Hands to open raise (else fold):

EP: JJ+, AK
MP: 99+, AQ
CO&BTN&SB: 77+, AJ+, KQ

Rules:

1) Open raise 4 bbs +1 bb for each limper preflop.

2) If it's raised before you, reraise AI with JJ+ and AK, else fold.

3) On the flop, shove AI with TP or better, else check/fold.

4) In the blinds, reraise AI to a LP raise with 88+, AJ.


P.S. Please talk strategy and refrain from short stack hate post.

short stack = 20bb stack
open raise size = 4 bb

I'll do you a favor and tell you that raising for 20% of your stack PF is a terrible idea as is short stacking in general.

I think most shortstackers prefer the minraise but tbh shortstacking is harder than it looks and WAY, WAY, WAY less profitable than full stacked poker.

There is already an official shortstack troll thread.

sufficient imo.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...l#post15978283

You are too tight.

Rules:

1) That's a very big opening raise. Most of the 'good' shortstackers do something like 2.5BB

2) Generally ok but there are quite a few players you need to fold JJ and AK to and plenty of situations where 99 and AQ is a push. Once in a while a situation will come up where you can call... something like a minraise with 3 callers and you have JTs.

3) Awful. Most of the time pushing will be too big of a bet and you should be betting a ton of flops where you don't have a pair.

4) Gigantically too tight. Plus its ok to just call some raises with marginal stuff (78s, Q9o, etc), especially in the big blind, or villians are going to learn that they can steal from you with any two cards.

FU shortstackers.

i still cant understand why stars hasnt introduced 100bb min buy in tables

Thank you very much for your reply. It's very helpful, since I'm new to shortstacking. I know I have a lot to learn.


Some questions, please:

1) Do the better shortstackers make it a straight 2.5 bb open raise or a 2.5 bb + 1 bb for each limper open raise?

3) Are you saying I shouldn't shove on the flop? If I open raise 2.5 bbs, that leaves 17.5 bbs in my stack with (for example) a 5 - 6.5 bb pot. If I've decided I'm going to get AI, how much should I bet on which streets?

4) If my resteal range is too tight, what would you suggest? And would you reraise a button steal AI or a smaller amount?

One new question: At what point should I top up if I fall below 20 bbs? Should I auto top up every hand or just when I fall below X big blinds (and if so, what X would you suggest)?

It seems that you're just looking for a chart in order to make money and think SS'ing is the answer.

SS'ing postflop is a lot like limit hold'em, and there is the pushing over raises, which is just 'simple' math.


But either way, you need to put in the hands and the work of the table, you're not going to learn how to SS by someone giving a few comments in this thread.

Seems you were actually serious, if so I apologise.
I honestly thought this was a troll bait post. New poster with a name like sss20bb... can't be looking to win popularity contests here.

this.

Also. This strategy is HORRIFICALLY tight. You are going to have like a VPIP of 5?

Learn to adjust and you can profit against their style.

Playing a solid short stack strategy actually takes time to figure out. Taking 2 minutes to come up with a basic preflop chart is not going to work. I never understood why people want to short stack. All the time and energy you use to short stack could be used to improving ones game and make a ton more money.

4bbs is way to much.Your going to be investing around 20-25% of your stack all the time???2.5bb is the way to go.

I would rather SS 6 max as theres wider opening ranges there and isnt as tight,as you could expand your tight range here,and exploit people for opening SC low PP and crappy broadways

c/f flop when not hitting is pretty bad as your only going to hit 1-3 times,so your losing money. Opponent is only going to hit 1/3 times also.So why dont we take down the pot w a c-bet the other 1/3 times and maybe make villian fold also when he hits his a low pair type hand and such and we only have air.

Dont just have one set range vs. every opponent.Your range is good vs. NITS what if theres a 38/22 guy opening up from MP we can profitable shove way more hands here.Base your equity off of different opponents and there ranges not just one range for every opponent.

If your just beggining to SS then your strategy is good.But once you learn different peoples opening ranges and how to steal the blinds and such you could turn into a profitable SSer,as this startegy here is prob losing from not taking advantages of our edges enough.

Learn how to use your short stack to your advantage by bluffing good full stacks pre-flop by taking away their implied odds to set-mine, play SC's etc. If you're not going to be bluffing, don't shortstack imo.

You can't make an 'open' raise if somebody else has limped. You should definately be raising more when there are limpers but I'm not sure how much much more.

Usually I like something along the lines of a 60% pot bet on the flop with a turn shove. Board texture defiantely comes into play here. When you have AA you should bet a lot more on 9TJ then on a K72 flop.

You have to play differently against different people when it comes to BvB play. It's hard to have a simple 'by the chart' strategy. But I can start you off in the right direction to noting that hards with an ace in it and pocket pairs have good showdown value and I almost always reraise allin.

