Combating Short-Stackers
Posted by Tom Coldwell
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Ah, the bookend. Good companion piece. Also - I'm very much enjoying the adjustable playback speeds. It makes you sound a little caffeinated, but combats your mild prolixity quite effectively. I enjoyed.
thanks Tom, good job. I look forward to more of these.
This was fun, Tom!
Thanks for the feedback guys, glad you found it helpful :)
Really liked the video, only question that I had was how do you feel about varying your open size with a short stack (or multiply short stackers) to your left. I agree that we want them to the left and I typically try to use min raises in order to still leave desirable SPR in position. How about our raise size from the CO when we have a 20-40bb player on the button and 100bb effective players in the blinds?
In short games, such as the shallow tables on FT, I alter my bet-sizing by decreasing each preflop raise by 0.5bbs (meaning I min-raise the BTN, 2.5x the CO and 3x the other two seats - I believe I cover this in more detail in my video on playing 40bb PLO) and in general I would choose to adopt this strategy in any lineup where short-stacks make up the majority of my opponents (unless the player to my immediate left was deep along with me).
That said, the spot you described is actually one I don't have a set default for (with shorties in the blinds and a 100bb BTN, it's a very clear 100bb open size for me 'cas I don't want the deep player getting a good price to play IP). I kind of vary depending on the relative skill-levels and styles of the villains with a larger raise normally being used against looser blinds to punish them for entering my pots with weaker hands.
For example, if the blinds are both 17/12s then I would be quite likely to play with a 2.5x raise as opposed to the 3x 'cas they're folding anyways. However, if they are 55/6s, I will 3x to make them pay more. Alternatively, against a very aggressive BTN I would want to 2.5x so that he can't 3-bet quite so large (although my major adjustment would be to narrow my usual opening range somewhat so I can 4-bet a higher% of the time).
It's hard to say what my preference would be readless 'cas on the one hand the majority of players left to act are 100bb so would fair better versus that sizing. However, the majority of the action we get could well come from the shallow player meaning a 40bb raise size would work better.
All of that said, I think the difference between 2.5 and 3xing this spot won't be that substantial at all and there are merits to both. Hopefully after one or two orbits you should possess enough information to start figuring out which you think will work out best.
Thanks for a very informative video Tom.
I would like to point out that in the case of the KK93 hand I would be very carefull of the nature of the player in the big blind, in this case nas678.
I have been been seeing these action reopening bets around and would expect most good regulars to recognize and employ these (at 100zoom plo at least)as well. As such I would be trapping with all my good hands if I was in nas678 his spot expecting you to do precisely as you had planned, to raise after the bet got around. This would ofcourse completely alter the result of the planned out course of action. Then again adapting to this is in your spot would be quite easy since if we realize that a player is capable of recognizing and responding to such a spot we can just call or fold instead of raise accordingly to the situation.
Totally agree, i'd always flat the nuts here.
Can't imagine even cbetting this flop is +EV 3 way.
Good video,I think i'll be playing a lot better vs short stacks and using them to my advantage in the future.Thanks :)
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