For those who dislike shortstacks...

Shortstack

Ipoker now has 'Full Stack' tables as an option up to $3/$6 which only allow Max buy in.

Macspower

saw this last night.... great idea..... didn't see any on 1/2 but they were on 50/1 alright

Mr.Plough

you can get fully stacked with bullets now mac. -ev for you

Macspower

Mr.Plough wrote:

you can get fully stacked with bullets now mac. -ev for you

LOL... bullets are ok this month... it's KK I'm having the problems with now.......

wonder will fish still play on em......

LuckyLloyd

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eoghan104

Macspower wrote:

saw this last night.... great idea..... didn't see any on 1/2 but they were on 50/1 alright

Do you not think that these tables will tend to have better players at them?

eoghan104

LuckyLloyd wrote:

I always find the attitude on this forum (and 2+2) to shortstacks to be quite funny. At the lower levels they are like free money cause they have no idea how to play a shortstack properly. So what's the problem??

surley there isnt a "proper way" to play shortstacks in a cash game? You just shouldnt buy in short right??

LuckyLloyd

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eoghan104

LuckyLloyd wrote:

This is what is lol about the forums. For some players, they absolutely should be buying in for the minimum. Somebody who plays a lot of SnG's or tournaments and has a good idea of when to shove would prolly make more money in the short - term shortstacking cash games. Couple that with the current "hate" factor against those that shortstack by those that are regs and buy - in for the max - leading them to spite call and be utterly reluctant to adjust their ranges against shortstackers; I think it is a perfectly valid strategy.

I would tend to agree with you but just from what I read here it seems its gay to short stack? I used to do it a good bit in Omaha and had good results. I would just buy in for half the max rather than the minimum though.

Macspower

eoghan104 wrote:

surley there isnt a "proper way" to play shortstacks in a cash game? You just shouldnt buy in short right??

I agree completely....... however short stacks can be such a pain in the hole....... You raise to say 4bb's in position with AQ and he goes all in for 20bb's you call and he turns over his muckey KJ and hits and leaves immediately... can't see the value in them thats all.... You never get to outplay them on later streets etc etc....

Then there is the pro short stacker who once recognised is not a problem to play with only he is taking a seat where there could be a fish sitting.... these guys play only big pairs and make only 1 move all in generally over a raise and are sitting at multitables doing the same... thankfull there are not that many of them but they do exist and must be making money or they wouldn't be doing it I guess.....

I just hate them so much....... but I hate big stacks more :rolleyes:

Mac

LuckyLloyd

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StraddleFor6

eoghan104 wrote:

I would tend to agree with you but just from what I read here it seems its gay to short stack? I used to do it a good bit in Omaha and had good results. I would just buy in for half the max rather than the minimum though.

So you won't shortstack anymore, despite good results, because its "gay"?

Killme00

I agree with Lloyd on this one. I love playing shortstack in HE, its like free money. Playing live in the fifty game so many people buy in for the minimum time after time and slowly lose buyin after buyin.

I really really dislike it in Omaha though, you just cant protect your hand and cant extract additional value when you are miles ahead.

cooker3

Macspower wrote:

I agree completely....... however short stacks can be such a pain in the hole....... You raise to say 4bb's in position with AQ and he goes all in for 20bb's you call and he turns over his muckey KJ and hits and leaves immediately... can't see the value in them thats all....

What about the 62% of time you take their 20bb
I love those type of players! Nice easy free money

LuckyLloyd

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Captain Tom

LuckyLloyd wrote:

So??? If it's plus EV and allows you to stick to your strengths and avoid situations where you are less comfortable why shouldn't you? If you wish to win money playing the game then you should do whatever gives you the surest way to achieve that.

Lloyd and BCB finally agree on something.

eoghan104

StraddleFor6 wrote:

So you won't shortstack anymore, despite good results, because its "gay"?

Obviousley calling it gay was tongue in cheek. I dont do it anymore because i am broke due to online roullette but thats a whole new thread! I just dont play on the internet anymore. If I did I would more than likley use this strategy.

CaptainNemo

Killme00 wrote:

I agree with Lloyd on this one. I love playing shortstack in HE, its like free money. Playing live in the fifty game so many people buy in for the minimum time after time and slowly lose buyin after buyin.

I really really dislike it in Omaha though, you just cant protect your hand and cant extract additional value when you are miles ahead.

I was reading about this as an Omaha strategy, the idea is that there is usually so much dead money in the pot that although you may only win 60% of the time you get all in with a short stack you only need it to be 40% to be profitable. The acknowledged downside is the inability to get full value when you hit a great situation like set over set or quads over full, etc.

LuckyLloyd

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LuckyLloyd

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gosplan

I frequently find that poor players will double you up a lot easier with shortstacks.

That said I am talking about poor players at lower levels.

