More short stack lightning

Let's face it. Getting short stacked really sucks. You can't afford to see flops or play post flop. Every raise has to be a go hand and everyone knows it: you either get no action or the wrong kind of action. The reality is, unless you see KK or AA in the BB, you will have to gamble in the rights spots and pray.

I last talked about small pairs, usually with good position.

Today I had the "pleasure" of watching my stack disappear to fruitless flops over the first hour, and down from 2500 to 1500 chips and 50-100 blinds. Not many options, but I had to play. I had to play play able cards in acceptable cicumstances.

My first double up:

I have 1625 in chips. I am first to act, I have K9 diamonds. I LOVE his hand. I am in love with a mean mistreata. Its a sickness. I usually follow the doctor's advice and fold this marginal hand, except in deep position and real cheap. But its playable, and I want to play it.

The table is tight. Only one knockout in an hour. Players are all playing conservatively. Predictably. Some are beginning to exploit the tightness of the table and steal small pots, but I don't have a stack capable of setting an uncallable price, and a bad bluff will knock me out. I need to get in a fair race for all the chips.

There are two callers ahead of my initial limp in, then a short stack takes a quick glance at his cards and moves all in.

This "instant all-in" is easy to read. It was thoughtless. It announced his hand loudly. "I have a big hand, but I can't trap with it and I don't want a call". Small pairs are very often in this category. I once made a sick but affordable call against an all-in short stack with QJ and beat out 66 late in a tourney, after appropriate deliberation and probes for information. AK and AQ and AJ are very often in this category. Sometimes 10 10 and JJ are too, but just as often, they are hands which lead to some deliberation. small pairs are semi-bluff steals/gambles. the higher pairs have trapping capabilities in post flop play and tend to lead to at least a pause before action.

The limps are a tell too. QJ, 10J, KJ, A10, are all limper hands. None are calling hands at THIS table. Only one has me dominated, and I am basically next to act (after the blinds) and I know these are limp hands calling in the middle. I have been observant and it is clear these people need to see a cheap flop and aren't trapping.

QK and the like are not limpers. Most players will raise QK out of middle position to show some strength, help close the hand to gain position, and to get more information on the limpers.

The only hands which contain a 9 among these limpers would be A9 (pretty tough to call here with A9 to an all in raise, especially this table) and connectors, and K9 dominates these hands. The tightness of the table, and the shortness of every stack resulting from it, makes it pretty pricy to play a 910 from the middle position. These players play correctly.

In other words, in this situation, K9 is likely got two live cards, an even race against the likely low pair, and almost even against the likely A high hand. A9 can also make this all in move, but not instant automove like this. The high ace could be in real trouble if the kicker's outs were among the limp ins.

There is an excellent risk that my hand has run into AK, but we are talking about gambling, not playing sure things here.

I am correct that I am up against a fair or good gamble, and commit the rest of my chips. I am racing AQ.

Clearly my cards are live. I get two 9's on the flop: a K on the river. AQ completely whiffed.

THE VERY NEXT HAND, I am in the BB. There are three limpers ahead of me. the SB is also a short stack. He is, just like in the hand before, AN INSTANT ALL IN. He has about 1100 chips. I have 66 but I don't have "I just got these chips" syndrome. I need to make up for lost time with no flops at a tight table. The read is as instant as the SB's chip push and I look down at 66. It is about a 3 second deliberation before I protect my cards and push all in as well.

I get a lot of respect on this move. They assume the SB ran into a monster. Not quite. But it will be a postflop monster.

The flop is

A

A

6

Two full houses in consecutive hands. The SB has a draw, but very lucky even his 3+ outs is crippled, as a limper (or 2) could have easily folded a Q. The turn is a 9, so a Q or 9 gives him a better full house, but really only the 9 is live and its three outs with a river to go. its a 6.

That's all well and good, but this is the best example of the night. A FANTASTIC shortstacked play.

This fellow has had the same experience as I preluck, and the blinds are 100/200. He has only 1200 chips. He has limped in from middle position. A lady to my right raises to 600. She is VERY readable. She has a good hand, but a not a huge hand. I am in the SB and have AJ. I want to see a flop, and 500 more to see if I catch a J isn't bad. Instinctively, BTW, that is my thought: catch a J, not catch an A. My reads are good tonight it will turn out.

The short stack limper does something which surprises me, but shouldn't have. He pushes the rest of his chips in. 1000 plus change more.

Here is an interesting little sidebar. There is a rule which I don't particularly like which says if you raise, and a short stack cannot complete a proper reraise when he goes all in (a proper raise being equal to the first raise) then the original raiser and everyone else intending to call are limited to a call.

Here, the raise to 600, which is a raise of 400, allowed the short stack reraise of just over 400 to leave the original raiser's option open. I don't know if she made this bet 600 to satisfy this rule (and if so, that is the mark of a very experienced player, and she might be, in spite of her linear approach to the game)

She is an instant all in to the reraise. ^This move tends to confirm my original instinctive read. This is an AK move. Its not a KK move or an AA move. One protects a hand with AK, and continues to seek a sidepot holding a huge pair.

I know I'm gambling, but, hey, my last two races produced full houses. I have a new marker and I want to test its luck. She made me fold AJ just two hands earlier. I still am in short stack gamble mode. This hand would have the same instructive value had I folded, but I gamble my AJ and she will show her AK.

