Short stacked cash game play is very similar to late stage tourney play. You are focused on PF action and shoving flops you hit.

If you have 50bb's then you are looking at raising to like $20 pre in 1/2 (which will def get callers so maybe even more) ten trying to get it in when you hit.

Also you need to be folding anything that isn't top 10% starting hands. Raise or fold, no calling or limping.

How exactly do you plan to 3bet the turn with a 50 BB stack?

As for never limping in... Definitely not from EP, but if the table conditions are right, I could get behind limping small to medium PP's from LP, possibly some other hands like medium-large SC's that you could pay $2 to see a flop with.

Grunch,
Playing short increases variance because you don't have enough money behind to make a great fold when you know you're beat. But short stacking is a great way to begin learning how to play poker.
The problem with 50bb is that if you raise PF and fire a C bet you're pretty much committed. If I was you I'd just work hard and save up some monies while taking time off from poker. Use these weeks or months to study the game. Then come back strong with 10-20 100BB buy ins to mess around with. But you won't do that cause its too much work. So just take your 50 BBs to late night games that are really aggressive PF. Just limp raise AI anything better than 99+. Feel free to open shove any of these hands too. You're be able to see some flops to set mine if you play daytime against guys in battleship hats. Oh yeah, jam or L/R AK and AQ too. Good luck once you double up.

Build your bankroll off the tables, then buy-in for 100BB+

Just don't do it.

You can easily spend 5 years trying to turn a few bucks into a bankroll and never do it; if you do succeed the process of it will likely ruin your game forever.

Make no concessions. Its better to hitchhike a thousand miles and ship your money first hand booming than to shrinkwrap your own balls trying to nurse the illusion of risk free gamble.

Poker is a five letter word. R.A.I.S.E.

The irony is, people think that short stacking reduces variance when nothing can be further from the truth.

Short stacking INCREASES your variance and it also DECREASES the probability of you having a profitable session.

Here is a chart I developed a while ago regarding short stacking



as you can see, short stacking severely limits your "ability" to play.

It is counter intuitive but when you short stack, certain plays actually become not profitable. I did some modeling on set mining to show exactly what i'm talking about.

Here is a common situation (V1 raises to $14, V2 calls, Hero???) that occurs at 1/2nl just to SHOW how short stacking hurts your game. First lets take a look at being 100bb deep



now lets compare it to being 50bb deep



So what this means is that when you are short stack, you have to FOLD situations that could be very profitable simply because now as a short stack the situations is mathematically not profitable...


NOTE: The reason why 3-betting top ten hands is NO as a short stack is because raising ranges are typically JJ+, AK in LLSNL. Obviously, if you read that a particular aggro is raising wide then you can 3-bet a top ten hand against them.

NOTE 2: second graph says 3bb in the notes but should be 7bb

That's a great chart.

I don't know if you have data on it, but if you do, does 150BB ($300 buy-in at $1/$2) skew closer to 100BB or 250BB?

I would treat 150bb as 100bb

200bb+ you can treat as "deep stack"

but 150bb should conceptually be thought of as "normal" stacked imo. Obviously your implied odds get a little better, but not to the point imo where we can play substantially different.

In fact, that is what gets players in trouble all the time. They do a double up and just can't wait to start sploshing around

Amazing. That makes a lot of sense. I've noted that I've had to fold a lot of good opportunities given the implied odds because lack of flexibility given my stack size, I think saving up so I can max buy in and studying in the meanwhile makes most sense. Thanks

I don't consider 50bb short stacking

50bb is short stack in cash game, I would consider anything under 75 bb short stacking. If we have an edge on the table and we are a good player, the most profitable hands for us are ones we can make decisions on all the streets, the more decisions in a hand, the more skill comes into play, the more money you have, the more profitable it will be if your more skilled than your opponents

If someone raises just 4bb, you don't have the proper odds to even setmine since the minimum "standard" for set mining is 15:1 odds..

Then there is the matter of virtually ANY raise and call vs 2 villain pot commits you.

V1 makes it 4bb, V2 calls, you call with just 50bb

Flop(12bb) X Y Z
V1 bets 8bb, V2 calls, Hero????

If you call this bet, you are basically left with a PSB on turn and thus are pot committed if you have ANY semi-decent equity. But at the same time, with only 46bb behind you have virtually no fold equity if you shove turn so now you are almost forced to shove flop since this is the only spot you do have fold equity...

So basically, simply calling a standard 4bb raise vs 2 villains puts you in a position where you almost have to shove for stacks based on a standard c-bet...