Some players top up every hand and others never do... others do once their stack bets below XBBs. It seems to me though that the better you are at poker in relation to your opponents the more money you want in your stack. Assuming that you can still play well considering the number of tables you are playing. For example maybe you can play 24 tables with 20BBs no problem and your opponents all suck compaired to you but once a bunch of your stacks get into the 40-50BB range you have to think too much about decisions and you start to play poorly because you are rushed. That's no good. I guess that answers the 'when do I leave the table' question more than when to reload but the general concept of wanting to be deeper when your skill level is higher then your opponents is true just about nomatter what.

Btw, you seriously might want to put your efforts into learning something else. Short stacking NL was amazing about a year and a half ago but now it's comming close to the end of its life was being one of the 'sweet spots' in poker.

OK I'm a 6 max shorty though, so bear in mind I know nothing about full ring.

1) Do the better shortstackers make it a straight 2.5 bb open raise or a 2.5 bb + 1 bb for each limper open raise?

I tend make it 2.5BB and don't increase for limpers per se. I tend to increase if I have a high pair (below AA) OOP or the limper has a high cold call and fold to flop CB % though. If I am in LP and I have notes that the blinds are nits and don't defend min-raises then I may well min-raise steal with a wide range. If there are 2-3 limpers and I have AK OOP then I may open shove.

It's important to manipulate stack sizes so you can make easy decisions on the flop. Raising a limper for 3.5's with a marginal hand and with people still to act generally sucks as you end up in a lot of 8-11 BB pots. If you fire a 6-8BB CB into that you are having great difficulty in getting away if you have any piece of the flop, and if you haven't you and they call you you have just lost half your stack.

3) Are you saying I shouldn't shove on the flop? If I open raise 2.5 bbs, that leaves 17.5 bbs in my stack with (for example) a 5 - 6.5 bb pot. If I've decided I'm going to get AI, how much should I bet on which streets?

That depends on opponent and flop texture. I rarely shove the flop in a HU 6BB pot. Firing a 4BB CB is much more cost effective -you have two more streets to get it in if you want after all if you have hit - if he calls or raises you can re-evaluate. Also basic flop reading as against his ranges helps - get flopzilla and play around with it...


4) If my resteal range is too tight, what would you suggest? And would you reraise a button steal AI or a smaller amount?

I would suggest using pokerstove to work out +EV shoves for you shoving over raises from opponents with various steal/raise% ranges.

It will look something like this when done:

Push Table
Raise size 3
Effective Stacks 20

40% A7s/44/KQ/KJs
35% A7s/44/KQs
30% A9s/55
25% A9s/66
20% AJ/77
13% AQ/88
10% AK/TT
5% AA-QQ
<3.5% AA-KK

The number on each row is your opponent's raising % in that spot, the hands listed are the range of hands you can shove with. If he folds too much (fold to 3 bet over 67%) you can shove with a wider range but it's pretty marginal usually.

It is critical that you play against each individual opponent based on his stats (subject to gameflow adjustments) and not just try to use a one size fits all push chart that ignores opponents' ranges.

As for amounts, at less than 20BB's I would shove over. However if the player folds to 3 bets a lot and has a fairly wide range in this particular spot I might make a small raise (2.5x pot) - but I need to be sure if he reshoves that I don't 'have to call' (see table below) so usually this is more relevant if I am deeper. A few very suspicious player will suspect any min or small 3 bet from a shorty to be AA and will actually fold more often than to a shove but that play is very note specific.


Also you should use stove for another chart - when you should call other people's shoves over you.
If you have a 20BB stack and raise 2.5-3BB's then you need 44% equity or so against his range to call, so:
If his 3bet range vs you is 15% that would indicate that you call with AA-99, AK-AJ, ATs, 88, ATo, KQo, 77, A9s, A8s, KJs, 66, and 55.
If he is 10% you would call with AA-TT, AK-AQ, 99, AJs, and 88
If he is 5% you would call with AA-JJ, AKs, TT, and AKo
4% lose AKo, 3% lose AKs, 2% it would only be a call with AA and KK.

You all are quite helpful. Thank you so much for all your help and advice. Please keep it coming.

I thought shortstacking was mainly based on having one fixed preflop starting hand chart and "playbook" for all opponents, which allows one to play a large number of tables on "autopilot". I thought it was the volume from playing 16+ tables at once that enabled one to make a good hourly rate. It sounds like you all are advising me to do pretty much the same kind of decision making based on HUD stats that full stack players make. Isn't the number of tables one can play this way faily low? How many FR/6Max tables do you find you can shortstack successfully?

BTW, I know that in theory someone can make more bb/100 hands with a full stack than they can with a short stack. But I'm not one of those people today. And I am not likely to be one anytime soon.

Since I'm out of work and disabled, I need to figure out a way to earn a reasonable hourly rate in a reasonably short time. So for me, shortstacking is the way to go. So I'm focused on learning what I need to learn to shortstack successfully. That's why I appreciate all your help so much. Thank you one and all. Please keep it coming.

Could you elaborate on this, please? Why do you say this? I thought the advantage one has when shortstacking correctly was an inherent to NLHE, and thus was an enduring one (although of course the profit in bbs/100 hands will vary with one's opponents).