The short stack has 87 of hearts. Little suited connectors like these have the best odds against big pairs (about 24% to hit straight, flush, or 2 pair) and I really like this move. AT WORST he is looking at a triple up (or close to if I fold) against a big pair, and those odds aren't two off his 24% chances. At best he has read the raise and call correctly, and he is up against two high Aces with live cards. Fact of the matter is, the typical situation here is one caller, not two, as one protects and the other folds, but I am being a donkey. All he has to do is hit a pair and dodge, typically, two A's and possibly three K's, but in this case, my three live J's. He is 30% to hit a a pair in 5 cards, those 8 outs representing 40% to bust his pair: if I fold, its a 25% factor. His approximately 1 in 3 (rounded generously) to triple up are still a gamble, but he has no gamble left and he had to make a move somewhere. We can round generously because the flush and straight opportunities are live two. My hand calculator puts 78 hearts at a WHOPPING 38% to beat AJ and AK in a full race. An optimist would call that a coinflip! In a three way pot! To triple up! No wonder he pushed with such delight. The AK has almost identical odds to win. You can figure where my 3 outer stands.

He will flop 9 6 7. A pair and open ended straight. He will catch the straight on the turn for the check mark. She will pick up a sidepot which realizes a meager net gain of about 1000 chips.

She did not expect me or intend me to call when she went all in. She wanted to race the short stack with AK. But the short stack read his situation better than she did. The price was good in the end, but my flat call out of position on her raise needed to tell her that her AK was not as strong has it could be. Well behind a small pair who had limped in the middle to test his situation. Certainly, her hand had reasonable odds of success for the price, and she correctly protected the hand by going all in. Except for the price I was getting and the gambles I was prepared to make. Correct play has a way of making correct play players yell at me and call me names while I rake in their chips. Because it requires your opponent to play predictably and correctly lay down like their supposed to.

This is unsophisticated play, in spite of my comments on the accuracy of her bet size. "Correct" players think there are bound rules saying you can't play 87 hearts for all your chips from middle position, or raise under the gun with A10 or 77, and that you can only play looser cards from deep in position, you can't play suited junk at all (K9 diamonds included), you can't call or raise with middle pair, etc etc.

In other words, this predictable table is EXACTLY what an aspiring Pokermonster needs to home his or her reading skills and deeper gamne. "Correct" players play "correctly" because their understanding of the game is not deep. It is not cerebral. It is "BY THE BOOK" (quite literally, and literarily, and usually Brunson's "Supersystem I": read it, if you haven't, and then understand the mechanical way some players will play this game "by the book").

Part of this "correct" play is the 3x the blinds bet. IT IS A TERRIBLE BET IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES! Early position the 3xer SCREAMS BIG HAND AFRAID TO LIMP BUT LOOKING FOR ACTION and I AM A ROOKIE. Middle and late position it SCREAMS I DIDN'T WANT 5 CALLERS, BUT I HAVE GIVEN EVERY LIMPER AND THE BLINDS ODDS TO CALL and I AM A ROOKIE.

As a result the hand had just gotten completely out of control. If she made a BIG BET, she isolates the limping short stack, protects AK from all but the best (and she had the button, so there are only the blinds to concern with), and prices my AJ out, because a call commits me to it. She maintains control: no callers, or short stack isolation. Instead, the AJ call of mine gives that short stack huge odds to gamble for his short risk, and I am now invested 600 into a pot with 2300 in it, a stack of 3000 left, and I could have been calling with a small pair! This is a real failure to shift gears and understand the game as it has evolved into the rounds where the blinds force short stacks to gamble.

HERE'S ANOTHER EXAMPLE. from a $300 buy in game which didn't turn out so lucky, but is an interesting hand.

THE PLAYER TO MY LEFT is a pretty good player with a few rookie edges. Young guy. Had to be explained the "single overchip without declaration is a call" rule. He is slow and deliberate, and really looks up his opponent before making a bet in any position. He has chipped up to 30k. I am limping around with 8000, looking for good spots. Blinds are 150-300. He is UTG: I am big blind. LETS CALL HIM LEFTY

LEFTY has opened the pot with a bet of 800, not quite even 3x the blind. We started with 10k, so this is really a modest bet. HE GETS 3 CALLERS before it comes around to me. I have 300 invested, there is about 3000 in the pot, and 500 to call. K6 spades. I don't play pot odds, but how can I lay anything down for that tiny price?

You should also know that he is in seat 10 and I in seat 9. His other opponents have position but sit acorss from him. I am in his right blind spot.

Leftly likes to bet post flop, and has lots of chips.

The flop is a dream: 9 6 2 ALL SPADES. I have second nuts. I instacheck.

leftly is looking up his opponents, BUT NOT ME. He is staring them down as he compiles his bet.

Lefty makes a MASSIVE OVERBET. 3500 in pot, HE BETS 20,000. All but about 8000 of his stack.

HE HAS ANNOUNCED that I HAVE NO SPADE and I AM A ROOKIE.

He never looks at me. I relax. I don't need a poker face. I have the second nuts. Only the A high flush is going to call him, he has read all the other opponents' disgust of the flop correctly anyway, and both of us know the other three will fold. He doesn't know that, if the A spades was out there, HE HAS JUST PROTECTED MY HAND not his.

So, when it's finally my turn I instacall and remind him that he forgot to look me up.

He turns over 22. "I have outs" he says "yeah, 25%" I says. He rivers a 9. Good flop, great play, bad luck. Boat beats flush.

I walked out but he made two awful mistakes. That tiny raise in no way protected his hand or defined his opponents. It simply added size to the pot. Then he took my "pot odds" BB call for granted, and assumed I was of no concern in vastly overbetting what was for him a tiny pot. If my pot odds BB call came with a big stack attached, as it often does, he needs a 12% river or he goes from chipped to chump and out the door.

GOOD LUCK!