im just getting into omaha and am trying to develop a strategy as described by slotboom in his book: secrets of pot limit omaha.

has anyone else attempted to use/ create a strategy like this? was it successful??

i have quite a lot of the ground work done by am wondering if theres anything for me to compare to it to...

you're unlikely to find much help about this. short stackers tend to annoy people. they will spout out of a ton of reasons. i think its because they just can't beat them.

on the other hand there have been enough posts made on this forum about this that you could probably piece together a moderately successful short stacking strategy if you searched around hard enough.

You'll hardly ever have a problem getting called and payed off! That ought to be enough to get you started.......

there are several people on this forum who know of and/or use functional short-stacking strategies for nlo8. i don't think there's a large incentive to share them.

my recommendation is to use twodimes and develop a good sense of relative values. once you play, you make adjustments as to how strong your hand needs to be to push. note that rake plays a role in strategy when calculating values at smaller stakes.

as far as success, there are a few people who have made substantial sums of money using a short stacking strategy. they also have come to realize that short-stacking can be incredibly swingy.

just thinking about this over some wine....

most of the short-stacking success stories at nlo8 play higher stakes and/or play hu/sh. i'm not sure it's possible to be a significant short stack winner at stakes of .50/1.00 and lower in full ring or 6max games due to the effect of rake in relation to the blinds (i.e., the rake consumes all of the blind money when called). my guess is that "rakeback pro" would be considered a success.

does anyone have any data on this for lower stakes?

not a significant amount, but ive never had any success with it at .50/1.

in slotbom's book he specifically mentions that the game was a good candidate for this strategy because it was time charged instead of raked. so i think you might be on to something.

however, there is one player at .50/1 plo8 who usually plays with a shortish stack and his results have been decent.

If you want to short-stack thats fine but dont expect us to help you to ruin the games. Generally I think all threads about SS should be locked or deleted, maybe it would be better to discuss how to play against such short****ers.

Hi Borys - Like it or not, some individuals are going to short stack. And that means they'll buy in as low as possible, and then quit the game as soon as they get ahead (hit and run). Otherwise, once they score a win, they won't be short stacking so long as they stay in the game, since they can't squirrel away part of their winnings and still stay in the game.

You might as well have them discussing their strategy on this forum as have them go underground or elsewhere to discuss it. That way, perhaps you can better develop a way to combat or cope with the strategy.

Thus, much as you and others hate the tactics of the short stack hit and runners, I think it's better not to lock or delete short stack strategy threads here.

One way to combat the strategy is to refuse to play short stackers.

Buzz

I have tried shortstacking both NL and PLO8. In my view shortstacking PL is a waste of time, and you might as well buy in full or near-full at a limit you can afford. Shortstacking NL is good when you are playing with people who are better than you, because you basically play a one-street or at most two-street game, neutralizing a lot of their advantage. Unlike PL, in NL, shortstacking might turn you from a loser into a marginal winner. In general though, winning players will win more playing a full stack.

This.

A well-rolled player can combat shortstacking. There are antistrategies that have been discussed in many threads here.

The hit-and-runs are most brutal but are annoying, more like an insect bite than blunt force trauma.

Since it's going to happen anyway, we might as well just talk about it.

Stars set up those deep stack tables. If you don't want to deal with it then just sit down at those.

I'd be surprised to see data showing that leaving the table as soon as you double up your initial minimum buy-in is actually profitable in the long run. Personally, I have made decent $$$ buying in for the minimum and leaving the table once I am up 4-5 fold or so. But that was basically my BR management and playing a limit for which I only had 5 or so full buyins in my entire BR.

This is ridiculous. I don't short stack because I don't think it is the most profitable strategy. It is nonetheless a perfectly valid poker strategy. Saying we should lock short stacking threads is the same as saying we should lock threads about LAG strategy. It is silly beyond belief.

I've done this before too. It is a viable strategy.

as you can see most people here dont like SSing. in any case im not sure what kind of info you want to get here. go try it out for yourself and see what you think of it

Taking money of the table isnt allowed both in life and online games as it hurts them, same goes for ratholing and the min buy-in is usually bigger then 20BB life. A table full of 100BB stacks is possible but I have never seen one full of 20BB stacks, simply one group is abusing the other and makes the games break.