And do you think this applies to both FR and 6 max? At what limits do you think this applies to? Surely not all the limits...I hope.


Thank you very much!

What I am sure he means is it is harder to profit shortstacking than it was before, it is not as 'novel' a strategy any more.

In order to profit shortstacking now , you have to be better than the other shortstackers at the table because there are far more of them following similar charts to what you propose. Some charts are decent, some charts are horrendous, but generally these guys are all exploitable.

Exploiting these bad shortstackers takes the same sort of thinking and effort as playing full stacked and exploiting bad fish, except you do not have as much room to maneuver with shortstacks and the edges are smaller. That is why huge volume and playing at higher stakes is key, otherwise you are better of just full stacking. if you are after 'autopilot' easy money, you've missed the train i'm afraid. You will have to work at it.

I've 32 tabled 6max SSNL (playing two sites) and found that hectic but adjustable.

I could probably handle 40 max, but my pc chokes horribly if I play two sites at the same time with HEM running so I just stick with ~20. Got my eye on a beefy quad core gaming machine though... waiting for the prices to come down or saving for a dual quad.

It used to be where if you sat down that all most all your opponents would be playing 50bb+ and if somebody was short it was more of the 'I'm just screwing around and don't want to lose a ton of money' shortstacker instead of somebody playing a well throught out strategy. The full stacks would also often call the shorties (including all in) with a wide range of hands because they assumed the shortstacker was bad, didn't care if they lost only a small part of their big stack, believe that the shortstack could easily be bluffed later in the hand, or whatever other reason.

These days the shortstackers are everywhere. If you sit down in a random NL100 game on Stars on average literally over half the players will have under 50BBs. It's not uncommon at all to see tables where ALL the players are playing short. This is not good for the shortstacker. The reason the strategy is truely profitable is because the big stacks will correctly make players against each other which the shortstack can take advantage of. The most common example would be something along the likes big stack open raises, big stack #2 calls with 44, big stack #3 calls with 98s, then you push with AK and everybody folds and you win the pot or you get called and are probably in a coin flip with dead money in the pot. This situation can't happen where there arn't big stacks to go against each other. The other main advantage of playing short is that the big stacks can bet each other out of the pot and increase your equity. For example big stack raises with AK, big stack #3 calls with 88, and you then push with AQ and both opponents call. The flop comes 762 and the AK checks. 88 figures he is ahead and bets 2/3rds the pot and AK correctly folds. Now an ace hits the turn and you make the best hand and you go on the win the pot. However if 88 wasn't involved in the hand then you would have been outkicked and lost the hand. I don't think that Stars full ring games atleast can handle too many more shortstackers before the strategy becomes unprofitable.

Plus the fullstackers now instead of just taking the shortstackers for a joke have worked on their games to beat the shorties. They play much tigher when the shortstack raises. The work on figuring out what range they unexploitably reraise shove agaisnt the shortstacker.

I'm not saying that shortstacking isn't profitable anymore but it's no longer the gold mine that it was. Somebody who had a reasonable idea what they were doing could easily make $50+/hr (including VPPs) at Stars full ring NL100 not to long ago. Today that might still be possible but only for the very past shortstackers and the ones who put in a ton of hands to move up the milestone bonus ranks.

I'm sure that there are some limits where the strategy is still very viable and probably will remain so. NL10 perhaps? Maybe NL25. Just a guess but even if it works you have to decide if its worth your time playing for only $5-10/hr or whatever it is you can make.

6max is probably more likely to stay a viable option but has some significant drawbacks: more good players (but also more bad players), much harder to learn how to correctly play, and more variance.

Do SSers bother isolation raising at 20bb? Perhaps it's passive, but I generally preferred limping behind with my big hands, essentially hoping to back raise after a reg isolation raises and a limper calls for the dead money, or limp behind with my small multi-way hands like suited Aces and small PPs and either play a multi-way hand or rejam vs a raise.

The other main advantage of playing short is that the big stacks can bet each other out of the pot and increase your equity

Actually this is a fallacy - it happens less than once every 3000 hands on my DB and adds nothing to my win-rate at all.

I only play 6-9 tables short 6 max (though some are often turbos). This is on iPoker though - so no timebanks...I really do play proper poker in miniature not some sort of shove/fold game....that would drive me insane with boredom tbh..and I can't imagine it would be profitable at 6 max (even as a RB whore)

I ran all my big hands through my DB by position to look at limp/shove limp/call and raise as pre-flop options. Raising was significantly better than limping across the board.

Flopping TPTK in a 4 way limped pot is not cool.

My point was that it doesn't happen as much as it used to. You not seeing it often would actually make my idea stronger rather than making it a fallacy.

Plus I was talking about full ring. Of course the situation will occur much less in 6max because there are a fewer players and because the players tend to cold call less frequently.

Sorry I forget that the US players still play full ring - there just aren't enough FR games running on the Euro sites to make it viable.

Personally I think FR is a dying game -its apparently healthy numbers on Stars and FT sustained by mass (16-24) multi-tabling regs and SSers and declining in real popularity all the time..