And all of the above is because you are at 50bb and as such are short stacked.

If you think 50bb isn't short stacked and you play the same at 50bb as you do at 100bb then you have some serious leaks in your game. The two don't play the same, not even close. 50bb may be at the "bigger" end of short stacked, but it is short stacked nonetheless...

Could you enlighten us to why you don't consider 50bb short stacking?

Buy in for the max. If you get below that max., top off.

I'm thinking 20bb is short stacking. Apparently OPs card room does not allow this and 50bb is the min buyin.

I consider 60bb "deep" in the sense that the full range of preflop and postflop plays are available I would use the same strategies as with a 100bb stack. So I guess 50bb is then technically short by my standards (contradicting what I posted earlier) but not by much. Though I'd say OP should when buying in at 50bb probably just use deep stack strategy as it seems simpler to keep track of unless his stack drops below idk, say 40bb.

20BB isn't short-stacking. That's just stupid in a cash game.

Buy in short, play your hands HARD!!!!!!

Once you make money, dont wait around for everyone to get reads on you and what you might or might not do.

Buy in $60 turn it into $100 get up, Rebuy in at another table and now you have $20 invested and you can really start splashing it up with the LAGS

I just know the bigger my stack gets, the less desire I have to enter any pots,

I DONT RISK IT OR KICK MYSELF IN THE ASS WHEN I DO

You do realize most poker players HATE these types of people, right? You're essentially going south, except you're moving to a different table (presumably online) so you think it's okay.

That makes the game infinitely worse. If everyone took their starting stack off the table and just played with the "profit", that would kill the game since money keeps coming off the table.

If you're any kind of decent player, you shouldn't be taking money off the table during the game. You should be hoping your opponents put MORE money on the table. If you go up from $60 to $100, then double up, you get $100 more instead of $60 more.

Excellent chart and reply. I've read about the theory of short and deep stack play in depth before, but it is really cool to see the numbers translated in to a chart and laid out like that. Bottom line: Don't short stack!

Employing what I like to call the "squirrel" strategy will never help you become a long time winner. This is bad advice.

These threads always give me a chuckle.

One of the main characteristics of 1/2 games are the ridiculously wide calling ranges of ridiculously large opens. Of course short stacking will show a fairly healthy profit. Somebody has a cool thread about it.

Problems are that

1. People who do it suck (like OP)
2. Lack of other games.

OP, you cannot take the risk out of poker without limiting yourself to a tiny winrate. Although they are not the same lots of people really use the work variance to mean downswings. Tiny win rate means lots of downswings. If you shortstack well AK and AQ will be big winners for you. Get lots of money in the pot with an equity edge. Profit.

If this guy is trying to build a bankroll and get his live game right, he his foolish to buy in for $200 and keep topping off while players with light years more live playy and MORE MONEY (UNLIMITED) can just slowly bleed you

When books say hey if $25 wont fold him try $40 next time, then as much as you called short stacking squirelling, Its called survival with players with unlimited bankrolls (NOT EVEN BANKROLLS JUST UNLIMITED)

If someone is gonna make my game a one hand affair because he has $600 on the table, well that hand happens on my decision.

and If I busted out and rebuy back in for $60 I guess the table stays happy then HMMMM!!! Any player hates players they lose money to

I guess what I dotn get is, if I bust out I can leave the table with clean hands but if I leave the table after doubling up or more, im squirelling, NAH

I want to be a deepstack player, but until I reach that level, I aint playing to lose money

First, I'm not suggesting he tops off if he's learning. Just simply he's better buying in full than short stacked. The problem being short just isn't in how much you can lose, but your inability to win more when you do get a hand. If you think short stacking is a good strategy, you need to work a lot harder at improving your game. It's extremely rare for anyone to be able to build a bankroll employing a short stack strategy.

This is what Im trying to do. The next step for me is to buy for $100 before I would ever consider putting $200 of my money on the table. Aint gonna have some deepstack testing me to see what my betting comfort level is cause I raised a pot with $200 in front.

Honestly Im just now getting used to the fact that $60 is the admission and whatever happens happens and I can play my hands like I should but now you but $135 in front of me, I start not wanting to play a hand.

Its a bad leak but Im newer to live cash play. Im very hard on myself when I leave a table with profit if Im at the table for under an hour cause I feel I should be staying at the table to learn and the money is the cost of education but I live close enough to get this education everyday.

Hey I blew $60 the other day just to find spots to try to run bluffs. Im just not ready to put that much money on the table at once for self preservation.

The work to improve is there (I play live 4x a week), committing finical suicide is not.