No Limit Holdem Advice

Short Stacking in No-Limit Hold’em

admin — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:18:44 +0000

One method many online poker players have adopted in recent years is called “short stacking”. This is an approach one can take in no-limit hold’em cash games. Online poker rooms have a minimum and a maximum buy-in for their no-limit games. Usually, the minimum buy-in is 20-40 big blinds and the maximum buy-in is 100-200 big blinds. Short stacking means buying in with the absolute minimum and looking for spots to shove all-in preflop.

For example, a $5/$10 game I used to play had a minimum buy-in of $200 and a maximum buy-in of $1,000. Late in the night after many fish had come and gone, it wasn’t uncommon to see 3 or 4 players sitting with more than $2,000. Since my bankroll wasn’t large enough to buy-in for the maximum, occasionally I would sit down with the minimum, $200.

Most players who short stack really only make one play: fold or shove all-in preflop. The point of this article isn’t to tell you exactly what hands you should shove all-in with in what position. The complexities of no-limit hold’em make it hard to play under a rigid structure. For players who like to look at preflop starting hand charts, take it to the kiddie tables (limit hold’em).

The goal when short stacking is to double up and leave. Buying in for the bare minimum, doubling up, and then leaving has received a lot of criticism from the poker community. Most of this criticism comes from jaded max buy-in players who don’t know how to handle short stackers. We can argue whether short stacking is unethical or not, but people who participate in that type of whining and moaning are probably going to elect Barack Obama President of the United States and lead to the economy’s collapse as a result of taxing businesses to death. The relevant matter is this: as long as online poker rooms let players buy-in for 20 or 40 big blinds and allow them to leave whenever they damn well please, there’s no reason one should feel bad for short stacking.

Main Event- Amazing Structure

admin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:07:48 +0000

Harrah’s has really improved the World Series of Poker main event this year. While the Main Event has always had pretty good structure, allowing for a lot of play, they have made it simply amazing this year. The blinds move up very slowly, allowing for more play and skilled players to increase their advantage over amateur players.

While this will decrease the ‘lottery’ appeal of the Main Event, I think it is an overall good thing. The WSOP Main Event should reward skill heavily. After all, it is poker’s main tournament of the year. No-limit hold’em will always have sufficient variance to allow lesser-skilled players a chance. The new structure certainly allows a skilled amateur to win the whole thing, but the amateur will now definitely need to be skilled.

When Playing Hyper Aggressive is the Best Strategy

admin — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:12:07 +0000

If you’ve ever read any poker book before you will undoubtedly have read about how it’s better to bide your time and play only premium hands. For a long time I subscribed to that school of thought but I came to realize that the theory is flawed, particularly in a No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament. You might get through the first few blind levels without ever putting your chip stack in danger and you might also outlast several of your opponents, perhaps even enough to make it in the money. However when the field has dwindled down to just a handful of players who have been playing more aggressively during the last few levels stealing blinds and antes have now accumulated a large majority of the total chips and you’re left with only 3-4 rounds of BB + antes. You’ve now become

prey for the bigger stacks at the table who will wield their stacks around and you will eventually be eliminated. So how do you avoid this situation? By being the increasing your aggressiveness as the blind levels start increasing.

You’re registered in a 90 player tournament, the starting chip stack is 1500 and the blinds are at $10/$20. The first 14 players will be paid.

You played conservatively through the first 7 levels, you picked up a few pots with some strong hands, made a bluff here and there.

Now the field looks like this:

Remaining players: 24 - 4 tables of 6 players

Blinds: $200/$400

Antes: $25

Average chip stack: $5,000

Your chip stack: $4,375

You sit down at the table and these are your opponents

Player 1 $8,675

Player 2 $5,340

Player 3 $6,220

Player 4 (You) $4,375

Player 5 $1,125

Player 6 $3175

With just 24 players remaining if you want to make it to the final table and increase your chances of winning the tournament you must switch into hyper aggressive mode. When a tournament gets so close to the money the majority of players will guard their remaining chips with their life and will become super tight and that’s when you swoop in and steal their blinds in antes.

You are in the dealer position and everybody folds around to you holding Q? 4?. You make it $1200 to go, the small blind gets out of the way and the big blind calls.

The flop comes K? 8? 4?

You picked up a backdoor flush draw but you didn’t connect.

Player 6 (BB) Check

Player 4 (You) ?

The BB called your preflop raise but checked on the flop. He could either be slow playing a K or he could be on a flush draw.

You bet the pot, $2750 enough to put the BB all-in. He ponders for a second but reluctantly folds.

In a situation like this, the only way the BB was going to call you is if he made the nuts (the best possible hand) and because of his check on the flop you know he didn’t.

Now you pickup a pot worth $2600 and your chip stack is now at $5925. In one hand you went from 4th largest stack at the table to 3rd.

I can’t stress this enough, when you are close to the money players will rarely risk a large

percentage of their stack. Instead they’ll play ultra-conservative just to make it in the money.

By constantly raising and re-raising pots you will rapidly build your chip stack, and the more your stack grows the more aggressive you should become. There is one instance in which this type of play should be avoided and that is when another big stack is involved in a pot. You should never butt heads with another player that can put you all-in unless you’re holding the nuts.

Keep in mind that playing hyper aggressive doesn’t mean going in with any two cards either. There are very few instances in which you should play hands like 7? 2?, but once you get a feel that the players around you fold to any substantial raise your cards don’t even matter anymore.

If you have ever watched a professional poker tournament you will have noticed this style of play by several players, the most notorious of which is The Great Dane Gus Hansen.