Thinking Like a Short-Stacker

One of the most controversial things I’ve ever written about poker was in the no-limit hold’em section of my book Getting Started in Hold’em. In that section, I outlined a strategy in which you would buy in for just 20 big blinds — for example, $100 in a $2-$5 game. The strategy had you wait for big pairs and big-card hands (exactly how big depended on your position relative to the button), and then push them very hard with raises preflop and all-in bets on the flop. It was an extremely simple strategy, and in the book, I claimed that even a beginner could show a profit in most hold’em games.

The book was written in 2005, and in the intervening five years, no-limit hold’em has changed dramatically. Players today are much more sophisticated than they were then. To show a profit, my strategy relies on your opponents being willing to play against your J-J with hands like 9-7 suited. In some small-stakes live games today, you can still find players so naive that they play that way, and in these games, I think the strategy would show a profit. But in online play, even at the tiniest stakes, your opponents will be far too sharp for this simple strategy to work.

Nevertheless, short-stackers — players who buy in for a small amount, often 20 big blinds — are still successful online at a very high level. These modern-day short-stackers are not playing my simple strategy for beginners. They are playing a much more complex strategy. In this column, I’ll give you a little insight into how they turn their small stacks into big wins.

Blinds Stealing

My tight strategy relies on getting paid off to be successful. If you play very tightly, you will lose a lot in the blinds. You need to make up those losses (and more) on the hands that you do play. You have to find people willing to pay off your strong hands, or you’ll slowly get blinded away.

Modern-day short-stackers play in an environment in which most games are tight. They react to this environment by winning more pots uncontested. Blinds stealing is a bread-and-butter play.

For instance, in a $10-$20 six-max game, a $400 short stack is on the button. The first three players fold, and the short stack opens for $45 or $50. He doesn’t need to wait for big pairs or big-card hands to do this. He can steal with a wide range of hands. A good percentage of the time, both blinds will fold, and the short stack will pick up $30 for the $45 or $50 gamble.

Theoretically speaking, the blinds should call with weaker hands against a short stack than against a deep stack. The less money there is in the stacks, the less advantageous position becomes. Therefore, the blinds are at less of a disadvantage, on average, against a short stack, and more hands become profitable. For years, however, many players didn’t correctly make this adjustment, and blinds stealing was particularly profitable for short-stackers.

With the roles reversed and the short stack in the blinds, modern-day short-stackers understand that they can play more loosely with their short stack than they would with a deep stack. Overall, against players who are used to playing deep, the short-stack specialists win more on blinds steals and lose less in the blinds. This difference translates to a modest but consistent advantage.

More Fold Equity

Short-stackers don’t get folds just by stealing blinds. They also get folds both preflop and post-flop by shoving all in. While an all-in shove from a stack of 20 big blinds may not seem too threatening, in reality, it is a powerful weapon. It’s a quintessential semibluff. The short stack gets two ways to win: force a fold or make the best hand. The caller can win only by making the best hand. This means that you can shove all in with a much weaker set of hands than you need to call.

Full-time short-stackers learn both the correct shoving ranges and calling ranges for a 20-big-blinds stack better than their opponents do who play primarily deep-stack poker. Thus, short-stackers are making more profitable all-in shoves, and they’re also calling them more accurately. This advantage, along with the advantage in blinds stealing, generates a good deal of their profit.

Inherent Advantages

I could sum up the last two sections in one sentence: Full-time short-stackers learn to play their 20-big-blinds stacks better than most full-time deep-stackers can play 20-big-blinds stacks. They learn correct blinds-stealing ranges, blinds-defense ranges, shoving ranges, calling ranges, and beyond to a more accurate degree.

But short-stackers also have two inherent structural advantages over deep stacks. First, short-stackers gain an advantage whenever they get all in against two or more opponents. If two opponents still have money behind after the short stack is all in, one could force the other to fold, thereby providing free equity for the short stack.

Second, from the perspective of a short stack, everyone has the same amount of money. Therefore, the correct strategy is relatively simple. However, when a deep stack plays with deep and short stacks, he must shift back and forth between deep and short strategies. This necessarily means that he must sometimes make compromises that cost him money. Short stacks never have to make these compromises, so they retain an advantage.

Final Thoughts

If you read poker forums on the Internet, you likely won’t have to read long until you see someone complain about short stacks. To be fair, the complaints have merit. Short-stackers enjoy several significant advantages over deep-stackers. Smart players who dedicate themselves to short-stacking can carve out a profit for themselves at the expense of deep-stackers. And there’s almost nothing the deep-stackers can do about it.

Several online poker rooms have altered the structures of their games to level the playing field, so to speak. But even with these changes, in practice, the advantage that short-stack players enjoy will never go away completely.

To succeed in today’s game, short-stackers have had to evolve considerably from my “play tight and push good hands hard” short-stack strategy from Getting Started in Hold’em. Short-stackers have grown much more sophisticated, and that trend will likely continue well into the future.

Ed’s latest book, Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em, is available for purchase at smallstakesnolimitholdem.com. He is a featured coach at cardrunners.com, and you can also check out his online poker advice column, notedpokerauthority.com.