WVHillbilly
Legend
Silver Level
Not all shorties are the same. There are BAD nitty shorties (9/7 types) who you should just steal from and fold if they 3bet. There are BAD shorties who play too wide a range, setmine without odds, and play too passively. Against this type you just play straight forward. You will end up calling shoves more often postflop since SPRs will be really small. If you play micro stakes that's about the only types of shorties you'll see. There are NO good short stackers at micro stakes.
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Big_Rudy
Legend
Silver Level
^^This. I don't play cash anymore, but when I did a significant portion of my winnings came from shorties. They seem to generally actually be worse than the typical micro-fish. Never really understood all the concern of shorties at this level tbh. In fact I used to enjoy playing against them..... Makes my decisions simple.
WVHillbilly
Legend
Silver Level
The only reason to hate them at micros stakes is because they are taking the seat away from an equally awful full stacker.
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Big_Rudy
Legend
Silver Level
The only reason to hate them at micros stakes is because they are taking the seat away from an equally awful full stacker.
Ok, there is that..... but otherwise generally easy money. Especially the ones who'll reload 5-6 times before abandoning the table when they realize their shit "tactics" aren't working.
TheGenera1
Visionary
Silver Level
Why do losing players actually play the short stack strategy at micro stakes. It confuses me. Surely they must realise they are losing money doing it. My personal theory is that they don't even realise that short stacking is actually a strategy and are simply playing the short stack to either save them selves money or don't actually realise that 100bb is a standard buy in and playing poker can be done with what ever stack size you want, profitably.
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Arjonius
Legend
Silver Level
While I doubt many will admit it, the main reason for short stacking at micros is fear of losing full stacks. If you're a winning player, you want to have a full stack in order to maximize how much you win when weaker players hand you their stacks.
Sure, you lose more when you get stacked, but given you're a winning player, you'll win more stacks than you'll lose. So, having as large a stack as possible maximizes your profit.
Also, while it's probably possible that short stacking micros can be a winning strategy if applied well, I'd say that anyone with enough ability to do so also knows that they'll make more by playing with full stacks.
Sure, you lose more when you get stacked, but given you're a winning player, you'll win more stacks than you'll lose. So, having as large a stack as possible maximizes your profit.
Also, while it's probably possible that short stacking micros can be a winning strategy if applied well, I'd say that anyone with enough ability to do so also knows that they'll make more by playing with full stacks.
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BlueNowhere
Legend
Silver Level
Against shortstacker your range should be wider than that for stacking pre imo.
flatcaller
Rock Star
Silver Level
50bb seems a lot for short stack obv it can happen but normally i would relate short stack to under 30 or 20 bb. Only reason i bring this up is because playing against some one with 50bb leaves a lot of room for play. opposed to some one with 20bb where they may get it in at any time a player with 50bb is prob not getting it in as quickly.
T
TheBowlBoy
Rock Star
Silver Level
Haven't posted anything in like forever in this forum but 2p2 is down so....
The new shortstacker plays 40bb these days, at least on Stars. There are tons of them, mostly from European countries as well as Russia and China.
Many of them are actually marginal winners. A lot of full stack regs don't know how to properly adjust to them and a full stack fish will often play worse against a 40bb stack then a full stack. Fish call all in bets on the turn with draws against 40bb stacks but wind up calling smaller bets against a full stacked player and then sometimes being compensated by sucking out and getting paid on the river. I think they often play bigger pots with weaker made hands like middle/bottom pairs because its just easier to get the money in, whereas they normally just call the flop and turn and fold the river, or full stack reg is afraid to value bet the river in fear of being check raised whereas shorties have no problem jamming anything decent.
I think that they pretty much all get their strategy from the same websites because they often have super wide 3bet ranges. Some of them 3bet merged ranges like all pairs and KQ+,AJ+. Can't really 4bet those guys light, but many of them are super polarized especially button vs CO and button vs blind, and you can profitably shove a super wide range on them. Like any pair and any broadway as well as A9o+ Axs, and some weaker suited kings. I don't have exact ranges down but I just look for guys who are folding to 4bets often and hammer them.
Oh and they do not adjust.
Another good strategy against them is flatting their 3bets and check raising most flops all-in. Against some, it isn't even really important to have much equity when called because their range is so wide and they only know to cbet all flops in 3bet pots.
Other than that, it can be a good idea to tighten up a bit when they are to your left but that is probably not even necessary so long as you are comfortable 4betting them real wide.
The new shortstacker plays 40bb these days, at least on Stars. There are tons of them, mostly from European countries as well as Russia and China.
Many of them are actually marginal winners. A lot of full stack regs don't know how to properly adjust to them and a full stack fish will often play worse against a 40bb stack then a full stack. Fish call all in bets on the turn with draws against 40bb stacks but wind up calling smaller bets against a full stacked player and then sometimes being compensated by sucking out and getting paid on the river. I think they often play bigger pots with weaker made hands like middle/bottom pairs because its just easier to get the money in, whereas they normally just call the flop and turn and fold the river, or full stack reg is afraid to value bet the river in fear of being check raised whereas shorties have no problem jamming anything decent.
I think that they pretty much all get their strategy from the same websites because they often have super wide 3bet ranges. Some of them 3bet merged ranges like all pairs and KQ+,AJ+. Can't really 4bet those guys light, but many of them are super polarized especially button vs CO and button vs blind, and you can profitably shove a super wide range on them. Like any pair and any broadway as well as A9o+ Axs, and some weaker suited kings. I don't have exact ranges down but I just look for guys who are folding to 4bets often and hammer them.
Oh and they do not adjust.
Another good strategy against them is flatting their 3bets and check raising most flops all-in. Against some, it isn't even really important to have much equity when called because their range is so wide and they only know to cbet all flops in 3bet pots.
Other than that, it can be a good idea to tighten up a bit when they are to your left but that is probably not even necessary so long as you are comfortable 4betting them real wide.