Short Stack Cash Game

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Ben Wilson

Short Stack Cash Game Math
Short Stack Cash Games
Short Stack Cash Game
Money Cash Stacks

A short stack means having a smaller number of chips in comparison to the average stack size at the poker table. For cash games, a short stack typically has less than 40 big blinds and for tournaments less than 20 or 30 big blinds, depending on the speed of the event and how fast the blinds go up. Short Stacking in Cash Games. Short-Stack Cash Game Play. Poker Coaching PREMIUM: Getting Started Short-Stacked Play Short-Stack Cash Game Play. Lesson Progress 0% Complete Insert directions / copy. Watch the following Classes: GTO Short Stack Adjustments with Jonathan Little. Short stack play - the extreme measures/adaptive game-plan a short-stacked player will undertake to stay in the game. The characteristics of this effect/game-plan tends to include higher levels of aggressive play - constant raises or all-ins most hands and as most of them have suffered earlier on in the game at some point (either by being donked out or by making a big mistake themselves) it. Learn your preflop ranges. When short stacked preflop, it’s important to use solid opening and three. Simplified Decisions. When playing a 100 big blind or bigger stack, most of the tough spots come on.

Spin-ups have long been a part of online poker; players take shots at higher levels and every player dreams of spinning their bankroll up to six-figures, but the sad fact of the matter is – not everyone can be that lucky. Taking shots can sometimes be a little risky, and more than a few budding poker stars have gone broke playing above their bankroll or by sitting at a table with their entire roll in front of them. Indeed some might go so far as to call this gambling…

While playing within your bankroll at the micro-stakes levels (anything $0.25/$0.50 and under) can occasionally be a bit of a grind, sometimes living a bit dangerously is fun and gambling like anything else (except perhaps crack cocaine usage) is fine in moderation. In fact, what if I told you there was a way to build yourself a sizable online bankroll without risking your entire net worth. A way that enabled you to play at decent stakes online without having to pay in thousands of dollars onto an internet poker account. How, I here you ask? By going on the rampage…

'Rampaging' is a growing trend amongst online players who want to play at stakes where they can win decent money without necessarily having the bankroll behind them. The more traditional early form of rampaging involved sitting down at a table with your entire online bankroll, or at least the entirety of the roll sitting in your online account. Needless to say, this is a very 'boom or bust' approach that has seen more than a few people chew through their online roll with nothing but an empty poker account to show for it. No, the thinking man's rampage is where it's at these days.

The ethos behind modern rampaging stems from the short-stack approach to the game; buying in for the minimum at a level like $0.10/$0.25 for $5, only playing premium hands and shipping most of the money in either pre-flop or on the flop, doubling-up and then leaving the table. Now while your online short-stacking grinder will do this repeatedly over several tables at once and tend to stick to the same levels, your discerning rampager must take a different approach.

Normally, to play at the $1/$2 tables you need a bankroll of at least $4,000, where a single buy-in is $200 or around 5% of your roll. At the $0.10/$0.25 levels then, your bankroll needs to be around $500. But (and this is where rampaging really comes into its own) while you are short-stack rampaging you are buying in for the minimum so your bankroll can be that much smaller – a short-stacked rampager can have a bankroll of $50 to play in a $0.10/$0.25 game and still only be buying in for 5% of their roll.

Rampaging works best at the six-max tables and lends itself just as well to Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) as it does to No Limit Texas Hold 'Em (NLHE). In fact, poker author Rolf Slotboom discusses an excellent way to short-stack the PLO tables that lends itself particularly well to rampaging in his book 'Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha', which is definitely worth a read if you are looking to improve your online PLO game and increase your aggression factor.

Controlled aggression is an essential part of all good poker player's games; usually the more aggressive the player, the better the results. However, in the modern online game everyone is aggressive and it is this fact that the rampaging player will be using to their advantage:

Preparation is the key to success here – you are looking for a table (or tables) with a high average pot but with a low 'players per flop percentage'. Scan through the available tables (or use software like Table Tracker or SpadeIt that can be programmed to search for specific players or tables) until you see one that matches your requirements, then open it up and study how the game is playing out.

A table with large pots and less players per flop generally means that there are fewer calling stations on the table and one or two aggressive players who are committing quite a bit of money to the pots, usually through a combination of pre-flop raises and re–raises – which is just what you want. The more players who see a flop increases the amount of variance present in the game; the harder it is to get your hand heads-up or three way, the more likely it is that your big hands will get cracked. By picking a table with aggressive players (especially those who like to raise and re-raise to isolate pre-flop) you stand a better chance of taking your hand heads-up, where your penchant for picking strong starting hands provides you with an edge over the starting hand ranges of a good LAG (loose-aggressive) player.

You will be buying in for the minimum (although you could stretch to double the minimum i.e. $10 in a $0.10/$0.25 game if you want a bit more play) and looking to sit with a strong aggressive player to your left (yes, you want them to have position on you).

