Playing Short Stacks?

[nathan_hicks]

I recently started playing on Ultimate Bet and noticed players love to buy into $25nl games with short stacks. Instead of coming in the games with $25, they will buy in for $5 or $10. It didn’t bother me at first but then I started noticing how it was affecting my game.

First, low pocket pairs seem to be useless when the short stacks raise. For example, I try limping in MP with 44. The Button who only has $6.25 raises to $2.50. I see no point in trying to flop a set because there is no way this guy is going to fold on the flop. And at best I’m in a race situation, at worst I’m a 4-1 underdog.

Second, I find myself not trying to steal blinds from short stacks because a lot of the times they turn around and push all in. For example, I am sitting in the cutoff with J9s, I put out a standard raise after it’s folded around to me. A short stack acts after me and pushes in their last $4.50. There’s no way I want to pay $3.25 more to play a drawing hand when the other guy is probably holding A3.

Lastly, final thing that I’ve noticed about short stacks is how often they call preflop bets and push on the flop before I can act. My final example goes like this, I have AJ on the button and I put out a raise, short stack in the BB calls along with short stack UTG+2 who tried limping . The flop comes and I miss, but normally I bet the flop regardless. Before I can throw out my bet, BB goes all in for $8.25. And I have to fold.

This post is more a curiosity post on how others play short stacks in cash games. Since switching to UB I am holding a 6.15/ptbb100, while on Party I manage 15.6/bb100. I haven’t really noticed that the players are any better on UB, but I can’t seem win many big pots and I believe that this has to do with stack sizes I am up against.

Any help on this subject would be great, because right now I am clueless. Thanks.