Short Stacked Poker Strategy

When you are playing the short stack you need to use a different strategy that you would use with an average size stack. Generally, being the short stack puts you at a disadvantage, but you can take advantage of your short stack and turn the tables on opponents who will try to push you around.

When you are on the short stack, you want to play very tight. You can’t afford to make speculative calls with suited connectors or play marginal hands. If you are playing a $1/2 no limit cash game and you only have $30 you can’t afford to be calling raises of $6 or $8 just to see a flop with a marginal hand that you are not likely to hit. You need to play only the big hands such as AA-88 and AKs, AK, AQs, AQ, and play them very aggressively. With these hands the ideal situation is to be able to come over the top of an opponent who has already raised and put them all in. Say one player has raised it to $8. Now you can come over the top and move all in for your $30. If they fold you have picked up a nice pot already. If they call you, you should be in a good situation to double up if you are playing one of the top hands.

You can take advantage of players who try to bully you when you are on the short stack by using this aggressive strategy to turn the tables on them. Often times you can force them to make poor calls because they think it is not much more for them to make the call. If you are an average stack of $100, the aggressive player who raised to $8 would not likely call you if you re-raised to $30 when they have a hand like A7or K10. However, when you only have $30 left and you go all in, many opponents think that they are priced in or that it won’t really hurt their stack if they lose the hand. When opponents play against a short stack they tend to make very loose calls, which should benefit you if you stick to playing tight. An aggressive player may raise with hands like A7, K10, etc. If you have a hand like AK or JJ or even 88, you will the favorite.

When you are playing the short stack, you also need to read your opponents well. If you have 9-9 and an opponent has made a raise, normally you would want to re-raise all in. However, if this opponent is extremely tight and you think they might have a higher pocket pair, you may want to just fold this hand and wait for a better opportunity. The opposite also applies too. If you have a very loose opponent who raises with anything, you might want to re-raise them all in with hand like AJ, A10, A9, KQ, KJ or any pocket pair.

By: Logan