short, flop big draws and face aggression. I know this spot, and any spot, is read-dependent, but I don't know what would be considered generally "standard" here with this stack size, 14+ outs, etc... call? raise? shove?

Generally a raise UTG is pretty strong from high pocket pairs to AK and maybe AQ suited. With a flop such as this AK and AQ would and should cbet. So either option of calling or raising is available for you. Some people will just call because they are unsure if they could be up against a nut flush draw and prefer to pot control. Either play works I would lean more into raising x3 you have a lot of our vs Pocket pairs and AK AQ. You have position so you can play it very aggressively

The hand example you've given is a pretty standard shove. Pot size raise would be $103, so $130 isn't that much of an overshove. You're flipping against a standard calling range. So the EV of a shove would be roughly %Vcall * $18ish + %Vfold * ($63-rake).

Calling is harder to evaluate mathematically, but with such a nice stack size for shoving on the flop, you'd need a particularly strong read to argue that calling is better. (A read of he's got aces and he's never folding any runnouts, then yeah, it's a call.)

I'm with suited fours. Shove.

...

Unless he's a maniac, in which case: close your eyes and call three streets.

They will but that doesn't mean they necessarily should.

Anyways, this is a super easy raise spot. You want to raise enough to put maximum pressure on other players to fold better hands. Raising 3x would be pretty terrible here. I'm raising to over $100. The only reason I'm not shoving is because shoves tend to look more like flush draws and will probably be called lighter.

We are in a coinflip vs AA so even if villain calls with AA which is pretty much the top of their range here that's ok.

Let's not.

Do you ever play tournaments?

Know how the blinds kind of sneak up on you late in the tournament? One minute you're sitting on a big stack. Next thing you know, the blinds are so big, relative to your stack, you realize you can't do much of anything other than shove. And so you have to put aside all the fancy stuff and wait for a hand worth shoving with.

Same thing can happen in cash games. Good news is, because of the blind structure, you can afford to wait for the right hand; bad news is, you can still find yourself painted into the same corner. It is really hard to see it coming in cash games; there's a whole book on the subject* and it's pretty much required reading.

You won't frequently find yourself facing a fold-or-shove decision pre-flop in live cash games, although dang, $60 buyin at 1/2? Yeah you'll find yourself shoving pre a lot.

With a $140 stack, you're deep enough to make a small raise pre, or to call one, and still be able to get away from your hand, and keep your head above water if you don't make a habit of it. In other words, you're playing a range that flops well, so you don't have to dump very often.

However, $140 still isn't enough money to play a hand all the way to the end. Let's say you raise $12 pre and get two callers. To play to the end, you need to be able to bet $24 OTF, $42 ott, and $168 otr. Even if you could content yourself with a half-psb on the river, you would need to start with $162.

The essential feature of short-stack play is, you're playing a game of four-card poker. Which is fine. That's basically what "TAG" is. Raise pre, cbet flop, skip turn, value bet river. You have (barely) enough bullets to play that game. You just need to limit yourself to good TAG hands.

Note you're going to be bluffing sometimes. Bluffing the flop is a key part of TAG strategy. Thing is, bluffing is also difficult with a short stack, as the present example illustrates. When you're playing deep-stacked, a bluff on the flop or turn carries two threats.
1) The threat of additional betting on future streets
2) The threat that your hand will improve to the nuts, even if villain is ahead when he calls your bluff.

You might be thinking, I have plenty of money to bluff the flop. The pot grows geometrically; and since I size my bets as a percentage of the flop, bluffing the flop is cheap. Well, not exactly. Problem is, you don't always have enough bullets to credibly threaten strong betting on future streets. So basically, you're back where you started: you're either going to be playing for stacks or you aren't, and your bluffing strategy is to force villain into that decision early in the hand.

Let's stop and think a minute about what kind of hands play well in four-card poker. Basically, you are looking for hands that flop well. So:
1. Premium pocket pairs. They pretty much always flop well, by definition.
2. AK,AQ. About one chance in three you will flop a really strong pair, and ~45% chance you will hook up by the end. Good for bluffing (due to card removal effects), good backup plan, and sometimes win unimproved, especially against fish who are (ahem) playing small suited connectors in this kind of game.
3. Small and medium pocket pairs. These are speculative hands but the hand is either won or lost on the flop, so they are fine in four-card poker. Gotta have odds, but in these limpy-cally games, you'll have odds more often than you think.**

I would submit that suited connectors, in general, aren't good hands for four-card poker.

