Most short stackers have no intentions of trying to improve or learning how to play a larger stack. The whole point of Playing with a short stack is to minimize losses and make the game as simple as possible.

There should be concentration camps for shortstackers. Interesting thread though.

And yet most shortstackers are dreadful and big donators to the game (certainly in micros and SSNL). Check your DB filtering for effective stack size if your don't believe me.

By contrast semi-competent HUDbotters each playing 12 tables are dreadful for the quality of games. You have a much tougher time winning enough from them to outrun the rake.

I'd far rather sit at a table with 4 shorties and (another) bad player than with 1 bad player and 4 HUDbotters.

So if you took away all the shorties you complain about (almost always the worst players at the table and the easiest to play against) and put them in a 'concentration camp', I'd follow them without a second thought...

OP is 100% correct. Beginners should learn SSS then MSS then DSS. and as they progress they can learn why different hands are better at different stack sizes

This

You learn this short stacked too.

QFT
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We are not talking about most short stackers. We are talking about what is the best strategy for beginners.

I was driving to vegas with my uncle. I told him that poker was not gambling because you choose to place bets only when the odds are in your favor. It took me 3 hours to explain short stack strategy to him and the first time he ever palyed poker, he was a winner. now he is hooked. He woulda donked off 1000 to the slots that weekend, but instead won about 200. No way could I teach him how to play full stacked in 3 hours. I always play full stacked but do not recommend it for beginners. 50BB is a good progression for someone with 2 years experience. The OP explains why very well.

I dont recommend short stacking as a general strategy, but I think beginners should start that way and that anyone who hasn't done it should do it for a few thousand hands to help them dominate the shortstackers at their table, because if your opponent is short stacked, you are playing that game too - like it or not.

Put simply - if you dont have the skills to play deep, you shouldn't.

And yes it is possible to learn the skills to play deep AFTER you learn the skills to play short stacked. You often pick these up by watching the deep stacks play each other while you are not in a vast majority of the hands short stacked.

Wow guys this was one or probably the best thread i read on tpt since i am logged in here! I really really enjoyed reading this thread, because i was or still am a midstack player who has a very nice winrate overall. I also think that it shouldnt be a rule to eather buy in short or for 100BB!
I used to buy in in to the NL50 game for 60BB (30Bucks) and i really crushed these games very easy with this strategy. Nobody should say that the Midstack Strategy isnt a strategy at all, i am a truley beliver that the 50-60BB Stragety should be discuss a lot more often then it does. Because it is a great strategy and i can proof it with my winrate from over 100k hands!

Thanks for this thread tpt

Hello op and posters in the debate. I play 50nl , started the year with 11$, play 6 max on pacific always bought in full - played by the book low level and then adapted as i rose. Felt game is easily exploitable and beatable with full stack basic or tag or smart lag style.

When i got to 2k i took out $1500.
With 500 left I thought i'll just 2-4 table 20nl, then I realized a few things...

I hated short stackers and felt like they often "ratholed" me because I never gave them credit for a strong hand;
eg. raise TT from button, to $2.00, ss call from BB, $4 in pot, flop would be j28 rainbown and ss would a) push, or B) check and shove to a bet. This was very hard to play against. God i love suited connectors....

I read posts here and quickly realised most ppl hate the shorty... hmmm
So I decided to become what i hate.
I was playing 20 NL but then released i have 2 months on notes on the 50 nl guys and that i can play with ocnfidence at that level.
So I buy in with 20$ and 6 days later i'm up to $950. I'm not "rat holing", I'm playing tite preflop and aggro on tunr with 40 BB BI, I 3 bet ak ,qq or better, with the occasional bluff to a player who raises soft and will fold.
Flops play themselves.
Then when I double up I find the person i just doubled though gets tilty 'cause the shorty just doubled up and this makes them exploitable - lets no rule out the shorty tilt factor. A smart lag or tag hates the 3 betting shorty. They play me the same as when i've hit 80 bb just like when i had 40 bb - very light.
This is +ev in my book, if you can force opponents to tilt or change from there most comfortable and successful style of poker, you'e gained. now if i double up again i can really change gears and play my suited connectors and low pair for value vs tilty adversaries who think I wait all day for kk.

