Poker: How to Play a Short-Stack Part 3

Playing short-stack with a stack size of 20BB:
As explained above, a number of online poker rooms no longer allow players to buy-in at 10BB, the normal minimum buy-in is now 20BB. By playing with twice as many chips a lot of difference is made to the way in which you should play a short-stack. Notably, it puts an end to the ‘push/fold' strategy. You can no longer risk 20BB for the purpose of picking up 1.5 blinds; this is no longer a reasonable feat. You will only be paid when holding the best hand, and will lose a lot more frequently, enough to ensure that the above strategy now has a -EV over the long-term. However, there are some advantages that you can draw from playing with 20BB, particularly pre-flop.

As you must have seen by now, many players like to open with small-pairs or assorted connectors, but against a short-stack your implicit odds a lot more reduced than this strategy necessitates. Against a player with a maximum buy-in you will have to play all the cards from the table, whereas against a short-stack your game is limited to the pre-flop and the flop. Consequentially, a player with 100BB in front of him can no longer play hands such as 2-2 or 6 of Spades-7 of Spades in a profitable way because the implicit odds are extremely poor.

When you have a short-stack you should adapt the amounts you raise:
As a short-stack it is important to adjust the amounts that you raise. Whilst a player who has the maximum buy-in will often raise at around 3BB or 4BB, you should fold. A large raise often pre-signals a large pot, and you will not often win more than the blinds. A small raise will bring you a lot more action. A large raise when you are playing short-stack signifies that you will need to follow any re-raise as the pot is already significant to the overall outcome of your poker session. Obviously, when you have a good hand it does not really matter about the raises as you are likely to win, however you should also be raising with other hands that are not as good.

If you raise at 5BB and a player re-raises All-In (thus for 20BB) you need to pay 15BB in order to win 25. You have odds of 5:3, i.e. you will need to win 38% of confrontations in order to break even. In contrast, if you raise 3BB and an opponent raises you All-In you will have odds of 23:17 and you should win 43% of the time. You will need to take the time to reflect on the nature of the hands opponents will be playing when they choose to re-raise at 20BB. The selection of hands will be a lot more limited for 10BB. A hand such as 7-7 wins 40% of the time against a standard selection, and thus you should pay when you have them in the first situation, but not in the second. Another difference is that once you have been re-raised in the second situation, it is easier to fold your hand, and you will lose 40% fewer chips after folding in the second situation than in the first. In the long-run this difference will add up to a significant amount of money.

At the flop you should once again adjust your strategy. If more than one player follows, the decision at the flop is often either to push or to fold, this is because you have to means to do this without being eliminated. If your raise of 3BB is not paid by a single player, there will be between 6 and 7.5BB in the pot (depending on your position and that of the payer in relation to the blinds). With a pot of 7BB, you will be left with a 17BB stack. If you make a continuation bet of 5BB you are still not irreversibly implicated in the pot. If you are re-raised All-In, your odds of paying are 28:12. This signifies that you should 12 times out of 40, equivalent to 30% of the pots. Against the majority of opponents you can pay with a good hand, such as a pair or a strong draw, and fold with the rest. If we compare this to raising 4BB pre-flop, the pot will be 9BB at the flop and then making a continuation bet of 6BB or 7BB. If you bet 7BB and you are re-raised All-In, your odds for following are 31:9, which signifies that it is sufficient for you to win only 22% of the time. In this case you can bet with a larger selection of hands, such as two over-cards at the flop, a base pair without kicker, or a gut-shot. The fact that you have invested 11BB instead of 8BB should tell you that your opponents will fold there hands 11/8 times more frequently, but this is not the case.

Starting from the premise that a large-stack opponent will realise extremely quickly that they can not fold every time simply because they are playing against a short-stack. The result is that with every time that you augment the amount of your raise, you reduce your chances of carrying out a good bluff. A raise of 2.5BB will sometimes work even better than a raise of 3BB. You can observe that this is even true in the advanced stages of a tournament, where it is often sufficient to raise 2.5BB and there will be several short-stacks at the table.

However, smaller raises at the pre-flop signify that you should be playing the flop more often. If the post-flop game is not your strength, then you should continue to raise 4BB. By raising with food hands, such as Jack-Jack + and Ace-Queen + all in the understanding that you are going All-In at the flop, you create a larger pot with your best hands whilst maintaining a good FE. On the other hand you can no longer satisfy yourself in waiting for premium hands; otherwise the blinds are going to chip away at your stack. This is particularly problematic when there are fewer players at your table and the rounds are played a lot faster.

Depending on the situation you need to adjust the size of your bets relative to the table you are playing on. At a tight table you can often win with small raises. If you are paid and the flop has seen some action you know that your opponent has a good hand. If on the contrary the table is loose you will need to raise with better hands. Try to make the pot grow rapidly in order to draw the large-aggressive types of player into the round thus forcing them to pay your good hands.

What you must never do is adjust your bets in relation to your cards. Never raise 5BB with 6-6 or 2BB with King-King. Nor vice-versa. If you do place bets in relation to your hands your opponents will cotton on very fast to the type of cards you are holding as you will be providing them with a very clear message.

Poker: How to Play a Short-Stack Part 1 Poker: How to Play a Short-Stack Part 2 Poker: How to Play a Short-Stack Part 3
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