Now, by "suited connectors," I'm thinking about that range of hands between 54 and JT, which can make four straights and have at least the potential to make the nut straight. I call these "typical sc's." AKs and KQs are fine hands to play in four-card poker, but that's a different kettle of fish.

Typical sc's don't flop well. Here are some odds:
1. Pair: ~1/3, but you're seldom delighted with the results.
2. Draw: ~12%
3. Combo draw: ~3%***
4. Monster: ~1%

You can bluff-raise pre with sc's, and you can cbet with them too. They are as good as any cards in this role. But not much better; your backup plan stinks. About the only way to play these hands is the exact way you played this hand: hope for a good flop and then play for stacks. Which, given the way the hand played out, is the correct play I think. I just have to question how you got here, and I guess you are too.

Here's the deal. Typical sc's don't flop very well, but they sure do turn well. And if you're looking to turn well, you really don't need much to continue OTF. A three straight is good, a three-flush is really good. A pair and a 3-flush is great. If you want to play this game, though, you need plenty of bullets. You won't like most flops, and you won't like most turns either, so you need to be rich enough to invest in a lot of hands that go nowhere, for the occasional hand that stacks somebody. Your turn bets are going to be a mixture of big value bets and big semi-bluffs; in the latter instance, you need enough bullets left to get value otr when you hit.

Great times! But here's your problem: that ain't four-card poker. That's five card poker.

Brother, I don't think you have enough bullets to play suited connectors.

Bottom line. In short-stacked tournament play, you're facing fold-or-shove decisions pre-flop. In short-stacked cash games, you are facing the same decision on the flop. Keep that in mind.

Now that I've said that, how much do you really like 98s against somebody opening with 10% of his stack from UTG?


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*http://www.twoplustwo.com/books/poke...-limit-holdem/
**http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...5&postcount=11
***http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/39...eory-math-301/

I didn't read all of Abq Dave's post. Life's too short for that, but if I skimmed it correctly he's saying "fold pre-flop".

And he's absolutely right. The SPR should tell you that. Calling here sends you to the flop with an SPR around 3. Why would you want to play 9 high in that situation?

This is part of the adjustment to short-stacking. You have to really tighten up pre-flop. OP, you say you "play fairly well" short-stacked and that you're a winning player. I find that exceedingly hard to believe if you're making pre-flop calls with hands like this. It's a massive leak.

Yeah, my bad, should've noted this is a fold pre. If utg opens redic wide it could be a shove pre, but that would be quite rare.

I think preflop is defensible. We're getting implied odds of 14:1 from an UTG opener (i.e. hopefully he has a big pair he can't ever fold), plus we've already got 2 calls to give us 16:1, plus hopefully a blind or two comes along for 17:1, plus we could perhaps win some other money of a flop call or two bringing us easily to 20+, plus we're sitting in by far the best seat (on the Button, plus the EP raiser has a couple of callers sandwiched between him and us) making playing / getting paid off much easier. I think calling is fine.

On the flop I would shove. We have FE against overpairs and are about 50/50 against them anyways with huge dead money in the pot. I wouldn't always play TP + flush draw like this depending on stacks, how likely my TP is actually good at the moment, etc., but here I think a shove is best.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Preflop is fine if you know how to play postflop. If OP considers this a tough spot he should probably fold pre though.

You've got a lot of wishful thinking in there just to get yourself to 20 to 1.

The odds of you flopping two pair or better are at least that, or higher. Maybe someone can chime in with the exact math here, but flopping 2 pair is 2%, flopping a flush is like .8%, flopping trips is some other miniscule percent, etc. Altogether we can't be more than 3 or 4% to flop a strong made hand. So you're getting 20-1 odds, using the most generous estimates possible, but you're still drawing to hand that's 25-1. That's -EV man.

I still contend that this is the single biggest leak in hold em. I see it all the time. People will limp-call with any 40% of a straight flush thinking "I got pot odds". I'll see a guy with $200 limp in, get a raise to $12 behind, see 6 callers, and say "Hmmm 10 to win 85...I'll play any two!" The problem there, obviously is you have $190 behind when the pot is $90. Unless you crush the flop (3% chance), you'll be putting money in with a draw, in other words, with the worst of it.

General rule, if you have less than 100BB's, you're after top pair and sets. Fold draws to anything else.

I'm pretty sure most consider me the forum nit, but I think you've even outnitted even me on this one.

ETA: Also, getting myself to 20:1 is hardly wishful thinking. We're already at 16. To get to 17 all we need is the BB to put in $7 closing the action in a 5way pot (you've already stated yourself that most will play ATC here for "pot odds!" and I agree with you). Pot will realistically be $50, 5way, which means we just need 1 of the remaining 3 guys to call a $30 bet just once to get to 20. It's hardly a stretch; it's closer to minimum expectation, imo.

