Hi 2+2

I like to play low stakes tournaments online and live, which are typically faster blinds structures and I'm more well studied and comfortable in these rake-free pots playing as a shortstack (50bb and less).

I understand that most advice is "just play deep and cover the fish", and I agree that's the most profitable way to play cash. However, I am choosing to play shortstacked in cash for a couple reasons:
1) My casino's most popular games are 2/3 and 3/5, both of these games have the exact same rake and rakeback.
2) I think most people won't properly adjust to playing against a shortstack, where they are used to playing with effective stacks >100bb deep.
3) I am not yet properly rolled for 3/5 100bb deep, but I am rolled for the same game at the minimum buy (60bb)

I was listening to CrushLivePoker's podcast and Bart was saying it's better to buy in short at higher stakes if the rake is the same instead of buying in 100bb (or deeper) at the lower stakes, and my casino fits this parameter. I have a lot of study and experience playing short/medium stacks from a lot of tournament prep/experience. What adjustments do I need to make coming from tournament to cash as far as strategy since the pots are now raked, and I am also hoping people can point me towards good resources to learn more. I did google how to play shortstack cash, but it is mixed in with tournament strategy and google also (of course) shows a lot of results, so I don't know which resources are better than others.

Thanks in advance to anyone that can suggest learning resources or write up some strategy pointers themselves.

I don't know of any live poker specific material and also don't think much "modern" material exist since short stacking isn't really an option online anymore.

That said, since short stacking is an extremely static strategy, all the old stuff should still apply.

In a vacuum, short stacking is a highly profitable, unexploitable strategy. Live or online. The problem is that most live poker rooms have rules against ratholing and other players don't like short stackers for various reasons.

In a standard 2/3 game that has significantly larger open raises and more cold calls than a standard online game, you could just play the regular 20bb online strategy with a 30-40bb stack without many adjustments. In the easiest form of the strategy, the vast majority of hands you play will be an all-in or fold decisions after an open raiser and potentially cold callers. Some hands you will open raise or isolate against limpers and might have to play at least a flop. The very good shortstackers also had a limp/x range but that's difficult to balance and probably not necessary in the games you play.

FWIW, if you buy in short in your games and keep playing once you've doubled up, the other players in the room might not mind. If you frequently leave the table after doubling up, you're going to be very unpopular though.

Thanks for this response. Do you have any suggested readings that expand on what you're saying? Specifically some of the strategies you mentioned having a limp/x range. I think my push/fold strategy would be different given there's a rake as well, wouldn't I want to open/push a little tighter?

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...20/?highlight=

Read it. Do what fluxboy says. Easy game.

I read that entire thread, not sure if trolling but I'll give it a try haha

A couple of definitional issues. The first is that "short stacking" is traditionally defined as playing with 30BB or less. A lot of the players at your table are going to be around 60BB already. So much of what you read isn't really going to be geared towards what you are actually trying to do. The next element is that short stacking strategy is contingent of being able to get up from the table once you double up and find a new game and buy in short. One poster years ago claimed to be able to do this, but they were doing it on the LV strip where a new game was a few minutes walk away. Outside of that, most rooms will make you wait before being able to come back in.
TIf you plan to stay at the table after you win a hand or two, then you'll be playing big cards and looking to make TPTK. That means not calling with IO hands like small pairs and any sort of connector. It can be pretty boring, but profitable.

First of all, as venice10 said, playing a 60BB stack is a totally different strategy. Unless you sit in a game with at least one mandatory/frequent straddle.

For push/fold charts you can also look up tournament charts. The important thing is to adjust ranges based on the bet sizing in your specific game and player types.

Back in the day online the mass multitabling short stack game was 100% static. Almost everyone 3x pre and you had memorized your chart what to push from where. Calling ranges against that were pretty static too. In a one table live setting you obviously have people who call why too wide (it's only 30BB!) and others you call way too narrow (why so much?).

I've played a decent amount with BlackRain79 back in the day, I think he still has his materials online on his website.

l/x ranges are extremely difficult to balance. The shorter the stack the smaller your potential post flop mistakes though. At a 9-handed table you can limp small pairs and a couple suited connectors from EP and add as many strong hands and medium hands that play well as limp/shove (like A5s) as needed. In a game where limpers get rarely attacked, that second part of the range doesn't have to be big. If limpers get attacked frequently, we need more stuff that can limp/shove or we just open fold pre.

