Playing against short stacks

Hi everyone,

I've noticed that on just about any NLHE table apart from the really big money ones you always get people buying in for a fraction of the maximum. First off, does anyone know why people do this? I'm not saying its wrong to bring something like $75 to a $100 table but why start with $20 or less? If you want to play for that much just go to a smaller table. Am I missing something?

The main question I'm looking for answers to is how do you play against these guys? Often I will put in a decent PFR, get a flat call and know they feel pot committed. You can't continuation bet them because you're just going to get called down by a naff pocket pair or something. So it seems to be a case of waiting to hit a nice piece of the flop and then letting them do the same. The problem with this being that the variance on it seems to be utterly huge. So is there a better way to play this or do you just shrug and think long term?

I believe the thinking is that if you are looking to score big fast, its easier against someone that has you covered 5 or 10 times. It seems like less to the big stack.

You play at Stars don't you?

I left the Stars ring games because of this. I couldn't stand not being able to play good postflop poker and force my opponents to make mistakes. So i switched to Party.

Push preflop.

Yes, its Stars I play on. I'm so glad its not just me.

The people who do this are looking for a low risk/big reward. Often times people who are good poker players, don't know how to play against short stacks. A lot of players seem more inclined to get involved in a pot with them because they can't get hurt too bad by the short stack.

One thing I noticed about a lot of these short stack players is they aren't as readily pot commited as you'd think. Often times they are hesitant to pot all their money in without a good hand. They usually go in to these games thinking they'll play tight and wait for a good hand to push and try to double up. If you put in a good raise preflop and they call, don't be afraid of a continuation bet. Often times I'll overbet the pot to put them all in.

Another tendency to remember about these short stacked players is they are much less likely to bluff.