50NL- [censored] YOU SHORTSTACKS

[Imrahil]

Villain is unkown:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool (http://poker-tools.flopturnriver.com/Hand-Converter.php) from FlopTurnRiver.com (http://www.flopturnriver.com) (Format: 2+2 Forums)

UTG ($24.95)
Hero ($108.70)
CO ($45.25)
Button ($11.25)
SB ($31.25)
BB ($71.60)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 9/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 9/images/graemlins/club.gif.
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to $2</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, Button calls $2, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>.

Flop: ($4.75) 4/images/graemlins/club.gif, K/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 7/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets $3</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises to $9.25</font>, Hero?

I have been playing at like 30/27/3 over the time I've been at the table. I bet saying that if he pushes I fold but getting good odds it's hard to click that "fold" button.

[ama0330]

Easy fold for me. Unfortunately.

[Antinome]

With the club draw out there I call this a lot with hands as bad as MPTK. Not 100% sure if I win enough of them but I think I do.

[Hank Scorpio]

Fizold

[Check_The_Nuts]

I usually fold....

[iamVillaiNmo]

Yea, the inherent risks of leading into someone that will move over the top. He is not pricing a call here so fold.

I fold. I hate shortstacks so much ....

[Antinome]

no wonder they push into me with nothing when y'all fold so much. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Since this thread started I've called 4 of these with hands no better than OP and won all 4. Sorry guys, but I think pushing these with air is part of moron shortstack strategy. Calling them light ought to be our response.

[AKQJ10]

I love the sense of entitlement in the subject line -- don't you KNOW it's your duty to buy in full and lose the maximum to me?

Reminds me of everything I hate about poker players.

[barryc83]

AI. There's only 1 over out there and a flush/staight draw. You're getting close to 3:1, stick it in.

[iamVillaiNmo]

[ QUOTE ]
I love the sense of entitlement in the subject line -- don't you KNOW it's your duty to buy in full and lose the maximum to me?

Reminds me of everything I hate about poker players.

[/ QUOTE ]


Ahaahahahah....UB seems notoriously bad for shortstacked buy-in-ers.

[homeslice]

fold

[KungFuManchu]

This is a pretty easy problem to answer with pokerstove. IF you tighten his range to say:

TT+,88-77,44,AKs,AcQc,AcJc,AcTc,Ac8c,Ah8h,Ac7c,Ac6c,Ac5c,
Ac4c,Ac3c,Ac2c,KcQc,KhQh,KcJc,KcTc,Kc8c,K7s,QcJc,Q dJd,QcTc,
JcTc,AKo,K9o+

you basically win 21 percent, about 4:1. Your getting 2.3 on your money if you both go all in. about 30 percent. if you think hes bluffing 9 percent or more here, then you are breakeven. If he always has a hand or a higher draw then you gots to fold.

Now if we absolutly give him every suited club in the book. then you move up to 27 percent win. but thats unlikely. so Id say if hes bluffing 7-9 percent of the time, you are breakeven.

Edit: the pstove handrange is just that a str8 up handrange, Im not even going to try and guesstimate weighing it. but I think it serves its purpose.

EditEdit: I see a few hands that may need taken out, or put back in dependng on his looseness. so the bluffing percentage needs to be more like 11-8 ish percent to essentially be at the point of things being neutral-ish.

[betafemale]

What is the problem with shortstacks? I just love to play against them, when I pick tables I look for as many persons as possible with a stack around 50bb. So easy money and such low variance to play against them.

[AKQJ10]

Well, that's the other things that makes threads like this so funny. Most short stacks are not playing Ed Miller's by the book approach. (If they are, you can find a few holes and exploit them.) Most short stacks just suck. I'd rather play against a bad short stack than a mediocre deep stack, assuming I have a slight advantage over the mediocre deep stack.

The funny thing is how people find this such an agonizing decision. Deep stacked, I assume you usually fold this unless you know opponent to be tricky, but occasionally you might 3-bet against a tricky opponent. Some portion of that time you 3-bet, you're going to lose more than you lose here by calling. Your decision is no tougher because of the short stack; if anything, it's easier because if the SS is a known huge semibluffer he can't use the hammer of future betting to scare you away. Therefore complaining about the SS is just employing a convenient scapegoat to hide the real problem, something like "I don't observe my opponents so I have no reads," or "I'm weak-tight with middle pairs and opponents take advantage of this." If you can't beat a certain player short-stacked, you're unlikely to beat that same player deep-stacked, unless they're very very weak postflop compared to their preflop ability.

With reads my intuition says it's easy. Fold if he's straightforward, call if he's not. No reads =&gt; he's assumed to be straightforward until proven otherwise. The PokerStove analysis is very interesting but I think it pretty much agreed, yes?

[Imrahil]

I actually love playing against 50bb shortys but when they have like 20bb they can push in with so many stupid hands that when you call with bottom pair and they ace high you're happy but when they have TP your pissed.

50bb are actual medium stacks and not shortstacks. These guys are usualy ueberfish, cause they don`t benefit from anything. Cause they can`t play a shortstack strategy or a full stack strategy. I like them too.

[Imrahil]

[ QUOTE ]
50bb are actual medium stacks and not shortstacks. These guys are usualy ueberfish, cause they don`t benefit from anything. Cause they can`t play a shortstack strategy or a full stack strategy. I like them too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well yeah, medium stacks. I actually usually like short stacks because if they flop a gutshot they usually play them like the nuts. Also, I can't make too many mistakes against them. But it's just hands like these that are annoying. Pots that aren't very big, but they put you to a decision.

