Typically online cash games are played with a maximum buy-in of 100 times the big blind; so if you were playing a $1/$2 game, the most you can buy in for is $200. Experts suggest that if you think you have an edge over the players at the table (if you don’t you shouldn’t be there!), then you should always buy-in for the maximum, to make as much profit from your edge as possible. The problem however is that deep-stacked poker presents a lot of difficult decisions, even against players who aren’t world-beaters and so it’s tough to play more than a few tables well.
Why Play Shallow Stacked Poker?
A lot of players favour playing shallow stacked poker, where they buy-in for an amount significantly less than the maximum buy-in (perhaps 20 or 30 big blinds) allowing them to play without the risk of losing a lot of money in one hand. Shallow stacked poker by its nature is easier to play because there are less difficult decisions and player’s are usually all-in or have folded before the turn card is dealt. This allows them to play a robotic style over a lot of tables, where the push a small edge at each, which can add up to a nice hourly rate without having to put in too much hard work. These players are known as professional short-stackers.
Differences from Deep Stacked Poker
The main difference between deep and shallow stacked poker is that speculative hands go down in value significantly in shallow stacked games. If you have 78-suited you need to have the potential to win a huge pot if you hit a straight or a flush to make up for all of the times where you miss the flop and have to fold. If you are playing a shallow stacked game, you simply won’t hit the flop enough to make putting money in pre-flop worth your while.
On the other hand, high card hands that can make good top pairs are the most valuable type of hands in shallow stacked games. If you have a hand like KQ in a heads up pot and the board comes K52, your hand is easily worth getting all of the money in if the game is only playing 20 big blinds deep. The biggest mistake you can make in shallow stacked games is to overvalue speculative hands.
Why Do Some People Complain About Short-stackers?
Short stacking is a very controversial topic in the online poker world. A lot of players feel that short-stackers ruin the games with their brand of push-or-fold poker. If you have short-stacker acting behind you pre-flop then you have to consider the possibility that they’ll go all-in if you make an open raise. This means that you’re restricted to opening strong hands which can call their all-in, as if you raise and then fold too often, you’ll find yourself losing out to them, which is exactly the strategy they try to employ. However, if you are abiding by the rules of the site then there is little recourse for those players who don’t like the shallow stacked style.
Good shallow stacked players operate a very rigorous mathematical system and if you’re interested in becoming a good short-stacked poker player, you need to sit down and make detailed calculations of exactly what to do with every possible hand in every position for all combinations of pre-flop actions. In fact most of the work for shallow stacked players is done away from the table with a calculator and a tool for evaluating equity against players’ calling ranges, such as PokerStove. The best systems will typically yield about 0.5 big blinds per 100 hands at the $0.50/$1.00 No Limit Hold’em level.
By the same token, if you’re a full stacked player and want to make sure that you’re not getting exploited by good shallow stacked players then you need to study their game in detail and figure out their ranges. Typically good players can deal with short-stacked players quite easily to the point where they will break even against them. Most of the money that short stacked players make will come from recreational players with poor fundamentals and regular players who don’t have the motivation to spend the required time de-constructing the short-stacker’s game.
Minimum Buy-Ins for Cash Games
In response to customer requests, most poker sites’ minimum buy-in policies have changed over the years. Several years ago it was not uncommon to see a 10 big blind minimum, but this made life very easy for shallow stacked players and they clogged up the tables making it difficult to play a deep stacked game. In response to this problem, most of the big poker sites upped their minimum to 20 or 30 big blinds, and went a step further by introducing additional special tables, with a 40 big blind minimum which completely eradicated shallow stacked ‘push-or-fold’ players from the games. Some sites also have ‘deep’ tables which feature 100 big blind minimum buy-in and allow players to sit down with a maximum of 200-300 big blinds.
All sites still feature plenty of tables which players who prefer to play shallow stack poker can sit at, but have now catered for players who believe that having shallow stacked players at the table interferes with the enjoyment of deep stacked poker.
