[fnord_too]

There is nothing unethical about shortstacking. It is exploiting a very profitable situation within the rules, as opposed to say exploiting the rebuy trick before it was fixed, which was pretty sketchy from an ethics perspective. Does it cut into where some peoples profit comes from? Sure, but so does rake, and so does letting those annoying players who are better than you sit, and those bastards who think about the game and do math and analysis away from the table, and those other bastards who publish books and articles explaining things for people who can't work them out on their own, and those damn parents who stopped their kids from growing up to be degenerate gamblers with a good upbringing.

I have yet to here someone whos earn wasn't hurt by these guys complain about them (vice lots of people who were not affected by the rebuy trick, or softplay, or god playing on Roland de Wolf's account complaining about the same). Also, there are many people who are negatively impacted by these players who don't have a problem (philosophically) with them.

Poker is attracting more and more people who are really good and learning, adapting, and exploiting. They may do it in ways that one finds distasteful, but to sugest that something like short stacking is unethical when it is within the codified rules is just insane, and feeling offended by it in any way is probably hypocritical.