Short stack babying example

[ChrisV]

The hand converter never EVER freaking works for me, but this hand is very simple so it shouldn't be a problem.

A few weeks ago I posted on the strategy of "babying" the short stack when you have a big stack, refusing to put him allin on the bubble so you can hammer your other opponents. Here's a good example of this strategy. Blinds were moving to 250/500 next hand.

NL Hold'em $200 Buy-in + $15 Entry Fee
Blinds(200/400)
Total number of players : 4
Seat 1: Victim1 ( $1540 )
Seat 3: Victim2 ( $1840 )
Seat 8: Hero ( $5910 )
Seat 10: Shorty ( $710 )
Dealt to Hero [ K [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 7 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] ]
Victim1 folds.
Victim2 folds.
Hero folds.
Shorty does not show cards.
Shorty wins 600 chips

I went on to get dealt 53o and 62s the next two hands and went allin both times. Everyone folded. Then it was folded to me in the blind.

[PapiChulo503]

could you explain the theory behind this strategy? How does keeping the baby stack around help me pound my other opponents? Most of the stuff on these boards is new to me and I heard someone else mention this strategy before. thnx for UR responses.

[etgryphon]

It is the sense that Everyone is waiting for the shortest stack to get blinded out or to be taken out. The other two stacks do not have enough chips to be splashing around on loose calls so they end up only playing the top premium hands...so this means that you can take the blinds from them very easily. Everyone at the table knows what you are doing but they do not want to take the chance of going out before the Short Stack. So you as the Chip Leader try to keep the Short Stack alive so you can steal from the other players...It is a great tactic and really fun to do because everyone knows that you are full of crap but they can't do anything about it.

<insert evil laugh>

-Gryph

[Biff M.]

Isn't it just at simple as that none of the other two will do anything against the big stack until the smallest stack is gone? Unless they have a top hand of course.

[YourFoxyGrandma]

Gryph has the right idea. Be careful though; this tactic works worse and worse the smaller the buy-in.

[jcm4ccc]

Great play. The beauty of it is that there is now no short stack who is finally going to get desperate and call your bluff. They all have the same amount of chips and they are all going to be playing scared. My calculations are that their chip counts after they folded to you in the big blind were:

Victim 1: 940
Victim 2: 1240
Victim 3: 710

Too much fun.

[ChrisV]

Nope. Like I said blinds were going to 250/500 next hand, so they had:

$660
$890
$1090

[PapiChulo503]

just wanted to say thankyou for the new TOOL in my tool box. This forum is great, im already using this with some success.

thnx.

[syka16]

Very True. Don't try it in the 20+2s or lower unless you've got some awesome reads. I've mucked QQ in the SB in a similar situation.

[wall_st]

I think this strategy has more value, because it is likely to put your opponents on tilt. Whenever I see this (although I play low buy ins, so my opponets are probably just playing dumb), I usually get pretty ticked off.