• Short Stack Poker Tournament Strategy
• Basic Poker Strategy

1. Short stack poker usually refers to 30 big blinds or less. Midstack poker is usually 30-75 big blinds. This advice can be used effectively if you buy-in for less than the full buy-in in cash games, or in the latter stages of tournaments.
2. The game theory optimal strategy when short-stacked on the button is to min-raise all your best hands while shoving with the upper-middle part of your range. For instance, you’ll min-raise your pairs and broadway hands because they flop well, and you can usually get calls from the blinds.

A short stack strategy in Texas Hold’em isn’t usually going
to be advisable. The exception to this rule will arise when you
don’t really have a choice. For example, if your stack in a
tournament has taken a beating, or even if it’s simply late in
the event, you’ll be forced to maneuver a short stack. If you
are in a cash game and are playing with a short stack, however,
it will be much more profitable to instead learn how to play
with the normal 100 bb or 200 bb.

The ethos behind modern rampaging stems from the short-stack approach to the game; buying in for the minimum at a level like $0.10/$0.25 for $5, only playing premium hands and shipping most of the money in either pre-flop or on the flop, doubling-up and then leaving the table. Learn proper short stack poker strategy to dominate cash games. For many players who regularly sit down at cash tables in the modern game, once they have found some level of comfort with the quality of their 'full stacked 100bb' skills, one of the ways in which they frequently find themselves in awkward situations is when faced with an opponent.

Types of Short Stackers

Type #1

There are a handful of different types of short stackers in
cash games. The most common form of short stacker is the total
amateur who just doesn’t know any better. This is the type of
player that you want to be facing as they are the most likely to
donate their chips without putting up much of a fight. While it’s obviously much better to stack a player when they have a more
sizable amount of money, it’s hard to argue against the idea of
playing against very weak players for easy money.

Type #2

The next type of short stacker is the player who started with a full stack and
has now been reduced to a short stack. These players can fall at
any end of the skill spectrum, but the majority will be
somewhere in the middle. Any strong player will know that it
makes most sense to re buy to the max whenever possible, so you
can usually discount a strong skill set.

A lot of casual players who are decent, but not great at poker will buy in for the max
and just let their chips bleed off until they either
double/triple/quadruple up or instead go bust. The weird thing
about these players is that they will often times re buy for the
table maximum when they finally do go broke. Again, this type of
approach is usually indicative of a very mediocre player.

Type #3

The third and final type of short stacker is the
professional. Use the word professional with extreme caution,
however, as no true poker professional with legitimate skills
will be required to reduce themselves to short stacking. The
most skillful short stackers are going to be found online,
because this is the environment that best lends itself to profit. Short
stacking in live play just doesn’t tend to work, because its
profitability relies on significant volume.

If you are playing 30 hands an hour live vs. 600-1000 hands an hour online, the
difference is quite dramatic, even when you compensate for the
difference in skill level. Professional short stackers will
apply a very systematic approach to their game. They know what
spots they are looking for and tend to be in push or fold mode
almost all of the time. While they can be steady winners, these
players aren’t that difficult to exploit either.

Short Stacking Tournaments

In tournament (and sit and go) play, you are going to be
working with a short stack from time to time. Barring an opportunity to re
buy, you’ll have no choice but to attempt to build it back up
to its once healthy state. One thing that many players do in
this position is panic. They will lose all regard for time and
place and will start making spastic plays. The most common
reason for this type of play with a short stack is frustration.
Since a short stack means the player has lost a lot of chips,
and losing a lot of chips tends to induce tilt, it all goes hand
in hand.

Instead of getting all upset and reacting instinctively, take
a step back and reassess your situation. If you are in absolute
dire straits, it’s perfectly fine to shove on the next hand. It
doesn’t make much sense to hand select if you have one big blind
left as you are as good as dead already. If you have 10 big
blinds or so, however, you should still play to win. A lot of
your opponents will discount you altogether and will call off
your shoves with awfully light ranges (as they should).

Short Stack Poker Tournament Strategy

The best way to exploit this is to wait for above average spots where you
can shove. Never flat call bets or make raises for less than all
of your stack. Aside from your chip stack not giving you room to
play post-flop, you should attempt to capitalize on the little
bit of fold equity that you do have.

Short stacking in tournaments is no more complex than understanding that you have two
options: shoving or folding, and that you need to still hand
select a bit above average hands so that you can get your money
in with better than a coin flip. Of course, sometimes this plan
will flame out, but it’s what you should have in mind if the
opportunity should arise where you can put it into play.

Short Stacking Cash Games

The best piece of advice when it comes to short stacking cash
games is: DON’T DO IT.

Even the best short stackers are working
with very small win rates. If you do want to short stack in cash
games, you’ll need to be prepared for an awful lot of
variance. You are going to be up and down many buy ins over and
over again.

For all intents and purposes, you are going to be
playing out the 60/40 scenario on repeat. The problem is that
your 20% edge can take a long time to
balance itself out. As was the case with tournament short
stacking, cash game short stackers will also be playing a
push/fold game. There’s a very systematic approach to how to
best use this strategy depending upon your game of choice, and
this would take several pages to cover. In the end, though, your
most profitable plan is to not short stack at all.