GpassingthemantleG

Actually with a (relatively) short stack you can put a ton of pressure on other players with drawing hands and it can be highly profitable due to dead money in the middle. It isn't as smart to apply that type of pressure on stacks when you have a big stack because you are risking a lot more and are giving villains better implied odds to call you.

I'm not following your math.

Assuming the BB puts in $8 (which he didn't actually), pot is $50, $10 of which is ours. So we're getting 4 to 1.

And if one of the other four (not 3) guys calls a $30 bet, then we make another $30, totaling $70, or 7 to 1. Where is the other 13?

Also, your assumptions about villains calling bets, only count in our "X to 1" calculation if we're always betting with the best hand. If you flop a draw, and bet $30, all you're really doing is betting $40 to win $70, and only $100 left to play if you do hit. Does that sound like the way to make money with 9 high?

As played, we flopped the whole world and we still don't like our hand very much. That should be a sign that this hand sucks for this situation.

If you don't like your hand in this spot then you are really terrible at poker. This is a great spot to be in. Anyways, GG specifically stated he was talking about implied odds and you are now talking about direct odds.

The other 13:1 is against the original raiser (the implied odds we have on his $140 starting stack).

ETA: NLAP beat me to both points.

GandI'minlovewithmyhandontheflopG

Ok, so 20-1, then....and that's REALLY being generous.

How often are you going to flop a hand that rates as a heavy favorite on the flop? I'll bet it's way less than 1 in 20.

Also, what if the UTG player, or one of the other guys doesn't pay off? How busy do you think AK is gonna get when the flop comes T88? Are two red jacks going broke on an all-spade flop? Your 20-1 math only works if you get a full stack every single time you hit, PLUS some.

One more thing, you're implied odds calculations only take into account the $10. You're not taking into account all the money we may put in while drawing. Let's say we flop a FD and the UTG player bets $30, are we calling? If we're calling, then we're putting more money in with the worst of it. So you have to average that out and add it to the $10.

If we're shoving in that instance, then UTG only has to call another $100 into a pot of over $200, and we will be all in with the worst of it. That costs money.

I think if you truly evaluate your entire plan for the hand, you'll find that your average investment is far more than $10, and that needs to be considered in your implied odds calculations.

Poker isn't just bout flopping monsters. If villain has AK then we don't need to flop a monster to win the pot. In fact, we don't necessarily need to flop anything at all to win it.

This is where your plan falls flat on its face. See bolded.

You're talking about leveraging fold equity. Against 4 other players with an SPR near 2 or 3, I'd say that's a bit of a long shot, and probably a case of fancy-play syndrome.

How 'bout we stick to discussing the hand ITT. If villain has AA and will never fold we are in a coin flip and are not really getting the worse of anything. In fact, it is more optimal to get it in with him on this flop than to fold even though he is technically a slight favorite.

However, fact of the matter is that villain's range is far wider than that and we will get folds from hands that have equity against us including overpairs a portion of the time. Also, if we play in a small player pool raising in spots like this make it difficult for players to fold to us when we flop sets and they are drawing to 2 outs.

No, it really isn't especially if villains are cbetting exploitably wide. (which would make it much easier to steal a pot whether they cbet or not). Fact is we are vs 3 villains, if villain cbets and other villains fold then we are heads up. Also, everyone has position on villain so if villain checks it's far less likely that anyone is slowplaying because they can't check to the raiser.

Alls I'm saying is that we have about 20:1+ implied odds, on the button, almost closing the action, in what will probably be a 5/6 way pot, with the raiser in EP and people in between. This isn't good enough to play a suited connector in (I'm assuming) a moron infested game?

Gkingofthenits,andevenI'mcallingfairlyeasilyherepr eflopG

Haha we got a little off topic, but I think to be a profitable player in the long run you need to find reasons to play hands instead of reasons to not otherwise your image will be so tight that your premium hands won't get paid off. Also, you don't want to get too predictable with the hands you play either

Playing pp is easy. Your plan is to flop a monster and bomb it if you do.

Playing sc is tricker. What's your continuation range? Same as your pp? If so, you need more like 50:1 odds. Anything else requires at least some fold equity, and being at a table full of fish doesn't help you much in that regard.

Playing sc's well demands that you consider options at every point, among them, for example, the option to give up on the flop. That takes money. It's a common, and pretty serious error to be splashing around with speculative hands if you're on say a $100 stack.

Hero does have a little more than that. But is it enough?