For rake considerations you have to build your own models based on your specific rake structure. Generally speaking if you can beat the 2/3 game I don't think short stacking a bigger game is worth it unless stakes are at least 5/10, better 10/25+.

A method I use when my stack grows to an amount that I'm a little uncomfortable with at the deepstacked (and possibly difficult) table I'm at is to table change to a table that has a lot more effective shortstacks / lesser players with deepstacks (especially players that I'm concerned about).

And of course before our table change comes in we can also seat change appropriately (i.e. at a table with mixed deepstacks and shorter stacks, I always have as many difficult deepstacks to my right and shorterstacks / easier deepstacks to my left).

GcluelesseffectiveshortstackingnoobG

Agreed, table selection is key. Anytime I see a table with 3 or more deepstacks coupled with frequent 3/4 bets I try to switch.

I would maybe more define shortstack as a size where the commitment point will often arise preflop or on the flop. So I consider myself a shortstack sitting on my constantly topped-up-to 66bb stack due to my game often featuring 5x++ preflop raise sizing and multiple callers, which means that 66bb stacks are facing commitment decisions almost immediately. If your game features 3x raises with HU pots, then yeah, 66bb won't be considered short.

GcluelessshortstackingnoobG

Short stacking more modernly defined is probably 50bb or under at this point if were talking cash games. Fluxboy's stuff is great material and I used him and GG as inspiration to get the foundation of my game in order. A few things:

1) playing this way is massively boring and you become your own worst enemy. It usually takes a certain type of temperament to play poker, to play short on a constant basis even more so.

2) I cant imagine what the reaction would be if I ran away after doubling up every time but my (former) poker room warned every new player about me and I got slow rolled multiple times and colluded against. In general I took short stacking as a way to minimize losses and learn the more regular way to play when I was up. Ive sat with 700bb before because I always play for a set amount of time and don't hit and run. Of course the better you are at playing short will probably correlate with how the other players feel about you. Bad short stackers who always lose were always welcomed obviously.

3) Its not recommended to play this way in a small player pool. You will also not be that successful if you don't know how to bluff and there are still enough things to think about that aren't commonly talked about and if you don't readjust you'll be making $1 an hour. You will also never get invited to home games so I would tell newer starting out players that playing short is a safe way to learn but to move away from it when you've gotten enough experience.

Thanks everyone for the responses. I'm still new to live poker, and didn't consider the social ramifications of shortstacking. I'll have to consider it more thoroughly.


I read through that thread and gave it some serious thought about doing it. One thing I missed or wasn't included was his open range. Are we talking like 10% of hands? He said that he didn't care about position at all, and that his range was the same no matter the position.

Flux posted that in the days where there was 20+ tables in every poker room and if you noticed when someone was playing tight it prob meant you could beat 25/50. There is a lot of things he said that I apply still but if you think you can regularly play at 1/2 and just wait for aces and get paid off you’ll be making next to nothing. Adjustments are always game dependent and if you aren’t willing to put work in I’d just learn 100bb poker from this board and use that time more efficiently.

Here's my strategy. Get a job with overnight shifts. On your days off go the room at about 3am. Shove all in with premiums get 4 callers.

Definitely not trolling. Before that thread I was winning about 3bb/hr over about 1k hours. After watching the back and forth unfold in that thread I decided Flux sounded like he knew his stuff, so I gave it a shot. I posted a hh a little while later where I mentioned I was giving his method (more or less) a try. He was kind enough to comment on it so I sent him a pm. We had two short conversations. I credit that ss thread, my one hand history, and the two pms he sent me with completely transforming my game. Since then I clip almost 8bb/hr over 3k hours (including the 1k at 3bb/hr) and I've made over 50k playing small buy in tournaments ($400 or smaller).

So yeah, not trolling.

That's cool to hear, appreciate you sharing! What was your open range? And in situations where you open with a hand and miss the flop BUT you're heads up, do you c-bet on good boards for your range or check and give up? And when you c-bet, are you still potting it? I didn't find the outcome in that thread, hoping you can clarify. Thanks in advance!