Patience is the key here; you are waiting for fairly decent hands. In Hold 'Em you will be playing the big Pocket Pairs (Aces down to Tens) and big Aces (suited or unsuited) down to Ace Queen. You can mix this up in late position by playing pairs down to Sevens, suited Aces down to Ace Ten and unsuited Aces down to Ace Jack.

In PLO, hands like double-suited Aces or Kings where all four cards work well together and double-suited run-down hands are what you are looking for. When you find a hand that you like you usually just want to call knowing the aggressive player will raise and get called in a couple of spots so you can re-raise all-in. Obviously you need to mix this up with some Button raises and re-raises when you have the goods as well so you don't become too predictable. When playing Hold 'Em this strategy differs slightly from PLO; it is usually better to be the raiser to reduce the number of players who see the flop.

Hopefully the obliging LAG should re-raise giving you some protection and taking the hand heads-up so you are getting around 3-1 on your money while being anywhere around an 80/20 to 60/40 favourite in the hand. Obviously this is not an exact science and the key to success is picking your spots carefully. Occasionally you'll be against two other players in the pot and while your win percentage may drop here you are still getting a pretty good return on your money for taking a favourable gamble. The trick is not to get too greedy, as soon as you have doubled up and have enough to buy in for the minimum for the next level you leave the table and jump up stakes. Rampaging differs from short-stacking in the fact that you are consistently moving up levels while only risking around 5% of your roll.

Of course, you can experiment with this strategy a little if you find a level you are comfortable playing at and wish to stick around in a particular game for a while. However, remember the whole point of rampaging is to move UP the stakes.

The best part about this approach is the fact you are risking a little to win a lot in a short space of time, while still using some semblance of bankroll management: While you are effectively playing higher than your roll allows you should still only be risking around 5% of your total net worth. The best way to ensure success is to give yourself a total you are happy reaching and then calling it quits and banking the money. If, at any point throughout the rampage you have reached a point where you are sitting with an amount in front of you that is more than 10% of your roll (or more than your entire bankroll if you are that lucky) then take the money and run.

While you won't make many friends doing this (short-stackers are universally hated and despised) there are no friends at the poker tables anyway and the internet in particular allows you to indulge in some behaviour that just wouldn't run in a live game.

Be warned however, that this approach can stunt your poker game if relied upon too heavily. If done properly it's a great way of building a bankroll that enables you to play at decent stakes with minimum risk. If it works, it can see you spin up an initial $50 deposit to a couple of thousand, enabling you to play the $0.50/$1 properly while occasionally attempting to take shots and enjoy the odd rampage at the higher levels, if it doesn't work you've lost $5. Show me a downside…

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For many players who regularly sit down at cash tables in the modern game, once they have found some level of comfort with the quality of their 'full stacked 100bb' skills, one of the ways in which they frequently find themselves in awkward situations is when faced with an opponent wielding a stack typically sized between 20 – 50 big blinds. Here I hope to shed some light on short stack poker strategy to help improving players who are looking for some answers on the matter.

The good news is that once we find ourselves in a situation where the money is often going in preflop, we can use some simple mathematics to make quality decisions. We are also happy to hear that the vast majority of short stackers are players who started their session with a full or close to full stack, but haven't re-bought. This is an indication that the player isn't following any particular strategy related to stack size, which any competent player will do.
This information, along with our HUD stats should allow us to nail down exactly what strategy to use against them. No more guessing, or even better, no more nitting it up. Many players fall into the trap of folding too much against a short stacked opponent for reasons such as having a fear of getting shoved on and not knowing how wide they can profitably call. They just have a feeling that they don't want to get involved, assuming that it isn't so important anyway.

Well it is important, as these guys will eat into your win rate if you let them get away with it!

I'll start with some general principles and adjustments we need to make. As the effective stack size decreases our implied odds also decrease. This affects the range of starting hands we should be opening pre flop and also our cold calling range.
The shorter the stack the more extreme your adjustment should be. Rather than posting a number of hand charts for each stack size, I will attempt to give more general advice so you can think for yourself in-game, and do your own EV calculations to make yourself more comfortable.

Changing hand values

For our purposes we should distinguish the starting hands between high equity type, and low equity type/speculative.

Hands such as KK and AKs are high equity hands, they will often be the best hand on the flop, and will win an all-in confrontation with a high frequency. With high cards you will simply get to showdown with the best hand a lot more frequently than low cards.

Hands such as 54s and 86s are speculative hands which will not be ahead on so many flops when multiple players hit, but when they do hit you have a chance to flop or later make a strong '5 card hand'. This hand type needs to be playing against a deep stack to maximise its profitability. Even in today's tougher games I still see players cold calling this hand type when a short stacked player has open raised, thinking they can use their post flop skill advantage to make it a profitable move.

