One of the simplest poker strategies of all is playing no limit hold’em with only ten times the big blind before the flop. This is highly profitable, but unfortunately many online poker sites do not allow such a small buyin. At most sites you must buy in for a minimum of twenty times the big blind. The change in strategy as a result of this concept is enormous. Instead of simply pushing all in or folding, because 20bb is too many chips to risk 1.5bb in most situations, a different strategy must be used. And after the flop there are usually enough chips left for flop and occasionally turn betting.
Still, there is a big edge to be had buying in for 20 big blinds when your opponents are playing with full stacks, and most of this edge comes preflop. Especially in aggressive games, many players are opening for a raise with hands that would not be correct to play if they knew someone with a short stack could come in behind them. The classic example is hands like suited connectors and small pairs. In full stack, 100bb+ no limit hold’em, these are nice hands to raise with. While they aren’t big hands that one is raising for value, they are certainly playable for the amount of the raise, but more importantly, raising with these hands balances ones strategy, making them harder to read as they could have a wider range of hands than just big pairs.
The problem with these raises is that these hands wouldn’t be worth raising with if one was simply trying to win the blind money in the pot. After all, you don’t raise a hand like 22 even in limit holdem for twice the big blind, so how can a 4x raise be right? The answer is of course that 22 is much stronger played for 100bb when one can bet larger amounts than in a game like limit. One can win the pot with a bluff which is much stronger in this game, win a big pot with a set, or take the blinds right there – the combination of these three things make such a raise profitable.
But with 20bb stacks, two out of these three options go away. Hardly anyone is going to fold a hand beating 22 with only enough chips in their stack to have to call a 1.5x pot bet on the flop, and there aren’t enough chips to win to justify playing the hand for a set alone. If everyone was playing with 20bb stacks, players who raised 22 would go broke quickly.
Herein lies the effectiveness of the short stack strategy. By buying in with 20bb, you control the size of the stacks that the hand is being played for, not your opponents. Most of your opponents will be making plays preflop that are suitable for a full stack game but would be losers against 20bb stacks, and therefore losers against you. They take the worst of it against you to play better against the others, and you profit from this. Many players will complain about short stack players, claiming they are “lame” or “unskilled”.
And they are right. It is lame, and it does take less skill to play a short stack. But it is very profitable, especially in today’s games. Furthermore, unlike most strategies, short stack play actually becomes more effective as you move up in limits, because other players tend to be more aggressive preflop, meaning they are putting more money in with hands they would not raise if they were only playing against you.
Brian Stubiak is an experimental physicist and long-time winner at online texas holdem cash games. To learn more about texas hold’em and read many articles just like this one, go to donkeydevastation.com.