Essentially if I buy in for 25 in a 50 game I find it a lot easier to get to 50 then I do to get from 50 to 75 if I buy in for the full amount.

That said, it sucks if you get on the good end of a set vrs set or something like that.

jimmii

I love playing the short stackers most of them are doing it because they aren't good enough to play with a full stack and think any Ace is good and any pair is good.

Macspower

LuckyLloyd wrote:

This is the lol part. So the really awful shortstackers you find at the lower levels frequently get their money in bad against you because they are idiots. And in the longterm you will turn a profit off their awful play. And that is a bad thing? Why?

And what about the times they call raises pre - flop and manage to fold at some point when more than half their stack has been invested??

How will it be a better proposition for you to play at full stacked tables of good regulars??

My argument is prob not correct but they really are annoying.......

Often the case you money is not in good...... SS limps and you make a button raise of 4bb's + 1 and when it's folded back to him he pushes and you find you KQ or J10 up against any A....

I have yet to try these full stack tables but if they are very nitty I won't be playing them.....

Shorties do provide great value if they don't hit and run... nothing like a SS who has doubled up twice and now has a stack that he can't play.......

Nice to have the option ....

ollyk1

As you know I'm not familiar with the internet cash scene but there are a few live players, with the patience of Job, who seem to play relatively short and get their money in good against spewy big stacks.

If they had really strong long run discipline they could probably lock in a few euros per hour profit. Everyone else loves it when they stacked and go on tilt though!!

A lot of the live short stackers are just brutal and scared money - the joy of the live game is that it's obvious before they even sit down.

Edit: Shortstackers are actually great for my game as they tend to force me to be more disciplined and stop leaking chips.

Lafortezza

If you find yourself playing deep against a few other bad players, say 200BB or deeper, then you can really open up your hand ranges preflop and after. Therefore you're playing more hands with bigger pots against bad players.
If one 20BB shortstacker sits in he ruins this dynamic since he'll be happy to shove with any pair, AT+, so you now have to tighten up and can't open 67s every time for 3/4BB's since you'll be faced with having to call 20BB's when usually dominated by the Shortstacker.

cardshark202

I think you are missing the point lloyd. Some of these shortstackers are huge nits who just sit there for hours and then shove over raises with like AQ+, TT+. Some of them are ****e and will make terrible shoves/calls. The point is though that they are taking up space where a huge whale could be sitting instead where you can take 1000bbs off him in an hour as opposed to 10bbs in 5 hours. IMSAKIDD is a shortstacker and a forum whore. None of the good poster will respect him one bit. If you frequently shortstack games where you think you have an edge you are an idiot and you probably don't have an edge. You should play lower. If you frequently shortstack games where you don't think you have an edge you are an idiot.
To summarize: shortstaking sucks

cardshark202

Yes shortstackers really ruin the game dynamics too. Well put laf.

BuChan

lafortezza wrote:

If you find yourself playing deep against a few other bad players, say 200BB or deeper, then you can really open up your hand ranges preflop and after. Therefore you're playing more hands with bigger pots against bad players.
If one 20BB shortstacker sits in he ruins this dynamic since he'll be happy to shove with any pair, AT+, so you now have to tighten up and can't open 67s every time for 3/4BB's since you'll be faced with having to call 20BB's when usually dominated by the Shortstacker.

great point.

opr

Macspower wrote:

Often the case you money is not in good...... SS limps and you make a button raise of 4bb's + 1 and when it's folded back to him he pushes and you find you KQ or J10 up against any A....

I am sorry but again this argument is really bad. Your the one making the mistake imo here as your range for raising should be adjusted to allow for the SS limping.

Opr

opr

lafortezza wrote:

If you find yourself playing deep against a few other bad players, say 200BB or deeper, then you can really open up your hand ranges preflop and after. Therefore you're playing more hands with bigger pots against bad players.
If one 20BB shortstacker sits in he ruins this dynamic since he'll be happy to shove with any pair, AT+, so you now have to tighten up and can't open 67s every time for 3/4BB's since you'll be faced with having to call 20BB's when usually dominated by the Shortstacker.

Now this is the problem here. Because i have to adjust my range it hurts the overall dynamics of the game.

Opr

CaptainNemo

The reason players who like deep stack play dislike shortstacks is because they mess up their strategy. This means that it's an effective strategy against deep stack players. No one would be getting annoyed if the strategy just flat out sucked.

