frickin' awesome.

Didn't realize how crappy I played against tight shortstacks until I read this. Great insight into the shortstack mentality. No idea why I'm not occasionally calling ss raises from with blinds with a wider range and then open-donk pushing flops OOP into the fvckers and doing other crap to mess with them and embraseing the variance. I should have figured this out... but haven't really been thinking about playing against them- more about extracting from bad deep stacks.

just frickin' awesome!

Awesome post, though the SSers at the level i've been playing at tend to just give me their money so i've never had a problem with them. This info will definetly be helpful as I progress and see better shorties.

You're right, against the loose range we can quickly add 22 into the mix. Calling 22 was never very much of a mistake anyway and since it's right on the cusp you should often be calling with it because these loose short stacks are often even looser than the range I've given them - Many of them will push any PP or hands like KQ/KJ.

haha, I try. He made one suggestion in there that I really have never figured out how to deal with in 50k hands or so and obv no other SS talk about strat with each other. I know how to deal with the rest and I can still beat the full stacks even if they make their calling ranges "perfect". I think I'll be playing full for quite a few hands though since some stuff just clicked.

Good post btw.

I'm hearing this "clicked" thing from several lately.

What do you think is the biggest "clicking" for you lately? What happened, did you try full buyin and things not go well, and then decided to ss?
Not to HJ the thread, but I'm interested in your story there.

Crushing Short Stacks - The Playbook.

Against All Short Stacks

• Be prepared for increased variance.
• Remember effective stacks - Your stack is only as big as theirs.
• Expect to play only preflop and flop.
• Adjust calling range to stack size when calling pushes. Smaller stacks need less equity, larger need more.
• Also consider any dead money.
• Pot odds often give you equity to call even though you are behind their range.
• Most players fold too much against short stacks. Short stacks make a lot of profit from this.
• Don't be afraid of SS's using other big stacks to squeeze. The other big stack will usually get out of your way.
• Turn their tactics against them.
  Push over their preflop raises.
  Call their raise and donk-push flop. Do this with ATC and QQ/KK/AA. A wide range in general.
• Play very aggressively against them pre-flop.
  Steal their blinds at every opportunity.
  Raise their limps. Be prepared to call if they push flop. Don't raise if you're not going to call the push most of the time.
  Limp re-raise.
  3bet them lightly.
  Don't let them see cheap flops. Make poker expensive. Make them play for stacks on YOUR terms.
• If you are considering raising a hand like 76s and there is a SS in the hand, reconsider if you KNOW he's going to push a lot of flops.
  Limp or juice the pot with a small raise instead.
• You do not HAVE to cbet against short stacks, even heads up.
  Take the free card.
  Let him bet then CRAI. Put him to the tough equity decision.
  Push instead of a normal sized cbet. Don't give him the opportunity to come over the top of you.
  Do this sometimes when you have a hand you want to felt too, so he can't put you on a range of hands and make him fold the better hand sometimes.

Against Loose Short Stacks

• Want to get stacks in ASAP.
• Very wide range in all situations.
• When they push over your preflop raise with 20BB, call with 33+/AJ+ or 55+/AJ+ if they're in the BB.
• When they push over your preflop raise with 30BB, call with 99+/AQ+.
• When they push flops you have equity to call with if you connected with the flop in any way as well as with good overcards.

Against Tight (but bad) Short Stacks

• Do not know how to use FE.
• Will call preflop raises with low PP's and SC's without odds. Exploit this.
• When they push over your preflop raise with 20BB, call with 55+/AK+ or JJ+/AK+ if they're in the BB.
• When they push over your preflop raise with 30BB, call with JJ+/Ak+.
• Pushes usually mean they have a hand (TP or better or big draw). Call flop pushes only with TPTK or better.

