My thoughts on the Miller short stack theory

[Rudbaeck]

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where can I find Ed Miller's short stack strategy explained in detail?

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Getting Started in Hold'em

[BillsChips]

Hi,

I'm a beginner when it comes to NL and have just read GSIH. My question is regarding the "Playing the Short Stack" section when it comes to Post-flop play.

It says that if you raised before the flop and it is checked to you or you are first to act, you should raise all-in. What do you do when this isn't the case, for example, when you're in late position and and someone ahead of you raises?

Ex. I raise preflop in MP with QQ and get 3 callers. The flop comes K 9 2 rainbow. An early position player bets an amount that would put me all-in and there is one caller. What do I do? My gut tells me I'm looking at least Kings here.

[Ed Miller]

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Ex. I raise preflop in MP with QQ and get 3 callers. The flop comes K 9 2 rainbow. An early position player bets an amount that would put me all-in and there is one caller. What do I do? My gut tells me I'm looking at least Kings here.

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Your instinct to fold is right in this situation. Remember what you learned in the limit section about counting outs and pot odds, and apply that to these decisions in short-stack NL. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Ed

[BillsChips]

I went on a Casino boat on Saturday to try out the Short Stack theory. It was funny to hear all of the comments from the "Experts" at the table when I bought in for the $50 minimum (1/2 NL). Everyone had a very strong opinion as to why this is wrong. Three hours later, they were annoyed because I was "playing with their money".

First hand played:
I had JJ in late pos and raised it to $10. Flop was A K 3 all hearts. It was bet and raised so I folded.

Second hand played:
I had AKo in mid pos. It's raised to $10 and I make it $20.
One caller. Flop is K 10 8 rainbow. Checked to me I push all-in for $18. Everyone laughs, preflop raiser calls. I win when my AK beats his K9s.

Third hand played:
I have red QQ UTG. I raise to $10, 4 callers. Flop is A K 5 all clubs. I check and fold to a bet and raise.

Fourth hand played:
I have black AA (mid pos). It's $10 to me and I raise to $20, 3 callers. Flop is K Q 2 two spades. It's $20 to me and I push all in (~50) and get two callers. I win with Aces over deuces when board pairs on the river. Callers both had KQ.

After that I no longer had a small stack and never again went all-in. Total for the day +225.

It was fun.

[Matt Ruff]

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In Ed Miller's short stack system, is AK even worth raising with?

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Yes.

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Does it really win more than it loses when played this way?

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Over ~27,000 hands, my short stack winrate is 1.12PTBB/100 with AKs, and .96PTBB/100 with AKo. So, yeah.

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I'm getting sick of having my AK hands defeated by pocket twos. Why not just limp with them like you would any other limping hand.

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If you just limp, you are allowing all sorts of weak hands -- like pocket deuces -- see the flop cheaply. If you flop an ace or a king, you won't get any action from them, unless the flop hits them even harder. Yeah, it sucks to lose with an unimproved AK against pocket deuces, but it sucks even more to lose with TPTK against a set when you know you let the guy limp in.

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Why force yourself into a bluffing situation on the flop when you miss 68% of the time? At least with TT - AA you're not bluffing. You're value betting. I don't see how going all in with AK on a missed flop is value betting.

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Pocket pairs aren't the only hands that will call your preflop raise. Weaker aces will, too, as will suited and unsuited connectors, and guys with Q3o who feel like gambling. So even if the flop misses you, your AK will sometimes be the best hand, and even if it's not, you'll usually have outs.

And you won't always have AK. If Mr. Pocket Deuces catches you semi-bluffing with AK on a ragged flop, that should make him more likely to overplay his small PP next time, when you're holding a big pair.

[pokernicus]

Hi BillsChips,

Apologies in advance for a reply that comes over eight months since your post (only saw it when the thread got bumped with a more recent posting).

I definitely don't think that playing with a short stack is wrong. It would be a very good sign to play a short-stack strategy against people who think it's blatantly incorrect to play this way (because they are less likely to make the correct adjustments). In fact, the only thing I don't like about the short-stack strategy is having to play at a table with people who are employing it!

