At uNL and SSNL, the games are plagued with a never ending swarm of players buying in for less than 50bb and splashing around in many more pots than we would like. The general reaction to these players is annoyance and disgust, and understandably so since the meager amount of money they bring for us to win doesn't seem to make up for the aggravation that they cause. Still, since we're not going to be able to get rid of them we need to learn to maximize our ability to win against them and avoid some of the problems that they cause. As such I've decided to write up this guide, mainly as a service to the newer players who might not have picked up on all of the adjustments to make.
Why do these guys play short?
For at least 99% of the ones you will find at uNL, they play like this for one of two reasons:
1) They suck at poker but don't know it.
2) They suck at poker and they know it.
In the first case the player has built some crap strategy around shoving on early betting rounds and they delude themselves into thinking that this wins in the long term and buy short because in their eyes it helps to to keep them profitable by minimizing their losses the times they get called when they are behind. A good example of this would be the guys you see sitting down as the second player at a newly opened table and hit and run to steal some chips. The simple fact that I've seen them doing this at stakes as low as 5NL shows how clueless they are. In the second case the guy knows that he is a losing player and buys short to get the most playing time out of his bankroll before it's gone.
What problems do they cause?
The first problem is that the shorter our opponents stack, the smaller our implied odds become on all betting rounds. While this is true at any stack size (a 75bb stack does not offer the implied odds a 100bb stack does) when the stack sizes get down to shorty territory (less than 50bb) it becomes really pronounced. The range of hands we can play preflop shifts significantly if the shorty is going to be in the hand, and almost all of our postflop play has to be conducted knowing that any decent size bet is likely to result in a pot to stack ratio where a pot size raise by the shorty means him going all-in. This means that our draws become far less valuable, and we can't do as much with marginal hands because we are constantly at risk of getting shoved on by the shorty if we bet.
How do we adjust?
The first rule of dealing with short-stackers:
If the short stacker is already in the hand, or likely to stay in the hand, you must treat all the stacks as if they were short until such time as the shorty is all-in or out of the hand. Following this rule will save you a lot of grief. Simply put, shorties seldom play loose-passive. Instead they tend to be a spewy loose-aggro style and as such tend to shove far to much preflop and on the flop for comfort. This also tends to mess with the heads of the other deep stacked players at the table who will call the short-stackers shoves more loosely than they would other players, and the more aware of the deep stacked players will raise/shove to clear opponents out of the pot when they have a hand that they think beats the shorties. In other words, when they are in the hand with the shorty they start playing a similar strategy but with 100bb stacks. If you are trying to play hands that play well against the deep stack players when the shorty is in or likely to be in the pot the shorty will repeatedly create situations where you have to fold hands after investing some money in the pot (those little limps and 4-6bb bets add up after a bit) or forced to call as an underdog (while +EV on that one call, it probably makes less profit than you could have saved by not getting in that situation in the first place). If you treat the hand as if everyones stack was the same size as the shorties you will save more money by not being put in difficult spots than the value you lose by not playing for the greater implied odds the deeper stacks offer.
PREFLOP
The shorter the opponent's stack is, the more we want to focus almost entirely on top pair/overpair hands. If the shorty will have position on us postflop we go with whatever hands we would normally play from our current position, but eliminate all of them that don't have at least a jack or higher as the top card. As far as pocket pairs, 99+ is played as we normally would because of overpair potential. With 88 and lower, if someone else opened the pot ahead of you go ahead and limp for set value. If you will have position on the shorty postflop you now have a little more wiggle room. Feel free to raise Axs and any face card with at least a nine kicker. People have limped ahead of you but no one has raised, feel free to limp with any suited cards that you normally play from that position as long as the shorty has enough chips to give you the appropriate implied odds (if you don't know what the appropriate implied odds are, get your ass over to the SSNL sticky and read goofyballers post about suited connectors).
A special note needs to be paid to situations where you are going to be heads-up postflop with the shorty but out of position. In these situations you need to realize that your top pair hands are stronger out of position than they would be if the stacks were deeper, and as such you need to expand your raising/3-betting range. If the shorty has limped in late postion and you find yourself in the blinds with basically any two broadway, you need to raise these hands so it's easy to get it all-in when you hit top pair or better. In the event that the shorty raised from late-position, take some time to look at how often he raises. If he seems to have any reasonable tendency to steal the blinds, be willing to 3-bet just about anything that you would normally play from UTG. In situations where a 3-bet would account for more than 1/3 of the shorties stack (remember, this includes the chips that he has already bet) just go ahead and shove AT+ and 99+ since most shorties will call with a range that you at least stand to break even against.
POSTFLOP
This is actually pretty easy. First of all, TPGK or better is the nuts vs. a short-stack and needs to be treated as such. While it might make you uncomfortable to call when a loose shorty open shoves $30 into a $6 pot on a J
7
5
flop when you are holding Q
J
you really need to get used to it. Sometimes you will get shown two pair, TPTK, or a combo draw that hit, but you will more often get shown hands like A
7
and J
8
. In the event that the guy shoved for value, make sure you take a note and then just reload. As for other hands, you have to play a great deal more passively since a great deal of the time any aggression on your part will be met with a shove on the part of the shorty if he likes his hand. If you have a TPGK+ or a draw that is fine calling a shove on the flop, by all means start betting. With weaker draws take all of the free cards that you can get. With marginal made hands try and take down the pot on the flop if you think you can but really give up UI on the turn and river. If you put in turn bets with these hands you wind up with situations where the shorty is shoving the river but still offering you 3:1 on your call or something like that and you have to make a lot of calls with a loser. Better to just check it down on the turn and if at all possible on the river. Keep in mind that since the guy is short, all you have to do to stack him is wait for a good top pair hand. Therefore, there is really no reason to push marginal hands so far.
Conclusion
As long as you follow these guidelines, one of two things will happen when shorties sit at you table:
1) They will get stacked, either by you or someone else. A lot of the time they look for a different table after this and hopefully the seat will be filled by someone with more money.
2) The will double up once or twice and then be sitting there with a real stack for you to win. The great thing about this is that while a decent number of them try to change their play after this happens (or at least quit shoving as much) they really have no idea how to play with that many chips in front of them. You should have them value stacked in no time.
Hopefully this little PSA will bring the newer posters/lurkers up to speed quickly and help them avoid some of the problems I had to deal with when I first started playing NLHE. Good Hunting!