Over the last few months, one of the most talked about issues in the online poker community is what to do about short stackers. To many, they blight our noble pursuit. They are as unwanted as pregnant rats. But why are so many players so passionate in their abhorrence of short stackers? What is so wrong about they way they play? Let’s see.
Before I continue, I should probably explain what a short stacker is for those who clicked on this article out of sheer confusion. Put most simply, a short stacker is a player who purposely buys into a No-Limit Hold’em game for the absolute minimum allowable stack, sometimes slightly higher. Twenty big blinds is the most common buy-in. So, at $0.10 No-Limit table, a short stacker would buy in for only $2. There is more to it than that, though. The short stacker has a strict set of playable hands depending on position and strict rules as to how to play them. In general, these rules say to push or fold pre-flop (again, depending on the hand and position), although some short stackers will bet about half their stack pre-flop instead of going all-in, with the intent to push after the flop no matter what. If the player’s stack reaches a certain high point, he leaves the table.
So, back to the original question. Why are short stackers loathed by so many?
Shallow Pockets
Someone playing with a short stack has a natural defense against predators: he’s not worth the effort or risk much of the time. Normally, if we are playing against somebody who has a full stack and a fairly tight predictable range like a short stacker does, we can make speculative calls of their raises with things like connectors and small pairs in the hopes that we hit a big flop. The implied odds are there. If we nail the flop, we may very well be able to take down a healthy pot from our opponent who can’t get away from a high-end pair.
Against a short stack, though, the implied odds just aren’t there. Even if we stack the guy, the haul is relatively insignificant. It’s just not worth calling pre-flop without a premium holding. And this helps the short stacker, as those opponents who might otherwise have won the hand will stay away. I actually ran into this problem the other night. I was playing at a $20 No-Limit table and a guy playing with only a $3 stack shoved from late position. I had 5-5 and considered calling, but decided to fold because the sad amount of money I could win did not make it worth fishing for what I believed were two outs. As it turned out, another guy with about $6 called and the two players turned over pocket pairs greater than mine. Of course, I would have flopped a set and won the hand. So, in this case, the lack of meat on the short stacker’s bones protected him from getting felted by yours truly.
Hit and Run
As I stated earlier, those who stay true to short stacking strategy get up and leave the table once their stack grows to a certain point, usually 50-100 percent of what they started with. This frustrates other players to no end for obvious reasons. First, the short stacker doesn’t allow his opponents a chance to win their money back if he took it from them in the first place. Second, by never allowing his stack to get too large, a short stacker can continue to stick to his pre-defined strategy; he won’t have to venture into uncomfortable territory, which would put him at a disadvantage.
It’s Not Poker
Perhaps the thing that raises the dander of so many short stacker haters is that traditional players feel that short stackers aren’t playing real poker. Short stack strategy limits decision making, keeping it confined to the pre-flop portion of the hand. And serious “full stackers” hate this. They want to outplay people post-flop. They don’t feel that just reading a hand chart is real poker.
At the same time, while short stackers are relatively predictable in their all-in or fold strategy, they can also completely mess with the table dynamic. For example, if we have a short stacker to our left and we have a hand worth raising with, we might be hesitant to put in our standard three to four times the big blind raise in fear of losing those chips should the short stacker shove after us. But if we bet less, then we are just asking the big stacks to come along to the flop for cheap, putting us at risk of a bigger loss later in the hand. To solve that, we could try to sit to the left of the short stack and to the right of the big stack, but then the big stack has position on us.
I don’t detest short stackers like so many people do. I don’t love them, but hey, people are allowed to play how they want. It is up to me to figure out how to beat them. But I can certainly understand the prejudice against them. I’m not immune to getting annoyed with short stackers now and then. They force me to play tighter when seated near them, they don’t have enough chips to make me feel like getting cute pre-flop, and they eliminate the adventure that is post-flop play. Actually, now that I think about it, that doesn’t sound like such a bad strategy… should I… nah…
I don’t understand why this is even being discussed anymore. On all major sites, the min buyin has been raised and short stacking has now been confined to special shallow stack tables. Therefore, anyone sitting down with one presumably wants to play with them because of some of the horrendous playing fish that also populate these tables.