Texas Holdem Poker Blog

May 12, 2005

Playing the short stack

With my style of play, I find myself entering the final group ( money positions or final table ) with the short stack a lot of the time. As a rule of thumb, I play pretty tight until I get a hand that I can be comfortably aggressive with....

Mainly, I play tournament structures of Texas HOldem, either multi or single table events.

I try to exercise patience when I play, to allow for those hands to 'come' to me over the course of the game. I am not a player that likes to see a lot of flops with marginal hands. One thing I have been looking at harder, of late, is my hand in relation to my table position.

The problem is, that when you are NOT getting good hands, you can find yourself very short when the blinds start getting up there! When the blinds become risky to your stack, you have to look for 'that hand' that will allow you to push your chips and hope for the best. NOT always the best thing, as sometimes you just don't get 'that hand'...

I have had a certain amount of success playing this way, and probably cash 40% of the time or more, but end up winning less than 10% of the time. There is some area of compromise in my play that will help me minimize the number of 'short stack' experiences. My experience in trying to loosen up my game have not been fruitful, as I never seem to hit the flop when I try to play suited connectors or small pockets.

I know that I have to make some adjustments to my game, I'm convinced that this is an evolutionary process with all players.....

Posted by fatbill at May 12, 2005 10:10 AM

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