Hi all,

Say our baseline 3! range is AK, QQ+. We have 16 combos of AK and 18 combos of pairs in our 3! range. Assuming we are playing a short stack and go all in on the flop every time in a 3! pot with an spr of 1:1-2, can V profitably defend against us? Knowing our strategy, could V exploit it?

Thanks,
DT

Yes but it's playing a nit. The exploit is to steal your blinds and otherwise don't give you action without a really good hand, generally KK+. Depending on your stack, bet sizing and how many people are involved sometimes other hands may be priced in to set mine.

I think a true nit OMC type would only 3! KK+ but who's counting.

What about for people who don't know we're super tight pre and call our 3!...? How should they adjust when we jam flop with our entire range? Say they have 99 or T8 on 8-4-2 and we jam.

Short stacks don't 3b light. The whole point of short stacking is to be a nit and double up. The counter, as Quad mentioned, is to not give action.

The only effective way to exploit a short stack nit is to fold against his raises.

So to frame a question around whether to be able to exploit a short stacking nit on the flop, the battle had already lost.

Then why do so many people call my 3!s lol.

Some combination of running above EV, soft competition and/or player pool hasn't adjusted.

Ditch the short stack strategy and learn how to play 100BB's deep.

That's my plan for this year, at 2/5 anyway. But I'm writing an eBook on short-staking so I'm getting feedback from other people to validate my hypotheses about various concepts.

Why write a book about being a short-stacking nit? It just reinforces what people already incorrectly think about short stack play.

The only hands that can defend as calls against a pot-sized 3-bet with a PSB back against a nit range of {QQ+, AK} which also plays optimally post are QQ+.

Can't speak about your example hand because you didn't post positions or any other relevant info. Do you just 3-bet {QQ+, AK} without any positional awareness?

The point of short-stacking isn't to "be a nit and double up." If you want to write a book write one that challenges misconceptions about short stack play.

Why is it a misconception that part of a good short stacking strat is to 3! a tight range and GII most of the time trying to double up? I mean, I don't know any good ss strat that involves playing a loose range.

QQ+/AK is a range that should fare pretty well regardless of the position of the initial raiser, no? Hence why positions were not included.

If you are playing a true ss, then your 3 bet should always put you in preflop.

Only 3-betting hands that want to GII is a poor strategy that is very easy to play against (by folding most of the time). Forget about loose/tight since that's extremely subjective. Against good players you should be 3-betting enough with hands that have to fold to a 4-bet jam or that can become post-flop bluffs to give them some incentive to continue. Against stations you don't need to bluff at all but {QQ+, AK} is probably way too narrow for value, but again positions are important. You wouldn't 3-bet the same range UTG+1 vs UTG as you would SB vs BU, right?

QQ+, AK do do well against any position as 3-bets because they're premiums. How do you play hands like ATs, AQo, 77, JTs etc?

I try not to play any unpaired hand besides AK and try to set mine for a decent price with mid pairs. That’s pretty much it. Maybe defend AQ in BB, sometimes 3! it against a non-nit LP open. I’m generally staying away from AJ/KQ/66-.

Also in the lolbad live low stakes world where people are calling 3! with utter junk and dominated hands frequently, having a linear 3! range makes perfect sense. I don't see the need to 3! bluff nearly as much if at all. You don't need to be balanced against most villains and the ones you are describing are people who adjust and exploit a tight 3! range which is maybe 2% of villains.

This theme of "but I'm playing lollive" keeps coming up as an excuse to play horribly

I’m not talking about being balanced. If people are calling with trash and dominated hands why would you only play QQ+, AK? The hands I listed before aren’t even strictly bluffs.

Because even against "junk" (and we may have different definitions here), not all hands dominate as well as others. Having a big pair-heavy 3! range ensures you are getting the money in really good (70%+) and not just decently (60%) where V won't even be making a mistake by calling your 3!. Why wait for decent spots when you can wait for really good ones?

I agree with you; am talking abt OP. QQ+ in a game full of morons is missing so much value. Can only barely be justified if you're in a marathon session and folding for an hour or two barely budges your VPIP

This is supposed to be some "exploitative" strategy when really it's missing out on loads of exploitable spots and is easily exploited at the same time

We all know the guy who sits there folding for over an hour with his <50bb stack only to get nailed by a deep stack with 7 high when he finally gets it in

Should only short stack if you're against better opponents. OP in the table you describe here you should not be short in the first place

Because I like money and you should too. Take every +EV spot you can get.

You are an OMC

Why stop there? Just play aces and get it in great

Ooh the good old ad hominem and reductio ad absurdum arguments. Very persuasive....

You never addressed my point which was that with a lot of the hands you recommend 3! you are not even forcing your opponent to make a mistake by calling pre (and they will call pre because it's live low stakes). As a short stack with limited resources, being in high equity situations is more important since there will not be a whole lot of money behind postflop to bluff with.

Dumbo, english only please.

I don’t think anyone is saying your strategy is bad. OMC has a negative connotation but the OMC types do way better than most I would imagine.

But I don’t see how you could ever crush the game this way. And you kind of need to, to have longevity as a pro in 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic/recession from what people tell me. So why spend all the effort to play it perfectly?

You’re not really reducing variance either.

But to answer the question V should not give you action pre as others have said. Because they do, your range is in good shape on most flops and would benefit from being deeper in most cases HU

He's pointing out a fallacy which is ironic because that takes critical thinking yet doesn't apply it to the game in question

Dumbo if you can get everyone to fold their 2bets then that is great for your bottom line long term. Also if you always get it in good also great long term.
However in a realistic game like this a) you shouldn't be short to begin with, and b) any competent player will be up 300-400bb by the time you get your 3bets in..missed value? You betcha. Poker isn't just buy in short, wait for qq+, profit.
You really need to learn a bit abt cash games as what you're trying seems like tourney stuff