That said one of my favourite things to do when I have a lot of money in front of me and have raised 4BB with suited connectors is to call the remaining 20BB if a short stack pushes all in. You have 3 favourable results possible:

1) Your hand wins.
2) You double them up, forcing them to play deeper which makes them less comfortable.
3) You double them up, making them leave the table. Seat open for whale!

opr

cardshark202 wrote:

I think you are missing the point lloyd. Some of these shortstackers are huge nits who just sit there for hours and then shove over raises with like AQ+, TT+. Some of them are ****e and will make terrible shoves/calls. The point is though that they are taking up space where a huge whale could be sitting instead where you can take 1000bbs off him in an hour as opposed to 10bbs in 5 hours. IMSAKIDD is a shortstacker and a forum whore. None of the good poster will respect him one bit. If you frequently shortstack games where you think you have an edge you are an idiot and you probably don't have an edge. You should play lower. If you frequently shortstack games where you don't think you have an edge you are an idiot.
To summarize: shortstaking sucks

I don't agree with alot of this. I also think that everyone should spend a good deal of time reading about short stacks and how to play them optimally and then should practice play as shortstacks. It becomes alot easier for you to form strategies against them after becoming aware of what makes it profitable to play like this.

Good article from Ed on the topic.

Ed Miller wrote:

Stack sizes change everything, from what hands are worth playing before the flop, to how you should play them after the flop, to how to read hands and bluff, to who ultimately ends up with the money. Understand how different stack sizes affect strategy better than your opponent does, and you have a big advantage.

Examining short stack play offers insights into how stack sizes change things. It’s insight that many no limit players who have played deep for years never get. Indeed, many of those players have serious misconceptions about how strategy changes when the stacks get short. (And some respond to their ignorance by attacking short stack players. They don’t want to play short stacked, and they don’t want to learn how to, so they’d prefer short stacks simply disappear.)

Playing short also lets you turn some bad games into good ones. If your opponents are all top flight loose-aggressive players, you may be a big underdog playing deep. But you may actually have an edge if you play short. Learning to play short stacked makes you a more flexible player, and it gives you deeper insight into the game. Finally, if you play no limit tournaments at all, short stacked strategy becomes absolutely essential, as most tournaments play short-stacked for a long period of time. In my opinion, this is essential stuff.

Opr

cardshark202

Im well aware how to play shortstacks, its quite easy really, but I prefer playing again deep fish

LuckyLloyd

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opr

cardshark202 wrote:

Im well aware how to play shortstacks, its quite easy really, but I prefer playing again deep fish

I know you but an awful lot of people don't and hense why its profitable and why people SS. Also i was just making the point that a person who has an edge shortstacking a game may not have an edge deepstacked as in Ed's example contrary to what you said. Also alot of people in poker don't give a toss about respect and just play poker to make money.

I think we all prefer playing against deep fish thats kinda a given but life isn't always that easy

Opr

DeVore

Killme00 wrote:

I agree with Lloyd on this one. I love playing shortstack in HE, its like free money. Playing live in the fifty game so many people buy in for the minimum time after time and slowly lose buyin after buyin.

I really really dislike it in Omaha though, you just cant protect your hand and cant extract additional value when you are miles ahead.

You know, I tried to make this point over on the "cash vs Tournament" thread. Its actually quite tricky to find a deep stacked cash game in Dublin, live, so many people sit in with 50-100!!

DeV.

RoundTower

hmm when I played there 1000 BB stacks weren't uncommon in the Fitz.

phantom_lord

DeVore wrote:

You know, I tried to make this point over on the "cash vs Tournament" thread. Its actually quite tricky to find a deep stacked cash game in Dublin, live, so many people sit in with 50-100!!

DeV.

yeah but once u start working your way through the feeder tables most of them have busted or double/trebled up, and the table gets deep, and by the time u make it to the main table most people are very deep. I remember sitting with 500/600bbs fairly regulary towards the end of the night when i played in the fitz.


back to the thread, short stacks are annoying, especially when the run goot against me, or crack my big pairs with ace-rag and hit and run. i remember one night at 1/2 ipushyoufold was shortstacking every singe one my tables, taking up a seat a fish could be filling, i'd expect my winrate would be much higher against the other players than against him.

i'd expect i'm up against them in general as most of them suck (i guess i could go filter my hands in hold'm manger to see for sure) but i wouldn't imagine it's a huge amount and i much rather they weren't there.

hotspur

I used to despise shortstacks players and they were a huge leak for me as I used to always take -EV all ins just to try to get them off the table. I've made major adjustments to my play against them these days and find them profitable.

Mostly this is because they tend to be poor and I know my equity against their range. Even the pro shortstakcers who play 16 tables should be easy to play against once you have them tagged as such. You just have to keep ego completely out of it and not take 40% shots if you can help it.

The only particularly annoying thing is having them on the BB when you're the button and having to adjust your raising to take account of the chance they will push. I tend to bet smaller in pots against the 20-30 bb brigade to make their pushes excessive for the pot and therefore suboptimal for them.

Macspower

phantom_lord wrote:

i remember one night at 1/2 ipushyoufold was shortstacking every singe one my tables, taking up a seat a fish could be filling, i'd expect my winrate would be much higher against the other players than against him.