I think the reason so many people hate short-stacking is that it is a selfish, "anti-social", bad-for-the-game strategy.

What I mean by that is ... of course, we are all in it to benefit ourselves. But when you bring a full stack to the table, you give everyone else the chance to win your stack -- which satisfies both the better players and the fishy LAGs looking for action -- and you allow for post-flop play, which again satisfies most everyone. So a full-stacker, sitting at the table with a big stack, playing poker, is good for "the game". There's a reason why you frequently see long waiting lists at tables full of such players.

When you shortstack, you bring little action/money to the game, run to take money off the table, and eliminate the post-flop element, which is the most important part of this game. So forgetting the fact that it takes away my ability to play for a lot of money post-flop, when I believe I might have an advantage, it just sucks for the game and serves nobody's interest but the shortstacker's.

And then, on top of that, at least in my opinion, it is a sub-optimal strategy for PLO8, played primarily by scared money.

So I hate it and hope all shortstackers lose their internet service permanently.

Well phrased.

I don't play much on-line. But it often happens in a live game or tournament that somebody ends up with a stack such that you can more or less sense there will be an all-in raise on the first or second betting round. And you have to adjust your strategy accordingly, more or less hoping nobody else at the table makes the proper adjustment.

Buzz

niss stated it alot better then I did but it boils down to the same, its bad for the games and an abuse of the system.

Lets say I play a hu SNG and I see that someone outclasses me, now the perfect startegy for me would be to take max time every single hand and act only when I have 1 sec left to act. This strategy would first tilt the better player and secondly minimize his edge by waiting for the blinds to go up and start fliping. Its pefectly legal but would anyone call it a perfectly valid poker strategy, or what would we think about someone who would do so?

This is a terrible analogy. Waiting max time is a violation of etiquette. Playing short stack is a perfectly legitimate poker strategy. Again, I don't think it is a great strategy but that does not make it any less legitimate.

This (below): Buzz

It is bad for the games yes but in no way an abuse of the system. To those who call this an abuse of the system I assume you mean buying in for 20BB? How about 25? 30? 40? 80?

Think about how silly this position really is!

I'll just throw the following out there: are you against the added liquidity that the short-stackers provide at your limit? In other words, if they are not SSing your level, but instead playing full below, translates into less number of tables at your limit. Some people loathe to play SH, and if it wasn't for SSers the 'professionals' would not have as many opportunities to take the money of those less skilled than them who do not like to play SH.

As an extreme example: would you prefer a world w/ one table full of deep stacks, or one w/ 10 tables at which there is a mix of deep and shallow stacks?

i would do this. and i would call it a perfectly viable strategy.

shortstacking is bad because its bad for the games. we are all in this for ourselves. we don't like them because they ruin our games. we don't do it ourselves because we can make more playing deeper.

if i thought i could make more playing short and hit and running would i do it? hell yea. i'm at the tables to make money. in fact the only reason i don't cheat at poker is because its bad for the games long term and therefore while its in my interest short term in the big picture its a bad idea. perhaps extreme (any to be honest i might not go that far) but you get the idea

win at all costs.

i guess my point is that i would do anything to win but i have enough foresight to see that some things, while immediately profitable, are dumb to do in the long run. the thought of a professional poker player such as yourself feeling any other way just baffles me. bad for the games, gotcha. abuse of the system, guh?

maybe its just me and my lack of morals.

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i know this is a touchy thing im saying but im not saying anything personal about any of you so while i welcome your conversation about this and understand the unwelcome tone it will probably have...well...i didnt post this to start an e-fight so lets not start one ok?

i seem to do best at a table with a healthy mix. i have no idea why. this is something i should probably look into.

It may be that they produce more tables but on the other hand they break good hu games so I guess it evens out.

The example I gave I think is a good analogy to SS, its within the rules, helps to max EV of bad players and annoys almost everyone.
Its extremly important to make poker an enjoyable game for everyone or losing players will find another hobby and you dont want to play exclusivly grumpy nit-ass rakeback grinders.