By ShortStacker on June 30, 2009
In situation when you’re playing a 10BB stack, you certainly won’t be calling a lot of preflop raises on the button with five-three suited like you perhaps might playing deep stacks. You do want hands with showdown worth. But they don’t certainly have to be huge hands.
For example, you’re in the small blind with 10BB. Everyone folds to an assertive gambler in the cutoff who starts for 3BB. You have Ad7c. Your best step in this case is to depart. Sometimes you’ll catch the cutoff with a hand like nine-six suited and he’ll choose to fold. Sometimes he’ll have, for example, A-nine suited or K-J and call you. When you look at all the probable consequences? In one cases winning the pot straightway and in other cases getting called and winning a showdown ? Departing with the hand will mean an overall benefit.
A-seven offsuit isn’t a huge hand. But it’s sturdy enough given the stack sizes, the likely starting range of a gambler in the cutoff, and the random hand in the great blind to show a benefit.
Short stack play is based on the skill to find the appropriate borderline hands in these cases. Maybe departind with A-seven is profitable and Q-seven is vice versa unprofitable. Which hands are at the break-even point?
If everyone had folded to you in the small blind, then Q-seven offsuit is actually right around the break-even point for open-shoving 10BB. (See “The Mathematics of Poker” by Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman, p. 136) And that’s if your adversary plays a perfect 10BB stack strategy. If your adversary plays less than absolutly the best play than you can profitably shove some even not so strong hands.
The blinds won’t defeat you because you can adjust your strategy to the concrete situation. You can play as smartly or as loosely as the specific situation calls for. And when the game is shorthanded or the stacks are too small, it is better for you to play quite loosely.
I must take some of the sin for spreading the myth that playing a short stack it is the same as playing super-smart. In my book, “Getting Started in Hold ‘em”, I present a strategy for playing a 20BB stack that can be classified as super-smart. I created that strategy as an infallible one for rank beginners. I wanted to design a strategy that was very simple and understandable for the beginners. I wanted a strategy anyone could follow it and that would be at least break-even in all the standards, full ring cash game.
But my super-smart strategy isn’t the best strategy for 20BB stacks in a full ring game. It can be called just an adequate strategy.
In a fourhanded game with 10BB stacks, the strategy is absolutely terrible. The blinds in such a situation will indeed eat you alive, but it’s not because the stacks are too short to win. It may happen because the strategy doesn’t approach for those game characteristics.
If you come up with the true strategy, though, you can with benefit play 20BB in a ten-handed game, and you can with benefit play 8BB in a four-handed game. The blinds can’t destiny you to lose. It is only in rake’s capability.
Posted in Short Stack Strategy | Tagged 10bb poker, poker strategy, short stack, sss |
By ShortStacker on June 23, 2009
For sure all of you at least one time hear the next question:
How short a stack can you play before it’s not lucrative anymore? At some point the blinds eat you away so quickly that it is impossible for you to wait for a good hand anymore, is’t it?
This question is based on a wrong supposition that we are going to discuss in this article. It is true that there are some stacks are too short to play lucratively, but the offender isn’t the blinds. It’s the rake. The house which depends on the rake frame, is taking too large a percentage out of each pot for you to benefit with some short stack sizes.
But say you’re spending time instead of a rake, and the expense is comparatively small if compare to the game size. (If you don’t know, live cardrooms in most cases charge a flat fee of, for example, 7 dollars per half an hour in place of taking a rake.) Now you have a possibility to play any stack size profitably, starting from 1BB and up. The blinds are never so large that they can “eat you alive.”
The clearest reason why for your stack can be so short the blinds “eat you alive” is the table stakes rule. In case when you have a 10BB stack, then as far as you’re concerned your adversaries all have 10BB stacks as well. It is possible to apply this rule to everyone. In case when poker is “0” sum (as it often happens in a time game where the charge is very small in comparison with the stakes), if the same rules can be applied to everyone then no one can be intrinsically unprofitable. If I’m bound to lose money because I’m playing a 10BB stack, then who am I losing it to? The gambler across the table who is also playing efficaciously a 10BB stack whenever he’s in a pot with me? But if we’re both playing perfectly the equal stack size, then how it is possible that only one of us have an advantage? There is no sense to play in such a way.
No stack size is intrinsically unprofitable. It all depends on the strategy you use.
The reason the “blinds will eat you alive” mindset is not difficult to buy into is that we often suppose that short stack gamblers must always play very smartly. Eventually, when you play a 10BB stack you’re for sure will see a lot of showdowns. And if you’re bound for showdown, you would better have the goods, wouldn’t you ?
Posted in Short Stack Strategy | Tagged no limit texas holdem, online poker, poker blinds, short stack, texas holdem |
By ShortStacker on June 3, 2009
No Limit Hold’em Short Stack Strategy Guidance, Playing with a 10BB Stack. Part 1
One more problem to tackle in short stack no limit is how to act when facing an open raise. In most cases the raise will be to three-four times the big blind. Once again your only play is to fold or push. The accurate strategy depends on the belligerence of the raiser, but we present some general guidance that will be probably appropriate enough to use them in most situations.
You may add against:
- A raise from the first 4 positions: Push with JJ+, AK
- Raises from the next 2 positions: TT, AQ
- Cutoff raises: 99-88, AJ
- Button raises: 77-66, AT, KQs
- Small blind raises: 55-44, A7, KQ-KJ
But again this is quite compact, and you should open up just a little in case when the raiser is loose/assertive.
At last, sometimes you will receive a free play in the big blind. It is essential to make an attempt to maximize value in this case. With bad hands check and see a flop. Otherwise push all in. The way how you should play the flop is depend on your stack size and the number of adversaries you are facing. But there is a basic strategy which implies betting the pot with top pair or better until you are all in against any number of adversaries.
In situation when you are playing against 2 adversaries you may add middle pair and a flush/open end straight draw using two cards. In situation when you are playing against 1 adversary you may add several bluffs. Wager all the hands listed above, plus haphazard missed hands around 1/3 of the time. In case when called on your bluff, fold the turn. We present the simpliest strategy to play, but it is at least close to right. With such a short stack most gamblers will give you much action, so just a good hand gives you a chance to put the chips in the pot.
We repeat that the 10bb buy in is the most simple form of poker. This instruction will for sure put you 80% of the way to playing ideal10bb stack no limit hold’em. The rest 20% depend on gaining experience and reads on your adversaries. It is only no limit hold’em that can be completely described in such a short instruction like this one.
The disadvantage of this kind of poker is that while you will almost likely be a winner in the rest games, you cannot win in no limit hold’em unless you are up against adversaries that simply make terrible calls against you. But the game has also an advantage: this strategy will work even as you move up in stakes; in fact it may be even more efficient in these assertive games as your adversaries will be putting more money in preflop, which is good for you, as you can often receive your 10 big blinds in against their poor hands.
Short stack no limit hold’em with only 10bb may not demand a lot of skill or be very thrilling, but it’s a great way to increase your finances.
Posted in Short Stack Strategy | Tagged 10 bb strategy, 10bb poker, poker strategy, short stack, Short Stack Strategy, sss |
