Playing short stacks - ring games

Playing Short stacks in ring games?

are you more loose ( not totally loose ) than against a big/full stack ??? Especially when the Short stack is all in???

I have made a concious decision to hunt these short stacks down. Seems to be working for me.

Wanted to know if others have a strategy for these folk....

Mmm, I dunno, I generally find them more trouble than they're worth.

They're usually afraid of losing money which is why they buy in so short. Then when they do play, it's often all-in preflop or on the flop. In a way it makes sense since they don't have money to do any manouvering on the turn or river anyways but often it bloats the pot size early.

I like to pound the living crap out of short stacks. If a knucklehead wants to sit down without enough chips to out-play me post flop then its all dead money as far as I'm concerned. I make sure that every limp is punished for them so that they never get a cheap flop. I raise every one of their BB's. I will take a 1/2 pot stab at every pot when I have position over them. I play any good heads up hand or top pair extra hard against them too. Basically you want to suffocate them. You want to make it as difficult as possible for them to see cards. Make them risk 1/3 their stack for any draw they would even consider risking. The more pressure you can put on these players the more likely they will eventually crack. And if you should bump into a strong hand from them hopefully youve already taken enough blinds off them to ease the pain of doubling them up. Besides with an increased range of hands you play against them there is an increased chance of catching something lucky.

I only play nl short stacked. I love it when people try to pound on me.

It really depends on the short stack player, they are not all the same. Some are just as big of idiots as the typical big stack player - or worse - and some are tighter than a 12 year-old.

Whenever I conciously go out of my way to target anyone I am usually playing less than my best game.

I have about 12,000 hands of short stack play on UB and Party where I bought in for about 24bbs. I am running at about 3ptbb/100, but I can four table and clear bonus much more quickly this way. It also helps me work on my MTT game.