Yeah whats the story with him and shortstacking... I remember him from 50/1 and he was an ok full stack player if I remember correctly.... and now i see him 8 tabling min buy in's at 1/2

Primewise

hotspur wrote:

I used to despise shortstacks players and they were a huge leak for me as I used to always take -EV all ins just to try to get them off the table. I've made major adjustments to my play against them these days and find them profitable.

Mostly this is because they tend to be poor and I know my equity against their range. Even the pro shortstakcers who play 16 tables should be easy to play against once you have them tagged as such. You just have to keep ego completely out of it and not take 40% shots if you can help it.

The only particularly annoying thing is having them on the BB when you're the button and having to adjust your raising to take account of the chance they will push. I tend to bet smaller in pots against the 20-30 bb brigade to make their pushes excessive for the pot and therefore suboptimal for them.

Good point about adjusting your raising range. Makes it easier to fold to a push.

But I disagree that its bad having the shortstack in the BB. Most Short stacks play very tight and will autofold their small blind and big blind, basically allowing you to steal every time it is folded to you on the button. They only push with a range of 88+ and AJ+ which doesn't happen that often.

I played multitabling short stacked on 1/2 for a few days and found it so profitable that I ended up having a big enough bankroll to just play normal fullstack at the same level. The only problem I had with the strategy was that is was so so boring! There is no postflop play involved so its a total snore

Imposter

I don't think the site introducing full buy-in tables makes any sense. Shortstackers can still continue as normal and those who want to play deeper stacks can play with all the other nits if they want - which I can't see them doing for long.

The only solution imo is to change the 20 - 100BB nature of the tables and make them something like 50 - 200BB's. ALL the tables not just some. At 50BB's people will have to play a flop at least.

Making all tables 100BB buy-ins would make the game terribly boring and the fish would end up playing at levels more suited to their abilities which is hardly a good thing

Macspower

Was thinking about this last night while playing.... I had at least one at each of my tables... As mentioned above I had to adjust my play depending on their position... If I had a SS in my blinds and button raise and miss I found myself not c-betting as much as they would probably push and I'd end up having to call from behind... I had to tighten my opening range as well..

What is pretty amusing though is when you open with AK and miss ... then c-bet and CRAI and your oblidged to call for another 10bb's and find an A on the river... and watch him complain that you had nothing..... lol at SS's looking for respect! Funniest one last night was me raising with 99 and him CRAI on an 8 high flop with a set of 8's and me filling a str8 on the river

Although my hate of them is well known I took note of them last night and I made money from them..

I also played a few full stack tables.... interesting enough.. One of them had an uber fish that playe every hand and had a 700 stack which he kindly donated before he left after reloading 3 or 4 times which left that game very deep and interesting,, the other table had all standard tags which I left after 20 mins

LuckyLloyd

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RoundTower

they did this on Full Tilt and I'm pretty sure it changed nothing, the tables didn't attract the fish so they died. Only if all the tables are changed will it make a difference.

DeadParrot

LuckyLloyd wrote:

I always find the attitude on this forum (and 2+2) to shortstacks to be quite funny. At the lower levels they are like free money cause they have no idea how to play a shortstack properly. So what's the problem??

QFT.

Lafortezza

The other thing about SS'ers is that they frequently hit and run when they double up or better. On a big site it makes a difference since there may be 10+ tables open at that particular limit.

SSing can be very profitable but not at a 6 max table where 4 of the stacks are 20BBs and two are 100BBs.

Lafortezza

LL wrote:

I always find the attitude on this forum (and 2+2) to shortstacks to be quite funny. At the lower levels they are like free money cause they have no idea how to play a shortstack properly. So what's the problem??

I think people would prefer bad players to buy in for full stacks so that they can win their money more easily/quickly. I also think that if you're playing with 2+ shortstacks at your table there will be more coinflips for those 20BB stacks, which reduces the edge of a good player.

LuckyLloyd

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Imposter

LuckyLloyd wrote:

Ya see, this type of argument really baffles me. A lower minimum buy - in is really good for the game as a whole. You want people being able to play for cheap. As it is bad players who will do this - you want them to be encouraged to stick money in at their comfort level.

I agree in principle but if you increase lower buy-in slightly the bad shortstackers may play one level lower but forcing them to play more streets leads to them having to play at least some postflop poker. If the want to play a preflop only game then they should stick to turbo tournaments imo.

Lafortezza

But if enough people don't like it and voice their opinions then changes like this one on IPoker will be made. And didn't some other site create deepstack cash tables with a higher min buy-in? I remember posts on 2+2 encouraging ppl to email Stars support to ask for higher min buy-ins.

So you can stop/hinder ppl shortstacking which is what we all want as winning players LDO.
Personally I'm not too bothered since in PLO preflop hand ranges are much closer and you may as well be flipping anyway.