However, a player who really knows what he is doing is better off having the maximum buy-in. If you have your opponents covered, then you can win all of their chips. If you have a short stack and your opponents have you covered, you will at best double up your short stack (and be a less short stack).

Having said that, it's considerably more difficult to play with a big stack, so people are more likely to make more incorrect (read -EV) decisions -- especially since you are likely to be making a decision on every street (e.g., against another player with a reasonable size stack). On the turn and river, the decisions become very critical because they usually involve more money (as the pot builds and people make bets in proportion to the pot size).

With a short stack you are typically all in on the flop (and sometimes even pre-flop). So, you aren't making turn or river decisions (in which case your turn and river "decisions" are vacuously correct). Therefore, with a short stack it can be easier to make a smaller percentage of incorrect decisions, but at the same time your win rate will not be as high as a good deeper stacked player. This makes short-stack play much better for people trying to get their feet wet.

In the case of your experiences, I don't think you necessarily made the correct plays (it worked out in the end for you, but that doesn't mean you played it right); in other words, there are two ways to win money when playing poker: (1) you can make bad decisions, but get lucky or (2) you can make correct decisions avoid getting unlucky.

Making the minimum raise in the situations you describe seems questionable since you give your opponents very good odds to see the flop. If your opponents have two live cards, then about a third of the time one of those cards will pair on the flop. In your fourth hand, you got all your money in as a 2-to-1 underdog and managed to outdraw your opponents to triple up. Two-thirds of the time you would have lost your buy in.

[AKQJ10]

Wow.... I love to recycle old threads too. What a blast from the past.

This is as good a place as any to mention that i'm trying to put together a pretty comprehensive wiki article compiling arguments for and against the SSS at http://poker.wikia.com/wiki/Short_stack

IMO most of the really good arguments against it totally miss the point of what Ed was trying to accomplish. Yes, good players WILL make more deep stacked -- that was never in dispute -- and yes, you're forced to learn more by playing deep stacks (but jumping in at the deep end of the pool). I suppose it's really a pedagogical argument in the online world, because you can easily go play 1c-2c fully stacked to really "learn NLHE" or you can ease your way in at slightly higher stakes. But in the B&M world, I simply got sick of donking away cash at "fully stacked" $1-2 (such as it is, $100 at Foxwoods), and Ed's system helped me learn while making some of that back. I couldn't just go play B&M 10c-25c fully stacked to learn, although I did change my B&M/online mix toward the latter when I started getting serious about NL.

But the point of the wiki article isn't to promote my pro-SS point of view; the point is to compile all the arguments for and against so that I don't have to rewrite them every one of the 20 times a month this topic comes up on SSNL or Beginners.

Devious thought for the day: Could we devise a SSS for PLO (H or 8, take yer pick)? Or do all the draws and starting hand combos make Omaha too complex?

[MyTurn2Raise]

no....a short-stack strategy works for PLO when I tried it

I believe the 2+2 magazine articles have started to talk about it this month

[MyTurn2Raise]

BTW

The small stack strategy is break-even at most internet card rooms in my 100k plus experiment

[simple1248]

I have been 10+ tabling Stars for a couple months using what is essentially an EMSS strategy. Over 50k hands at $25 nl I made 1.7 bb/100. I moved up to $50 nl and logged 35k hands @ (-0.02)bb/100. The variance is really amazing. Particularly recently where I am down over 20 buy in's over 3500 hands.
Before that I was up a similar amount over about 15k+ hands even though I considered my luck factor to be in the XXXX's.

It seems logical that volatility would go up as there are fewer opportunities to get opponents to fold using a shortstack. I have read figures that suggest swings of at least 20 buy in's are not entirely uncommon, but these figures regard fully staked, skilled players.

What is an adequate sample size for determining long term results for an individuals take on EMSS?

Also, how substantially different is the volatility factor of an EMSS vs. skilled deep stack?