When you want to play an effective short stack in a poker tournament or if you want to use your mass accumulation of chips to play an effective big stack in poker tournaments, there is one thing that both situations have in common. The idea is to always put pressure on your opponents and to do that you have to play an aggressive style. When you are short on chips the best way to be effective is to shove your stack in when the time seems right to do so.

1. Short Stack Poker
2. What Is A Short Stack
3. Short Stack Poker Definition Games
4. Full Stack Poker Game

This is the time of a tournament when the blinds are big and you have less than 15 big blinds in your stack. If you are short stacked in a poker tournament all hope is not lost because chances are that if you win a hand or two you could be right back in the fight to win the tournament. The opposite of that is if you have a massive amount of chips in front of you. If you are chip leader in a poker tournament, ideally you want to knock out the short stacks and avoid big confrontations with other players who have big chip stacks. If you look to minimize damage and play hands against weaker stacks you could put yourself in great shape to win the poker tournament.

Short Stack Poker Strategy: Tighten Up Preflop In any good poker short stack strategy you are going to have absolutely no choice but to tighten up and be a lot more selective with which hands you decide to play before the flop. If you are seriously short stacked (e.g. 10 or 20 big blinds) I would suggest only playing premium hands and broadways. Stack-to-pot ratios (or “SPR”) is a topic that covers the strategical implications of the size of the pot on the flop compared to the size of the effective stacks. A note on short stackers. Short stackers (players that intentionally play with a short stack) take full advantage of the concept of effective stacks.

Short Stack Play

When you have a short stack in a poker tournament you shouldn’t give up. You should battle and get hungry to get that big stack. You should also look for good shove spots with your short stack. If you pick up the blinds once per orbit then you are putting yourself in good shape to maintain your stack and not get dwindled away. Good shove spots occur often times from late position or if the table folds around to you, and you are in the cutoff position, the button, or the small blind. In the cutoff you shouldn’t shove too wide of a range of hands because you have to force three hands to fold.

From the button your range should be wider than from the cutoff position, and almost every ace high, or hands like K10, QJ suited are all reasonable to shove all-in with. From the small blind it is almost correct to shove every hand because you have to force your opponent to wake up with a hand and call you. You also have to take into account the types of players that are located in the blinds. If there are chip leaders located in the blinds, you should not be shoving as wide a range of hands simply because if they can afford to call you then they probably will call you.

If there are short stacks in the blinds you should put maximum pressure on them by shoving in. The main goal of a short stack is to apply the most pressure on your opponent as possible. If you do that then you are accomplishing your goal as a short stack.

Big Stack Play

As a big stack in a poker tournament there are a handful of things to keep in the back of your mind, like making the final table, or possibly winning the tournament. As tournaments are a long grind, you should never try to win every pot unless the table dictates that action. What you should look to do with some level of consistency is to play back at weak players, or also play back at players who may have a wider range of starting hands. The reason to do both of these things is because you force a fold before the flop a lot of the time.

The only time they will play back at you is when they have a monster hand, and this should be obvious. By forcing a fold you are then collecting a decent amount of chips without risking much of your own. This is a good way to make sure you remain a big stack in a poker tournament and avoid risking a ton of chips. Also, as a big stack in a poker tournament you want to be feared by other players. By using a 3 bet before the flop, a lot of the time you will accomplish this goal. You will narrow down the range of hands that your opponent will open a pot with and you can pin point their hands much easier. In the end to remain consistent is a big part of having the big stack. Some players will just sit on their chips and slowly move up the money ladder, but this isn’t the best way to approach big stack play.

To win poker tournaments you need confidence in your reads and well-timed aggression. To have both means you should win the tournament. When you pick on certain players at the table also this will help you maintain a big stack. Eventually when you pick on a player enough they will start to just jam all-in regardless of the action because they are fed up with your play and have had enough. Hopefully you can wake up with a big hand and collect a ton of chips at that point in time.

Playing short stack poker, by choice or by circumstances, requires making some tweaks in your strategy. Mastering short stack poker strategy is particularly important in tournaments, as the increasing blinds and antes will often force you to play short stack. So, first, let’s see what is short stack poker.

What does Short Stack mean?

Short stack poker means your stack is short compared to the big blind, generally less than 40bb. Of course, playing with a 10bb stack differs a lot from playing with a 40bb stack.

However, there are some general principles of playing short stacked that we can examine. When needed, we will review how you can adjust your play according to your stack size.

What if your opponents are short-stacked, and you are not?

Keep in mind that what matters is effective stacks. Playing heads-up with a big stack versus an opponent with 30bb is the same as if you also had 30bb. This is because the effective stacks are 30bb in both cases, forcing you to play short stack.

How to play with a short stack?

Starting with a short stack means that the amount of betting that will follow in the different betting rounds is limited. In poker, you want to play “small hand small pot, big hand big pot.” Since a big pot is no longer a possibility, strong hands like sets, straights, and flushes, lose in value!

As a consequence, drawing to make a big hand, often becomes unprofitable. What makes drawing hands profitable is the implied odds of getting paid-off big when they arrive. If you have little or no chips remaining by the time you make your hand, you lose this opportunity.