Once the effective stack size decreases below 50bb, the post flop skill edge we might have playing 100bb+ deep has been greatly reduced. We need to be aware when our implied odds have been reduced, and look to tighten up our cold calling range by removing some or all of this hand type.

One adjustment we can make with this hand type is to 3 bet them in position when a full stacked opponent opens and we have short stacker to our left. This way we side step the increased probability of getting 3 bet if we cold call and having to fold, but at the same time we have a hand which can flop well, even if traditionally small suited connectors aren't at their best playing a pot with a small stack to pot ratio. Here we are also utilising our fold equity pre flop which may even work out to be more profitable than cold calling without any short stackers present.

Pocket pairs and suited aces are a special case, somewhere in between high equity and speculative. For example, if a 25bb stack opens from the small blind and we have 22 in the big blind, we should no longer be looking to flat call hoping to hit a set. We just won't win enough chips even if we can get the small blind to put all of his chips in the middle to make it a profitable plan of action.
However, one thing that pocket pairs are okay at, is bluffing in an all in situation where we are sure we have at least some fold equity, and even if we get called we can reasonably expect to have around 35% equity. Suited aces will have slightly less equity if called, but can be used to extend your bluffing range if your opponent is expected to fold with a high enough frequency.

Just to clarify, we aren't looking at calling off with pocket pairs and suited aces, having some fold equity is key to making your bluff a profitable move as we will see later when I do some example EV calculations.

Multi-Way Pots

When we do find ourselves playing multi-way with a mix of short and deep stacks we just need to accept that our creative play options against the other deep stacks are almost non existent. Fortunately, in the micro stake games we have an added bonus that many players will adjust terribly against the short stack and sometimes we will have a strong hand, this more than makes up for when we have to miss out on potential value to avoid a short stack exploiting us.

In a way, the need to to play more straight forward, makes our life easier, we get to play a value orientated strategy which gives us less to think about, and less scope for errors which will reduce our win rate.

Short Stack Cash Game Math

Open Raise Sizes

Over recent years the average open raise size has reduced from all positions on average, but one spot where we should be as small as possible is from late position with a short stacker still to act. I recommend 2.4bb from the CO and small blind, and a min raise from the button.
This means we lose less when we get re-raised pre flop, and we also make the pot smaller to begin with, making it a less attractive steal opportunity. Most short stackers at the micro stakes play a strategy which is too rigid, meaning that when we use a smaller size to steal with, they are unlikely to adjust enough to counter.

Trapping

It should now be obvious that one of the benefits of playing with a short stack, is that we can steal in many situations. Even bad players learn quickly that they can get many folds in a variety of situations. One of the most common spots is when there is an open raise preflop and one or more callers. The average short stacker will be shoving all-in with a wide range and expecting to get plenty of folds.
So it logically follows if we have a premium hand it is worth considering cold calling instead of the usual squeeze play, and hoping that the short stacker shoves. Not only has under representing our hand helped us to trap one player for all their chips, the original raiser might now feel they can get us to fold by shoving the remainder of their 100bb stack.

Example EV Calculation

There are many different types of useful EV calculations we can do to work towards perfecting our anti-shortstack play. Here is probably the most simple, a method to work out what range of hands we can 3 bet shove all-in against a short stacker.

In our example an unknown 30bb stack open raises to x3bb from the cut-off in a 9 handed micro stakes cash game. The button and small blind both fold

Our hand is ATs and we are in the big blind

First we need to make an assumption about what range of hands villain will call with if we shove. It doesn't matter if you consider this range accurate, the mathematical method is what's important here.

So lets assume villain is opening 25% of hands and will call with 22+, A2s+, K9s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 76s, 65s, 54s, ATo+, KTo+, QTo+, JTo, T9o. This works out to about 50% of his original opening range.

ATs vs this calling range has 36.24%, leaving villain with 63.76%

Part 1 – What happens when all the chips go to the middle.

Using the standard EV formula

EV = [Probability(Win) * what we win] – [Probability(Lose) * what we lose]

EV = [0.4222 * (1.5bb(the blinds) + 3bb(villains open raise) + 27bb(the rest of villains stack))] -

[0.5778 * (30bb]

Short Stack Cash Games

= 13.229 – 17.334 = -(4.03bb)

So when we do get called we can expect to lose on average a little more than 4bb

Part 2 – What happens when we take into account fold equity

FE = 50%

Using the same formula as above

EV = [0.5 * 4.5bb] – [0.5 * 4.03bb]

= 2.25bb – 2.015bb

=0.235bb

Now with fold equity taken into account we now have a slightly profitable shove, although I haven't mentioned rake yet which won't change things too much but still shouldn't be ignored entirely when looking at close decisions.

I hope this article was useful for you and I look forward to reading your comments below!

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