I remember fluxboy from way way back, even long before that thread.

He’s clearly doing well for whatever is it that he’s hoping to accomplish.

Another truth bomb. LLSNL is all about that. Most people aren’t here to find new ways to play, just validation of what they’re doing is right.

I suck in late stage tourney, as soon as it gets down to 20bb, I become a fish because I don’t know where the pressure points are. Shortstacking is basically that and flux will probably crush tourneys with the same strat.

This is the stuff Im talking about above. If you need to ask these questions you may as well learn 100bb poker where there are hundreds of people who can give you the right answer compared to a couple who would be willing to help someone become competent at shortstacking. The correct answer also is constantly changing when you are short and get a hold of more chips. You need to make more adjustments from 40bb to 100bb than 100bb to 200bb. You are also like 5x more likely to burn out and quit playing short.

The vast majority of the people on the planet under the age of 30 are like this now. Just believe what the highest upvoted comment is and don't you dare try and think for yourself.

Flux's strategy in that thread is a pretty solid baseline, but it seemed to me to be adjusted to dynamics at 1/2. For instance, he advocates opening a fixed range from all positions of 10%. This is not such a bad strategy in 1/2, because, even if you are in LP, it is almost always the case that a couple players will have limped in early position, and therefore, you probably don't want to raise a standard button open range -- like, I think raising KJo over limps is probably fine if you know what you're doing, but maybe it's not winning bunches, so it's fine to just overlimp that hand in LP.

Now, it is also fair to say that if you're playing in a more aggressive 2/5 game, players might not often limp when entering pots, and therefore you'll more often be faced with a dilemma of facing an open and having to decide whether to flat/fold/jam. That is a far more complicated problem than determining an open range, because your shoving range/frequency is going to be a function of the other player's opening range/frequency and you will need to make an estimate on that given the situation and then decide what your shoving range should be given your estimate.

If MP opens, are you flatting AJs/KQs on the BTN or shoving? It's not so clear. But, I guess you're jamming AQo/s+ and JJ+. What about TT? These aren't always easy decisions, and I don't think Flux provided detailed advice on how to respond to opens in the thread -- at least I didn't see anything in the first few pages... maybe someone can correct me if I missed it.

I don't remember him because I wasn't on 2+2 back then. But in that thread he brags about going south in games to keep under his 40bb comfort zone. That sort of behavior is not something I would aspire to...

I am very comfortable being under 30bb, it's probably the most frequent stack size I'm playing by an extremely wide margin, and I'd say I'm doing well online. I'm trying to transition to live poker more because people say it's easier, but I admittedly suck at cash and don't have the biggest bankroll. I haven't studied deep solver lines for deepstack poker, but I think my issue lies in a lack of experience playing live with regards to tells and exploitative live play against recs. Trying not to lose money and build a bankroll for live poker, so for the purposes of good bankroll management and not playing too big of a % of my roll, sticking to the low stakes 100bb BI is the way to go. Since my casino rakes 2/3 and 3/5 exactly the same, it makes mathematical sense to just play 3/5 shortstacked. I appreciate the advice though. I don't want to make a mistake and deviate from a known strategy that works without having tried it first, so that's why I was asking for more specifics. For example, I would not have come up with "RFI for 10% of stack, when you hit the flop, pot it and jam turn" - so I thought it would have been better to ask people for more details instead of assuming I know what's best at shortstack since my experience is in online SnGs and tournament, not live cash in the presence of raked pots and a different playerbase.

Thanks for clarifying this. I'll have to just come up with my own strategy then!

I would like to post an update after trying this a few times, seems cash money so far and i will continue using fluxboy's strategy

FWIW I open about 6.5%-7.5% from up front, so like 77/88+, AJs+, AQo+, KQs. I turbo-muck AJo and KQo from UTG/UTG+1. I generally start including AJo, KQo, lower pps and suited broadways from lojack, and I get a fair bit wider OTB; but being first in (not raising over limps) from late position is relatively rare.

Ranges are fluid my man. I'm constantly assessing what the table will let me get away with.

Glad it's working out so far. Keep us posted!

It’s not fluid for a short stacker. It’s literally as static as it gets.