Therefore, middle connectors, one-gappers, and suited cards, like 8♦7♥, 9♠7♠, or A♣5♣, that have the potential of flopping a strong hand or a strong draw go down in value. The same is true for small pairs, like 5♦5♠. Small pairs rarely hit the flop but hit it hard when they do. They can flop a set or better that are very strong hands. Since they can no longer win big pots when playing short-stacked, they also go down in value.

On the contrary, hands that win a lot of small pots but rate to be behind when the pots get very big, profit from playing short stack poker. Hands like A♦J♠ or K♠Q♠ that often make top-pair, top-kicker kind of hands are excellent candidates.

Playing short also means you have less room to make sophisticated plays like floating or double and triple barreling, plays that require multiple betting rounds to unfold. So, expect most of the betting to take place preflop and on the flop, and stick to playing ABC poker.

Play aggressively

In general, in poker, you want to play your hand aggressively preflop on most occasions. This is even more true when you play short stack. Firstly, winning the blinds and antes to stay afloat is a big deal when you are short. Also, limping is more suited to speculative hands to try to see flops cheaply, hands that you will not be playing much when you are short stacked. So, when possible, enter the pot by open-raising.

Particularly in tournaments, it is essential to take the right risks and try to re-build up your stack. You cannot afford to wait for premium hands. Try to find the right occasions to pick-up the blinds and antes, or to re-steal. For example, you can steal from a late position or re-steal from the blinds against a late position steal attempt.

Use Nash Equilibrium to be Unexploitable

How you play depends significantly on your opponents. For example, some opponents are too tight and only call with premium hands. Against them, you can increase your aggression and steal their blinds more often, as they will fold enough of their range to make it profitable.

If you don’t know your opponent’s style, you can adopt a strategy that is close to game theory optimal strategy. Such a balanced approach is unexploitable by your opponents, so you can also use it against skilled players as a defense. Start with GTO ranges and adapt as soon as you start gaining intuition about your opponent’s tendencies and play an exploitative style.

Below you can find the Nash equilibrium open shove range percentages, depending on your position and on your stack size, for stack sizes smaller than 12bb. You can calculate the Nash equilibrium for different situations using SnapShove software.

When are you pot committed with a short stack?

One thing that you should be cautious about when playing short stack is pot commitment. As you play short stack, pot commitment issues may often arise. So, plan your betting accordingly to avoid getting trapped and be the one to make the last bet to have fold equity on your side. For example, if you have 9bb and open raise to 3bb, you are pot committed to calling an opponent’s all-in. In similar circumstances, it may be best to go all-in in the first place.

When does pot commitment arise preflop?

Short Stack Poker

Your stack size will determine how much preflop betting you can expect before becoming pot committed. Below is a general guideline. The exact threshold will depend on the betting amounts, on your hand, and on your opponent’s presumed range of hands.

As you can see, with very short stacks you are not much concerned with post-flop play. The most money may go into the pot preflop, leaving you and your opponent pot committed and making post-flop decisions more straightforward. As playing post-flop becomes more trivial, the importance of position in post-flop choices decreases. Thus, playing out of position is less of a concern.

When you have bad position and hands that play poorly post-flop, aim to commit most or all of your stack preflop to ease any post-flop decisions. For example, hands like small pocket pairs play poorly post-flop short-stacked, as they will miss most flops and see two or three overcards on the board! However, when you are on the blinds and a player from late position open-raises, with a stack of 12bb-20bb you can choose to shove!

Also, from the small blind, you can shove against the big blind with a stack of up to 15bb when you have a small pair. If you only raise in this spot, you risk getting called and having to play post-flop out of position.

The sweet spot

There is a sweet spot when your stack is around 12bb-15bb. With such a stack, you can 3-bet all-in against an open-raise and have a lot of fold equity. In particular, against players that open-raise wide, so from late position or loose opponents, this move can be very profitable. With a short stack of 12bb-15bb, you achieve a lot of fold equity when you shove and, at the same time, limit the amount that you risk.

Should you play short stack by choice?

What Is A Short Stack

You can choose to play short-stacked if you do not have much experience. Playing short stack achieves risking less and playing a more basic game, as playing deep stack poker requires additional skills. However, be careful as if you double up, you may no longer be a short stack!

Short Stack Poker Definition Games

Another reason for choosing to play short stack is when you are the only short stack at the table. This is because your opponents cannot afford to adjust their game to your stack. It is vital for them to play optimally against the big stacks, as the big stacks are more in number and the stakes against them are higher. So, they may play sub-optimally against you, leaving you opportunities to exploit their game.

For example, big stacks may open-raise with many speculative hands that play well deep stack poker, like 76s, hands they will have let go when you shove. So their opening range is not balanced. If they were also playing short-stack poker, their opening range would be better adjusted.

Full Stack Poker Game

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments, or if you have some experience of playing short stack poker that you want to share!

This tutorial is part of the Advanced Poker Strategy Course. You can continue to the next tutorial on Deep Stack Poker!