Against Good Short Stacks

• Will use FE to try and exploit you.
• Capable of adjusting their game. Range may be as wide as loose SS or as tight as tight(bad) SS.
• On average, when they push over your preflop raise with 20BB call with 22+/AQ+ or 44+/AQ+ if they're in the BB.
• On average, when they push over your preflop raise with 30BB call with TT+/AQ+.
• Adjust this if you think they are being more or less aggressive with their pushes.
• Postflop their range will be similar to loose short stackers. You have equity to call with a very wide range.
• If he limp/called preflop he often won't have much of a hand or he would have raised.
• Always beware of good short stackers adjusting to your play.
• Make them fear messing with you and establish that they don't have FE and can't steal from you. This will force them to back off and seek other targets.

U R Teh awesome.

I think this is debatable.

My theory is that most players play badly against short stackers. And this includes most good short stackers. That is, a good short stacker sitting with 20BB fares just as badly against another 20BB short stacker as most full stacks do.

So, if full stacks start playing against short stacks as if they themselves were short at the very least this will neutralize any advantage the short stack has. And often the short stack will be at the same disadvantage he would have against any other short stack.

While the short stacks who can make adjustments to this will simply now be playing on a level field most short stacks aren't really very good compared to the full stacks at that level. That's why they're playing short. So many of them will have a tough time adjusting to changes in the meta-game.

Constant flipping against short stacks will eventually result in a 5% loss (the rake).

Only if you win 100% of flips.

Since you will win 50% of flips you will be out 2.5% (the short stack is out the other 2.5%)

However, rake at Stars is capped at $3.00 which is a $60.00 pot. So particularly at stakes $200NL and above your loss to the rake will be slightly less.

I suppose you could just stick to situations where you believe you're better than break-even. But it may come down to which is worse? Letting short stacks push you around or paying a little more in rake...

And don't forget you get some of that back in fpp/rakeback.

It will result in 5%, not 2.5%.

If you put in 30 and he puts in 30, and you win 57.
If you put in 30 and he puts in 30, and you lose 30.

Net result: put in 60, lost 3 = 5% loss.

I agree about that cap and at higher limits it will be lessened.

blinds cover a lot of the rake

But they were included in the original calculations, while rake was not. At lower limits this is significant and tightens up our correct calling ranges slightly.

Nonetheless, awesome post.

I guess we should all play at WPEX

You guys are correct, I didn't account for rake in my calculations.

If we're going to be this precise then I'm also going to assume we have at least 27% rakeback so we're actually paying 3.65% rake. I'll ignore the effect of rake capping.

In my original post:

Instead if we include 3.65% rake:

Short stack has 20BB and is not in the blind. You raise 4BB. Short Stack pushes. Everyone else folds. The pot is 25.5BB and you need to call 16BB. To pot that win will be $39.98. Effectively, you are calling 16BB to win 23.99BB.

You need a hand which has 40% equity against short stack's range to make a call break-even.

So we're talking about a 1.5 percentage point shift in equity.

Checking my equity lists, that will shift us up with respect to pocket pairs, but still you're never in a situation where calling with a pocket pair is very far wrong. And remember the ranges I used are deliberately conservative. We're still erring on the side of folding. If the short stack ever pushes with TJs or 55 our equity is much better.

Very nice post

Very well done.

Thanks.

Hopefully this one gets a spot in the FAQ or Read Me stickies as a pooh bah post worth remembering.

This is amazing, nice job.

LDO (whatever that means)

CMAR 4 MOD

Q4V. Quoted for value.

I had another thought to add to this post this morning. Last night I played a hand where the co limped, I raised a psr otb with AQo, and the shorty BB (who seems to be one fo the better ones) pushed in his 20BB. I called.

He had 88 and it help up. So, I was a bit behind here, but a fine call.

Now, here's the part I wanted to add. We've talked about rake and so forth as factors not considered. However, how about this one.

He left after that hand as he had doubled up...probably not to be back for 30 minutes or much more. He was replaced with a full stack poor player.

Now what's that worth?

I don't know where you guys find these awesome AIPF shortstacks...the ones I run into are the douches with 20 bets who limp/call a raise for 1/5 of their stack. I have absolutely no clue how to play these guys when I miss the flop. If I bet the flop, it seems like they always shove. If I check the flop, they just open shove the turn. WTF?

Great post CMAR, thanks a bunch.

BumP!

Once again Cmar has made a brilliant post. Nh