The playing of a short stack strategy is something that is getting more and more prevalent now wherever you look in online poker and especially online no-limit texas hold’em. There are many players, millions in fact who for whatever reason, don’t much fancy buying in for the maximum in a no-limit game.

If you want to play NL100 but you don’t fancy buying in for $100 then you can easily buy-in for the minimum which in this game would be $20. This allows you a certain amount of flexibility even though your stack is small. Many players are rightly fearful of playing a deep stack. This is wise if they don’t have deep stacked poker skills or other attributes like discipline.

So if they make a mistake, it won’t be a deep stacked mistake and it also means that they will not be giving implied odds to the good players either. In fact even though they will not have great flexibility with regards to how they can bet, they will have freedom based on the limitations of just how much they can lose.

You can actually play the situation in a similar way to how you would a poker tournament where you are short stacked. You are essentially looking for spots where you can create fold equity or get yourself all in as a favourite. Let us look at one such example, you are in the big blind with the J-10 and two players limp in and the small blind completes in this NL100 game. There is now $4 in the pot and you have $16 left in your stack.

This may be a great chance to shove all-in. You will take the $4 a very high percentage of the time here for the simple reason being that your opponents in all likelihood were looking to play a tiny pot and not one where they would have to put in $17 just to see a flop.

If you are called by someone with an A-Q then you are not that big of a dog and you still have plenty of equity in this situation. This is the worst case scenario but most of the time you will simply take this pot down. Remember that you are not looking to play deep stacked poker here or even moderately stacked poker so when your stack increases by as much as fifty percent to $30 then it is time to leave the table.

You cannot be moving all-in for amounts of money that are too large in comparison to what you can win. Here is another example, you are in the big blind and it is folded around to the button who raises to $3.50. They did this on the last orbit but now you have a Q-9. This isn’t a powerhouse by any stretch of the imagination but against a likely stealer then you can shove here with a small stack.

This creates a situation where you have elevated the pot to a level that the stealer or would be stealer simply did not want. They were basically looking to steal the $1.50 in blinds or have someone call them so that they could use their position post flop. If you place yourself into their shoes, their small ball tactics have backfired. Picking up chips from limpers and stealers are standard tournament tactics but they are also something that can be applied to cash games as well in the right situation.

This article was written by Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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• Slow Playing in NLHE Cash Games
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• Bluffing in Online Poker
• The life of an online poker pro

Tags: bwinpoker.com, hold'em, NLHE, online poker, online poker pro, poker strategy

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