I also think that knowing how to play every style helps when in hands vs villains of thos specific style so everyon should try playing shorty, rock, maniac etc. so if and when i go back to 100bb i'l have a much better feel for the shorty thought process.
It's also great practice for players who play to many hands , as you are forced to play much tighter at the onset, great for ppl who get all excited whn they sit down over play aj and get stacked for 100 bb in the first 10 mins (guilty...)
Last but not least - it's considerably easier to get someone to shove 40bb for $20 VS 100BB FOR $20.

The biggest problem with shortstackers is that even if you adjust correctly to them your winrate will decrease, just because you can't play as many flops against the fish. If everyone was shortstacking winrates would go down and variance way up. Which is why I think discussion about 20BB shortstacking should be strongly discouraged on the forums.

I read the first couple paragraphs of OP and was cbf to read the rest of thread. The better player you are the deeper you want to play, it works both ways.

Yeah Ro I agree, 130-150bb stack are the nuts.

Oh and count, that is what we call a heater.

Informative thread.

I agree that 20bb short stacking can ruin a table. But I think anything over 40BB shouldn't change too much.

Ever play Pacific?
LOL - it's no heater.

Money goes in good and then some.

When ppl think AT sooted is the nuts it's real easy to double up that 40 bb to 80.

i'm actually going to stay at 50 nl and experiment this for a while - i'm going to pull $250 every time i hit $1000 and think i will be able to do this 2-3 times per month 4 tabling 20-30 hrs per week.

That's the plan.

This is a great thread. I personally think there are solid advantages to playing with a medium-stack for mediocre players (for what it is worth, I consider myself good-ish at 50nl and below). My wife, for example, would thrive under this strategy set and could probably use it to become a better player, since she is really confused by deep-stack situations (100bb+ situation involving TPTK and/or drawy hands) and because she also tends to misplay setmining situations versus short/medium stacks. This would really emphasize to her the value of stack size in various situations and help her really sort her play.

I think I could also use it once I start moving up to 100nl/200nl games (I don't expect this to happen for quite some time) to really sort out my play since I am tagNIT and would need to majorly adjust my current game to really take advantage of those games. I would need to ease my way in.

I think the notion of discouraging poker discussion should be strongly discouraged in the forums.

Okay, I have one other comment on this system, and it applies to HUDBotting. Basically, you have many guys here that massively multi-table (12-24 tables) 25nl to 200nl in order to generate a ton of rakeback for themselves. These guys rely STRONGLY on the "reads" they gain using their HUD. My comment is that the 40bb-60bb starting stack seems to mitigate the need for a HUD "read" in the first place.

My thoughts are that the aim for a 50BB stack is TPTK or better, and that we are largely eschewing situations where implied odds are a strong consideration. In other words, we are raising largely for value based upon hand-strength. We would know our raising situations pretty well, and our "3-bet-pre, get it in on flop" situations really well. It might be harder to gain a bead on some situations w/o a HUD, but many situations would be much more cut-dry and thus more robotic.

Now I am not advocating this strategy any more than OP. However, it seems like an equitable solution for those that massively multi-table on a site where HUDs are not allowed wherein reads must be made by observation and anything more than 4 tables starts making reads hard to come by.

I have never tried this obviously (and I plan on sticking to sites where I can HUDbot lol). I thought about it basically when I was thinking about which site to bonus-whore and I thought of CAKE. I decided I didn't want to play there because I have no HUD. That said, I also thought that there would be almost no difference playing a SSS there and where HUDs are allowed. Narturally, I thought that mid-stacks might be okay as well. Thoughts from other HUDbotters? Non-HUDbotters?

I disagree, for the reasons I gave in my last post. Anyway it's not something I've come up with, it's been the consensus for some time. Search for the thread "A shortstacking experiment" or something like that.

I don't think he was taking issue with discouraging short-stacking per se, but more that you were discouraging discussion on poker strategy on a poker forum. Obviously we dislike short-stackers!

And actually, while I feel there is some validity to your arguments in a theoretical sense, I have found that way more than half of the short-stackers out there implement their strategy pretty poorly and are just trying to prevent themselves from bleeding 100BB buy-ins at the same rate they bleed 20BB ones. I don't mind having crappy short-stackers there, just good ones.

