I found this works pretty well.

Early position opens.

You are sitting in middle position with middle stack. And you get a really strong hand KK-AA.

You notice there is a player with under 6BB in the blinds.

Odds are if you just flat call, that the blinds player is going to Jam. Then the early position player is forced to call. But if you happen to have raised, even if the late position player calls you can't reraise, I think it has something to do with reraising for less which isn't allowed.

Thought it was a cool little trap, using the short stack to check raise the opener.

This is not a general rule but yes I can tell that by flatting(under represent) a total monster hand if you have a shovable stack behind + you give the initial open raiser the odds to see a flop + having him(open raise) in position then yes I like it.

But don't forget that the general rule is to go heads up in a flop and not give the chance/odds for multiple callers.

I do it too if there is a maniac after me in order to induce a 3bet / 3bet jam by him , I think those scenarios, as everything in poker , depends in many factors like the line up of the table!

Yeah, if the short stack's shove is short of a min raise, it isn't considered a raise. It doesn't come up often, but it's something you need to be aware of.

Originally Posted by blix177

Odds are if you just flat call, that the blinds player is going to Jam.

This is where, I think, your analysis is a little bit off. If someone is down to 5-6BB, they have no fold equity and especially not against multible players. So having someone open from EP and someone flat that open is a huge disincentive for a 5-6BB stack to enter the pot, even if they are getting a discount from being in the blinds. To survive in the tournament they will need to beat two hands at showdown, and at least one of the opponents has a very strong range.

This is not great at all, so unless they have a really strong hand, they are better off folding and hoping for a better spot in one of the next hands. Ideally they want to get it in against just one player, who either defended his big blind or opened from late position, because this will mean the widest range. There are also some players, who will just call preflop, even its for almost half their stack, and then you also dont get the desired result.

The situation, where this play works much better, is when there are aggressive squeezers behind, and they have re-shove stacks. Ideally you want them to think, they have fold equity and jam their 15-30 BB stack in the middle with a hand, that would never have given action, had you put in a 3-bet. If the original raiser fold in this scenario, that is fine, because you already got action from the player behind by "trapping" him.

I see a few things wrong with this. One is that the blinds player with a small stack may not always shove and shouldn't unless they have something strong. They should know that if they raise all in here then the original raiser is priced in to call and you as the over caller of the initial raise is now really priced in to call. Yes they may at times think of it like a squeeze play but it will not work the same as a squeeze and they will get called often. That is not to say that maybe the blinds player is not picking up and this and will jam but just saying I would not count on the blinds player with a small stack to jam over.

Secondly, if we just call with our hand like AA and KK and especially if it is a min raise then we have a string chance of getting a lot of players in the pot. This will make playing post flop much harder and even though over time we will get more money this way when we have AA and KK we will also increase our variance considerably and put our self at risk of losing a big pot.

Lastly, the rule for the initial raiser not being able to re raise is only if the raiser in the blinds does not have enough to cover the amount that the initial raiser raised over the big blind amount. If the initial raiser raises to 2.5BB and the big blind jams 5BB over that then the initial raiser still has the opportunity to raise the pot since the raise by the initial raiser was only 1.5BB and the 5BB jam was a raise of 2.5 BB.

playing this way you can see the flop with 3-6 players, and what is the winning percentage against 2-4 players? my opinion is that a raise would be better