NL: Why the hate on short buy-ins?

[Nsight7]

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It's not so much hate as disgust. Short buy ins are cowardly. They are an admission that the player is incapable of play before after the flop. Denying his opponents the odds to play beyond the flop, he essentially turns poker into a game of blackjack. It's annoying to play a short stack. I sit down to play poker, preflop, flop, turn and river. Johnny shortstack plays one street poker. And I adjust to him. But it's dull adjusting to him. And shortstack play is not a 'strategy'. It's strategy free poker. In closing, the hate probably comes in when a short stack doubles and leaves the table immediately after, afraid to play real poker.

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Now this whole comment is just silly. You say it is not skilled to offer your opponents bad odds to chase you down? How much sense does that make? And what do you mean by "real" poker? Poker where one lets people take advantage of them?

Short-stacking certainly is a strategy though. It is a strategy that hinges on denying better players the ability to use their post-flop weapons and is very effective if you fail to adjust as a big-stack to their play. You said it yourself, you play poker to play pre-flop, flop, turn, and river. Your opponent knows this and actively denies your ability thus.

And even if you adjust, the short-stack still has people less aware wielding their stacks like indiscriminate mallets. It is something that, while not optimal, utilizes their pre-flop hand selection skills to their best and minimizes your edge.

Also, it plays well in a mixed format. I often play my primary site full-stacked and play tighter sites (i.e. Full Tilt) short-stacked so that I don't have to outplay them. I mix it up.

My wife though, she is not so good as I am. Her recent introduction to short-stack play is a good jumping point to stronger play.

And lastly, as many have already pointed out, 100BB isn't particularly deep (yeah, Absolute has 200BB max apparently, but I don't play there).