Texas Hold’em Short Stacking
I have often argued that no-limit Texas Hold em is a flawed game technically. In no other game to my knowledge can a player drastically reduce the effectiveness of a world class player so easily as they can in no-limit Texas hold em. How can a total novice in almost no time at all play without being under hardly any disadvantage to a good player? Simple..buy in for a short stack and then play it well! A top player wants to do one thing..play from the flop onwards on a street by street basis. They dont want to get into situations where someone has moved all-in either before the flop or on the flop. This is not where their edge lay, they like using their big stacks to try and win another big stack so that they can make 100, 150 or even 200 big blinds in a single hand. They dont like it when players on their table buy in for 20 big blinds. What can they win when someone buys in for this small amount? A good short stack strategy which is ideal for beginners as it not only allows them to start playing no-limit with a vastly reduced bankroll, but it also allows them to learn the nuances of the game as well while they are learning. Imagine how much easier it is to play say NL Texas Hold em 100 with a bankroll of 30 times the minimum as opposed to thirty times the maximum. This means that the short minimum stacker only needs $600 to play NL100 while the conventional player needs $3000. Of course the skilled player who is playing a deep stack should win more money in theory. But the good thing about the short stack players strategy is that he can play no-limit hold em without having to worry about the play on the later streets. This also means that he can attain juicy sign up bonuses without the fear of having to lose more money than he could get from the bonuses themselves. A good short stack strategy basically involves waiting for good cards and then pushing them very aggressively. This can mean sometimes limping in from early position hoping that someone is going to raise so that you can re-raise. These strategies can be really successful especially if they trap other players who have limped in the middle. When players limp then essentially what this means is that they dont want to play enlarged pots so quite often a big move pre-flop can force many of these hands to fold and get the hand either heads up or take the pot pre-flop. One of the things that you must do with a short stack strategy is quit the game if your stack increases by about fifty percent. So if you buy-in to a NL Texas Holdem 100 for $20 and your stack grows to $30 or more then your minimum stack is no longer a minimum stack. Your aggressive pre-flop and flop moves will be done with too many chips and the odds that you will be laying your opponents will be too much. So as a rule of thumb, a fifty percent increase in your stack means that you need to either adjust your strategy away from being a minimum stack strategy or you need to leave the table. Adjusting your strategy if you do not have the skill and knowledge to do so is not really an option for a beginner so leaving the table is advisable in this instance.
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