Short Stacking Strategy
“Short stacking” refers to buying in for the table minimum in hopes of doubling up and then leaving. This can be an effective way for brand new players to mitigate their disadvantage in the game. In a $.01/$.02 no-limit game, the minimum buy-in is usually $.40 and the maximum buy-in is usually $2.00.
With a maximum buy-in (100 big blinds), players can put themselves in a position where they have to make more complicated decisions. With the minimum buy-in (20 big blinds), the game effectively plays more like a tournament where you’re just trying to double up or go home. A max buy-in usually leads to major decisions on the flop, turn, and river. A minimum buy-in is essentially a preflop and flop game. Turn and river decisions are irrelevant since usually you’ll have folded or gotten all of your chips into the pot before those two cards come off.
The main strategy behind short stacking is to pick a hand and go with it. You won’t be seeing a lot of flops or making speculative calls. The name of the game is fold, fold, fold, all-in, fold, fold, fold, all-in. Here are a few tips for short-stacking:
1. Keep your monsters masked. If you’ve been raising all-in preflop a lot, and suddenly only raise to 3x or 4x the big blind, that is going to look very strong. To some players, that might seem counterintuitive, but anyone at the table with half a clue about optimal short-stacking strategy will know you’ve got something monstrous like Aces or Kings. When you get dealt a hand like Aces, don’t change your strategy. It’s important to mask these cards by playing them the same way you’d play something like King-Queen: just move all-in. Don’t give anyone reason to think that you have a better hand than usual.
2. Stay with your hand. Say you have $.35 at the table and raise to $.10 with Ace-King. One player calls. The flop is Queen-Nine-Six. Even though that flop missed you, you shouldn’t slow down. Move all-in for your last $.25. You’ve already pot-committed yourself by putting in ~30% of your stack preflop. Get full value for your hands. It’s entirely possible your opponent missed the flop as well, or will fold a hand that has you beat (like pocket Fives) thanks to your aggression. You should almost never put in more than 25% of your stack only to fold at a later stage in the hand.
3. Be mindful of position. When you’re on the button or in the small blind, it makes wayyy more sense to shove all-in preflop with hands like Ace-Five than it does when you’re in early position. Remember, the fewer people left to act behind you means the less strong your hand has to be in order to justify moving all-in. Fold almost everything except the real top-notch stuff in early position, but don’t be afraid to stick all of the chips in there with stuff like King-Nine when you’re one of the last players to act. Poker is a game of relativity!