[holyfield5]

i just hate when shortstacks

A) are the PFR

B) reraise me which forces me to fold viable hands

C) make raises im inclined to call with weaker hands than id like because their range is so wide for pushing PF(AQ+ and 88+ are often pushable to them so a hand like JJ or 10 10 is tough decision.....either lose your raise/rr or call and often be dominated or at best a flip)

all that being said its still infinitely easier to play short stacks than deep opponents they are just annoying because you have to make some uncharachteristic folds and calls.

here are the tyoes of SS i see:

some SS slowplay like mad, some try to trap (/laff) some put it in with any pair, some put it in with only top pair.

Also, you have to adjust your PF strategy based on shortstacks that are still left to act behind you. Especialy in 6-max, where you usualy raise PP from any position or when open raising SC etc.. cause you don`t get the implied odds.

can`t raise 66 to 4bb when shorty is in BB with only 22bb left.

I do respect good shortstacks, but they are so annoying.

[A_C_Slater]

I've been experimenting with SSing lately buying in for the minimum and leaving when I double. So far I'm 18bb/100 over 2243 hands at $50NL (I get so many loose calls on flop pushes and I am never bluffing.) You can tell villian doesn't know how to play a shortstack simply from his preflop cold call. He should be pushing with any hand he elects to play with that stack size. I would say these hands are 88+ and AQ+. And you would make a small RR with AA.

Unexploitable. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

I would not be surprised if good shortstack play could be very profitable. It`s recommended in NLHE Theory &amp; Practice. Also Barry Greenstein recommends it in his book. I suck at it. My main goal is to become better at Poker in general, mainly postflop play, hand reading etc. , but for someone who allready is a consistent winner at a given level it`s probably good to experience with it.

I will probably try it out in the future, as well as playing some full ring.

[Esection]

fold. i know you just want to call out of spite etc, but he has a K here 100% of the time.

[AKQJ10]

I like your attitude. Preflop play with short effective stacks is a small sliver of full NLHE play, but still an important one. Unless you leave every cash game when short stacks develop and never play a tournament, you WILL have to play some hands with short effective stacks. So instead of bitching about it, why not learn to do it more effectively?

As many bad deep stacks as there are, I wouldn't short stack at stakes I knew I could beat deep stacking except as an experiment (or in the case of B&amp;M, due to bankroll issues).

[EMc]

AKQJT,

That is not necessarily true, wrt to unable to beat the same player deep-stacked. Most players learned what they learned from donkaments on TV and little tidbits from their friends, and that when short you need to find somewhere to stick it in and well, hope. Shortstacks give us trouble because they have taken away a lot of where our edge lies.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
fold. i know you just want to call out of spite etc, but he has a K here 85% of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

A flush draw, possibly as part of a combo draw, or OESD might make this play on occasion. But you're still probably behind with little chance of improvement.

[Vyse]

Wtf is wrt?

[AKQJ10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.r.t.

Google's handy.

[AKQJ10]

Well, I grant your point that it's not necessarily true. Someone could make great decisions preflop and bad decisions postflop. A medium-good player would lose to that sort of opponent playing short-stacked, but win a ton playing deep.

Thing is, I don't know many players like that. In part it's for the reasons you say. People try to learn from TV and may in fact have a good sense of how to read others based on gut feelings or intuition. Preflop play tends to be more "by the book," and people don't spend time reading up on poker. It's a bit paradoxical, because it's much easier to learn to play preflop than postflop, but most people still do it poorly.

As for applying the "push with any decent hand" tournament tactic, 90% of the time that's just wrong in cash game play. So when you say,

[ QUOTE ]
Shortstacks give us trouble because they have taken away a lot of where our edge lies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree inasmuch as short stacks require us to look for edges in different places than we're used to finding them. We're no longer looking for big IO against people who will pay off. Set-mining is no longer a cornerstone of our success. Playing SCs in hopes of flopping big draws is sort of useless.

OTOH, short stacks who play poorly preflop open other avenues to exploit them.

[EMc]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, I grant your point that it's not necessarily true. Someone could make great decisions preflop and bad decisions postflop. A medium-good player would lose to that sort of opponent playing short-stacked, but win a ton playing deep.

Thing is, I don't know many players like that. In part it's for the reasons you say. People try to learn from TV and may in fact have a good sense of how to read others based on gut feelings or intuition. Preflop play tends to be more "by the book," and people don't spend time reading up on poker. It's a bit paradoxical, because it's much easier to learn to play preflop than postflop, but most people still do it poorly.

As for applying the "push with any decent hand" tournament tactic, 90% of the time that's just wrong in cash game play. So when you say,

[ QUOTE ]
Shortstacks give us trouble because they have taken away a lot of where our edge lies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree inasmuch as short stacks require us to look for edges in different places than we're used to finding them. We're no longer looking for big IO against people who will pay off. Set-mining is no longer a cornerstone of our success. Playing SCs in hopes of flopping big draws is sort of useless.

OTOH, short stacks who play poorly preflop open other avenues to exploit them.

[/ QUOTE ]

The edge I refer to is actually superior post flop play, even if its just valuebetting more and stacking off less, and making a better decision later in the hand, to the early agression that we use in forms of continuation bets.