And I agree with him in general. I guess he had a point since noone was actually discussing how to play 20BB deep effectively.

Well, there are professional (or maybe regular) short stackers, people who usually play lower but take shots shortstacking when they're tilted and then there are the fish who just buy in for random amounts. For the stakes I'm playing (50NL and 100NL) the first group is decent enough to cause problems, even though they could be better.

Even against fish I enjoy fullstacked play more than 40-60BBs but that's my problem and I obviously would never berate a fish for not buying in full.

I have just had a month of 60bb strategy and it has made me come to the following realizations:

- half stack strategy is good if you only think on level one, that is, "what is my hand"

-Above that, the deeper you are playing, and the more you are able to think on higher levels the better you are able to apply pressure to your opponents

-If your game depends on leverage and the threat of bigger bets... (essentially a strategy which consists of good hand reading of your opponents and making them make tough decisions) ..then a shortstacking strategy like this severely inhibits your power at the table

Im playing 12 tables usually and I find buying in for 60BB optimal.

For this many tables, I like a 60BB stack size to start. Keep topping it up to 60BB.

100BB across 12 tables adds up quickly, and when you only have a few seconds for each decision, it can be really tough.

When I first get to a table, I like to be a bit aggro and push some draws, encourage action, and 60BB is perfect for this. If I donk off 1-2 buy ins, no big deal.

1. Also note: There are usually only 1-3 people at the table who have more chips than me.

2. If more than half the table has 100BB or more, I will always buy in for the max.

3. Leaving when you win a certain amount is ridiculous.

4. You should only leave if the game is bad or you get tired.

Good thread OP. Now GTFO

I use the same style, for similar reasons. I just don't quit when I get ahead. I can play 100BB+ no problem but I'm more aggressive and good when some of the money in front of me is won money.

That being said, stop tapping the tank. We want these "buy in full or GTFO" pros to think we're terribad because we don't even know how to buy in.

You logic is flawed because it is based on the assumption that you should be getting all-in with every winning hand.

Ratholing is unethical. It is really just as simple as that. All the arguments and e-peen waving about how shortstack poker isn't poker aside, true as they may be, ratholing is simply unethical.

Whether you chose to live your life by a code of ethics is another question. Whether you believe that certain parts of that code are waived when playing poker is yet another question.

I don't mind the fact that shortstackers reduce poker to a slot pull, because they are invariably bad at making decisions and I am very +EV against them.

This, ultimately, is the argument all shortstackers reduce to. Yes, it is your choice to shortstack. There are no rules against it. You are also technically permitted to rathole online because it is impossible to write rules to make it illegal without making the games unfair.

In a live casino it is explicitly forbidden to rathole. If you get up from a table with 4 buyins, you cannot sit at any other table (for a certian amount of time) with less than 4 buyins. The reason for this is because poker is an almost-zero-sum game. Except for the rake and tips, money only goes from player to player. When you win a pot from a player, pick that money up and leave, you make the game a non-zero-sum game and un-level the playing field. Unscrupulous players will find loopholes and technical arguments to back their claim that this is perfectly ethical because it is perfectly legal, but law does not legislate morality and most ethical people understand and accept this. But because ratholers are unethical, casinos had to force players to behave ethically in this regard in order to keep the games fair -- and this is why the explicit "no ratholing" rule exists is most casinos.

Online poker is different in one particular regard that makes this rule difficult or impossible to enact in that forum -- it is possible to multitable online where it is not in a live casino. You run in to a major problem when trying to create a no ratholing rule. The logical solution would be that if you get up from a table with n$, the next table you sit at you must bring at least n$. This falls apart however because it makes it possible to exploit the maximum buyin for the table, which, again, would make the game unfair for a table full of 100 BB stacks when you are able to sit with 350 BBs.

So it is not possible to enforce the no ratholing rule online without making the games unfair in another way. But again, law does not legislate morality and it is still unehtical to rathole online for the same reasons as live.

Ethical people understand this. Ratholers do not, or decide to reject it.

It is not fair to say "You can't prove me wrong so I am right" and that is essentially what you said here.

So your little brother didn't understand why you should ALWAYS do something based on an advantage that you say rarely occurs? Damn what is his problem? haha