The Virtues of Playing the Short Stack

[royalburrito24]

We continue to stress that some people attempt the short stack approach, however they absolutely fail at the lower limits.
For example:
full tilt poker Game #6620909465: Table Spanish Trail - $0.05/$0.10 - No Limit Hold'em - 3:09:20 ET - 2008/05/30
Seat 1: ImAfoldExpert ($16.40)
Seat 2: win3674 ($10)
Seat 3: royalburrito24 ($10.25)
Seat 4: iching64 ($10.05)
Seat 5: belowme14 ($2)
Seat 6: KIN PO ($10)
Seat 7: edotensei ($11.55)
Seat 8: DistantPhil ($4.40), is sitting out
Seat 9: MaximumShark ($20.20)
belowme14 posts the small blind of $0.05
KIN PO posts the big blind of $0.10
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to royalburrito24 [Qh Qs]
edotensei folds
MaximumShark folds
ImAfoldExpert folds
win3674 folds
royalburrito24 raises to $0.30
iching64 folds
belowme14 raises to $2, and is all in
KIN PO adds $0.10
KIN PO has 15 seconds left to act
KIN PO folds
royalburrito24 calls $1.70
belowme14 shows [Td Kc]
royalburrito24 shows [Qh Qs]
*** FLOP *** [6h 6s 8h]
*** TURN *** [6h 6s 8h] J♥
*** RIVER *** [6h 6s 8h Jh] 8♣
belowme14 shows two pair, Eights and Sixes
royalburrito24 shows two pair, Queens and Eights
royalburrito24 wins the pot ($3.70) with two pair, Queens and Eights
belowme14 is sitting out

Edit: I also found a quote in a different issue of Cardplayer. The columnist says almost the opposite, saying that you will never see a professional poker player buying in short to a cash game.
"Buying in for the minimum would cut down on your fluctuation, but it will not teach you how to play the game well. I do not know a single pro player who is a short-stack specialist. The term "short-stack professional poker player" is in my opinion an oxymoron (a figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms)" (Bob Ciaffone, My New Poker Student-Part I, Card Player Magazine - My New Poker Student - Part I by Bob Ciaffone)
I am pretty sure Ed Miller is considered a pro, who loves to short stack.

 

[zachvac]

"Buying in for the minimum would cut down on your fluctuation, but it will not teach you how to play the game well. I do not know a single pro player who is a short-stack specialist. The term "short-stack professional poker player" is in my opinion an oxymoron (a figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms)" (Bob Ciaffone, My New Poker Student-Part I, Card Player Magazine - My New Poker Student - Part I by Bob Ciaffone)
I am pretty sure Ed Miller is considered a pro, who loves to short stack.

Well I forget who said this, but I remember hearing that shortstacking essentially turns poker into a 3-street game. The money's always in by the flop. It also doesn't take as much skill (the reason not so good players can beat good players, it's just the mathematical advantage).

I'm considering short-stacking 100nl for the next 2 days just to make fpps, since you get fpps just for being dealt cards. I started 6-tabling last night but I need way more hands/hour to hit platinum this month, so I may go into 16-tabling with a shortstack strategy where I just fold and collect fpps the majority of the time.

Oh and bad shortstackers go all the way to at least 100nl. From this hand: https://www.cardschat.com/forum/general-poker-13/omg-100nl-115147/post-808011.html you'll see that seadragon raises, putting 1/5 of his stack in he middle, and folds to a re-raise. You should never be raising with a hand you aren't willing to stack when you're sitting on 20 big blinds.

 

[BelgoSuisse]

I'm considering short-stacking 100nl for the next 2 days just to make fpps, since you get fpps just for being dealt cards. I started 6-tabling last night but I need way more hands/hour to hit platinum this month, so I may go into 16-tabling with a shortstack strategy where I just fold and collect fpps the majority of the time.

That will be an interesting experiment. Did you try short stacking before at lower levels?

Looking forward to reading about your results. Hope you don't fare better than when you deep stack otherwise you'll feel terrible about it...

 

[SavagePenguin]

Another advantage of playing a short stack game that I haven't seen mentioned.

Let's say that you are under rolled. For example, you have $20 on pokerstars. That's not the rcommended BR for any NL ring game.
If you buy in for the full $5 at the lowest stakes, a bad steak will murder you.

However, if you buy in for $2 at each table, then you can exploit your skill advantage over more sessions, thereby reducing the effects of variance.

So in this case you are sacrificing greater potential profit in favor of consistency/safety over the long haul because the penalty for losing is too great.

 

[Egon Towst]

a bad steak will murder you.

In that case, I will stick to fish.

 

[WVHillbilly]

^^^ :rofl:

You need to cook it longer IMO.

 

[SavagePenguin]

But the steak was fresh. How could it go bad so soon?