Your big stack is irrelevant when confronting a short stacker heads-up, since you can only ever win the amount of his stack, you are effectively playing the same short stack as your opponent in your confrontation with him. So, just as the short stacker is, or at least should be, if he Is playing proper short stack strategy, only playing very good starting hands such as TT+, AQ+ (88-99, KQ+ in certain circumstances), your hand must also be a premium hand to warrant playing heads up against the short stacker.

 

If there are more players already in the hand then that changes your requirements, depending on the game dynamics, you can loosen up, i.e. if you don’t expect to face a raise you may very well choose to see a flop with almost the same range of hands as you normally would. The hand basically becomes one where you are more concerned about the other big stacks as they are the ones who you can either inflict serious damage on or vice-versa.

 

The possibility of a pot being multi-way can be both good and bad for the short stack strategy. It’s bad because other players have got such a good idea of the short stack’s starting range, making them easier for them to play the hand correctly, allowing them to get away from their hands post flop cheaply if they miss or if their hand isn’t good enough, whilst on the other hand the chances of even the very best of starting hands such as AA, KK getting cracked increases with multiple opponents in the pot. The upside to this is of course that the short stacker will be able to get all-in some EV+ situations where players look to hit their draws, while if their stack was bigger they may be forced out of the hand. These situations raise the variance of the short stacker’s game.

 

Another Achilles heel of your typical short stacker is a reluctance to defend their blinds, seeing as calling a steal attempt means investing a large proportion of a short stacker’s stack, it is something the majority of Hold em short stacker’s do with reluctance. Quite often if a short stacker is going to play a hand at all when their blinds are raised, they will do so with a re-raise, which almost inevitably is only done with a big starting hand, allowing you to get away from your hand easily by folding all but the very best of hands.

 

We hope you enjoyed our articles on short stack play in No Limit Hold Em.

It sure can be a fun way, especially for relatively inexperienced poker players to learn the game without risking too much.