For those who dislike shortstacks...

opr · 22-08-2007 05:45PM

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 · 22-08-2007 05:53PM

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

LuckyLloyd · 22-08-2007 06:03PM

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opr · 22-08-2007 06:06PM

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 · 22-08-2007 06:17PM

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 · 22-08-2007 06:49PM

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

phantom_lord · 22-08-2007 07:28PM

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 · 22-08-2007 07:37PM

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 · 22-08-2007 07:47PM

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 · 23-08-2007 11:01AM

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 · 23-08-2007 11:14AM

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 · 23-08-2007 11:27AM

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 · 23-08-2007 11:27AM

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RoundTower · 23-08-2007 11:35AM

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 · 23-08-2007 11:45AM

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 · 23-08-2007 11:47AM

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 · 23-08-2007 11:50AM

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 · 23-08-2007 12:08PM

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Imposter · 23-08-2007 12:21PM

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 · 23-08-2007 12:22PM

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.

LuckyLloyd · 23-08-2007 12:28PM

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phantom_lord · 23-08-2007 03:45PM

party are going to change the min buyin to 40bbs in a couple of months after they do a software change.

stars said something along the line of they don't want to change it as storties generate rake.

Samba · 23-08-2007 05:31PM

Agree with laf on this one, they completely disrupt table dynamics.

I hate them even more in Omaha.

HiCloy · 23-08-2007 09:19PM

At lower levels I think they're often the main value at the table. Annoying though alright.

I'm surprised there aren't any shortstacking bots as these would be easier to programme and much less exploitable or recognisable than full stacked ones

RoundTower · 23-08-2007 10:05PM

HiCloy wrote:

I'm surprised there aren't any shortstacking bots

lol?

dvdfan · 23-08-2007 11:12PM

Something i found useful against shortstackers is to think about how your bet sizing preflop affects your flop play. Ill give you example shortstacker has 30 bb and he raises to 3bb from the CO, i used to 3bet him to say 10BB with the likes of AK-AJ here because im ahead of hes range more often than not but then you end up with a missed flop with 20bb in it and he has 20bb left, if you cbet that flop and he pushes and hes the typical shortie that might push with a draw, nice looking cards or BP and ocassionally air then your forced to call off 30 BB with A high which is still sometimes good but your putting yourself in a bad position simply because your bet sizing preflop gives him an edge because he dosent have to make hard decisions postflop because the stacks left are so shallow.

Compare that with just flat calling preflop, now the flop pot is 7bb and he still has 27bb behind so hes forced to play post flop and so now you have the edge, of course its going to be harder to build a pot but if they hit the flop any way hard at all youve a good chance of stacking them anyway and your getting your money in as favourite instead of when 50/50 or 40/60

Of course with different stack sizes you need different strategies as with different hand strengths but my point being is we should consider the implications or preflop bet sizing will have on the flop based on our hand strength and stack size of the shortie to ensure we have the edge postflop and the shortie has the difficult decisions

For those who dislike shortstacks...

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