If you learn how to play with a normal sized or deep stack, you’ll make a
lot more money in the long run. Short stacking is nothing more than
the easy way out for those who don’t want to actually become
good at poker.

This is about a near game theory optimal (GTO) strategy for short stack no limit holdem.

If you play in the $1/$2 no limit holdem game at the California Commerce Casino, the buyin is $40 or 20 big blinds (20BB). If you play online for real money at Blck Chip Poker, Americas Cardroom, or Bovada, the minimum buyins range between 20-40 big blinds. These may be considered to be short stacked games. The fast foldem holdem games at Bovada seem to be 50BB for a buyin.

Except for the first few rounds, most people in a tournament are short stacked most of the time.

There are some misconceptions about big stacks. Big stacks hold no intrinsic advantage over small stacks in cash no limit hold 'em games - see Ed Miller's Getting Started in Hold 'em.

There may be psychological aspects to having a particlular stack size.

This is just a continuum really. The smaller the stack, the fewer hands we can play. The deeper the stack, the more hands we can play in general. In particlular, in when we have a short stack, we do not play any come hands like 76 suited. All of our hands will have value (i.e. pair value or high card value).

We consider a short stack to be 25 big blinds (25BB) or less.

We will use Ed Miller's Short Stack Opening Strategy from our textbook.

Opening

When no one has entered the pot except the blinds

• Early position: TT+, AK
• Middle position: 99+, AQ+
• Late position: 77+, AT+, KQ

Entering the pot when someone has raised

If there is one raise in front of you, regardless of position, play only TT+ and AK. If there is more than one raise in front of you, play only KK+ (i.e. 3-bet or 4-bet with KK+).

Sizing your first raise

Usually we want to bring it in for 3-5BB. If there are only limpers in front of you, raise to 3-5BB plus 1BB per limper (if you have a hand that you would normally open with in that position). In general, we like to raise more in early positions and less from later postions (if this confuses you, simply always raise to 4BB+1BB/limper).

If someone has raised in front of you and you have a playable hand (TT+, AK), usually go all in. If your stack is larger than 30BB-35BB (i.e. becoming a medium stack) or when there is only one raiser and the raise was the minimum, make the largest raise you think your opponent will call.

Basic Poker Strategy

When you get reraised by someone behind you, usually you should go all in or fold. If you have QQ+ or AK, go all in. Go all in with any hand if your (or your opponent's) remaining stack is less than twice the size of your original bet.

A few more hands we can sometimes play

There are a few more hands we can play when there are just limpers. If you are on the button or cutoff, after only limpers, call with 22-66, A2-A9 and any two suted cards that are both ten or higher ( i.e. KJs, KTs, QJs, QTs, JTs). If you have a stronger hand, be sure to raise as described above.

More on Ed Miller's SSS

Crushing Short Stacks - The Playbook - this is what a deep stacker needs to do when playing against us. This is how we should play when playing against short stackers.

Seems like there is some controversy about this strategy. I suspect that this is a case of sour grapes from the deep stackers. They need to adjust their play when they are in the pot with us and they seem resistant to doing so.

This thread (from 2007!) is about how to adjust to playing with a deep stack against a small stack. This is a very informative article, please read this. TLDR: Crushing Short Stacks - The Playbook - this is what a deep stacker needs to do when playing against us. This is how we should play when playing against short stackers.

My take on this is that sss is the correct way to play at this stack size (provided that these sss's are near to gto).

Another interesting thing I found online about sss's was: '... the truth is that you should play as high VPIP as you can until you start losing. 15% is the baseline for any 9player game with the same rake. Back in the day you could win with 12/10 because players were so bad. As the skill level increased overall in the game, you had to bring your VPIP up to 15% or better, (unless you were an FPP whoring multitabler who could play at 14%) '. This makes some sense: play as loose as possible, but tighter than most of your opponents.

interesting: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15/poker-theory/short-stack-strategy-holes-ed-miller-562943/ - http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=24079874&postcount=26 http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=10855133&postcount=49

Very goog read: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32/beginners-questions/i-grew-up-learning-30-bis-where-enough-1426985/ add http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=3029808&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1 and other links like this https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topicsearchin/rec.gambling.poker/%22short$20stack$20strategy%22/rec.gambling.poker/mdo7ddmdKcU

more stuff The 3 Factors That Should Determine Your Cash Game Buy-In http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/3-factors-that-should-determine-your-cash-game-buy-in-19629.htm Positives to Playing a Short Stack in Tournaments http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/positives-to-playing-a-short-stack-in-tournaments-20569.htm WSOP 2014: Short Stack Strategies with Bart Hanson http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/2014-wsop/event-54/post.232972.htm http://www.pokertube.com/videos/pca-2015-jonathan-duhamel-on-short-stack-bubble-strategy http://www.tournamentpokeredge.com/innovative-short-stack-strategy/ Learning Poker By Short Stacking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5WCWJin8FU http://my.888poker.com/go/thread/view/111146/30044265/maths-in-poker-and-game-theory?pg=1

http://www.cardschat.com/f11/short-stacking-sucks-240807/ A Day In The Life Of A Short Stacker: Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ7wBBIzdD8