NL50 - shortstack donks
 

A situation like this one comes up regularly. Shorstacks are often loose and call preflop raises. I have trouble dealing with their donkbets. They often donk 1xBB into a 5xBB pot leaving 5-20xBB behind. Against a full stack I would often reraise without a hand but shorstacks call or push with anything because they do not risk much. How should I deal with this? Should I just fold for 1xBB if I have no hand?

Shorstack was something like 50/5 playing terribly postflop getting lucky several times only to loose all the money a couple hands later.

Here is an example

Party Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
http://www.legopoker.com/hh

BB: $12.21
Hero (UTG): $50.74
BTN: $62
SB: $51.09

Pre-Flop: 9d Jh dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $2, 2 folds, BB calls $1.50

Flop: ($4.25) 5d Ad 7s (2 Players)
BB bets $0.5, Hero folds?

Re: NL50 - shortstack donks
 

what about folding preflop?
the shortstack is in the BB and the BB is the one mostlikely to call.

as played just call the one bet, if he still bets small call down and see which hands he does that with

Re: NL50 - shortstack donks
 

i like a fold pre, or a $1.50 raise pre. as played just fold. everything else sucks. you don't have to win every pot you raise.

Re: NL50 - shortstack donks
 

yes I think the fold pf is the best option, I guess I did not notice how short he was when I raised, I would play a lot tighter otherwise.

But what about if I had AQ or AK, do I fold to the donkminbet? What if he bets 1$ instead of 0.5$? Calling down sucks and even a bad player will almost always fire a bigger bet on the turn or river if I just call which even a megafish can read for what it really is - "I do not have anything but do not want to fold".

Re: NL50 - shortstack donks
 

But what if you have say, AJ on the button and flop comes K82r against shorstack. Do you cbet?

Re: NL50 - shortstack donks
 

don't try to steal blinds from short stacks with hands that won't make a decent top pair. That's the only strategy against them and it is profitable since they will stack off with crap too often. Raise hands with high cards and commit when you hit a pair, preferrably TP. Don't try to bluff them postflop, don't cbet much. Just hit or miss. Fold suited connectors etc. You don't even need to balance your play so that they don't know what's going on, because you will usually take them down with a single shot. Spend your time watching the other players. When one of them comes along, things like domination come into play again. Don't play KTo aggressively against them when you hit a K.

BTW to the played hand: I don't fold for one BB. I call it and am out when he bets bigger. When I hit, I try to get to sd cheaply, i.e. c/c when he continues minbetting.

Re: NL50 - shortstack donks
 

[ QUOTE ]
But what if you have say, AJ on the button and flop comes K82r against shorstack. Do you cbet?

[/ QUOTE ]

Usually no. Why should I? If I have the best hand, I won't get him to put his chips in the middle but he will let me check it down and let me draw with my better hand. When he has something, he'll push me off my hand. You don't need to outplay these guys. Don't double your losses when you don't hit by cbetting. Only put more money in when you feel like your opponent tries to buy pots. Just call then, because otherwise you get pushed off the best hand too often. So when you see that a shortstack goes in all the time, calling with A hi can be good. But even then they will often have bottom pair, so...

Re: NL50 - shortstack donks
 

I cbet based on flop texture and villains "fold to flop bet" percentage. The size of villain's stack does not influence my decision much. If the flop texture is favourable I pick a bet size (based on the dryness of the flop) and see if it would be profitable against villains fold to flop bet %. As I cbet 2/3 of pot most of the time I am looking for a fold to flop bet of around 60%.

With some boards (like A47, K28 etc) I cbet regardless of villains stats.

Is this aproach OK?

Can I try to reraise these small donkbets like they were not there and I were just cbetting using the same method to determine if I should reraise or not as I use for cbets?

Re: NL50 - shortstack donks
 

fold PF

Re: NL50 - shortstack donks
 

[ QUOTE ]
BTW to the played hand: I don't fold for one BB. I call it and am out when he bets bigger. When I hit, I try to get to sd cheaply, i.e. c/c when he continues minbetting.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would do this with at least one overcard but here we might be drawing dead allready. Do we still call in hopes he has second pair or nothing?