Short-stacking

After I was knocked out of the poker tournament last Saturday, I still had the itch to play, so I scooted over to the Goldstrike. I got on the list for Omaha-8 (one ahead of me), and I bought $120 in chips and sat down at the $1/2 NL hold 'em table to kill some time. (I normally buy in for $200 in the NL game, but this was the amount I wanted for Omaha.)

The third hand, I picked up ♠A ♣K. UTG limped and I was next to act. What would you do? I would usually raise, but I was out of position. Because I had just sat down, I had no clue about the other players, so I limped along. Another player called and the button raised to $18. The small blind called and the early limper called -- over to you.

I decided to play the short stack game and moved all in. Unless I'm against A-A or K-K, I don't mind playing this hand. If called in one place, I have some dead money to make it worth it. I have fold equity, too. Because I limped, then moved all, this sounds scary to others. Don't forget, I'm an older guy who looks pretty nitty. The beauty of a short stack is that I can only lose $120. I don't throw money around, but this won't change my life style if I lose.

Guess what? Nobody wanted to put $102 more out there, and I picked up a $60 pot.

Lair of Lucypher has a series of posts on short-stacking. You can read Part 1here, and Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

Ed Miller posted about what he called the short-stacker's bread-and-butter play here.