Is that a full stack in your pocket… or are you just happy to see me?
Using SpadeEye, I’ve been concentrating on my table selection skills, looking for the best tables to play on, with the weakest opponents. This brings about a few situations that unnerve me. I’m using VPIP and PFR as my main stats, looking for as many players that go towards Loose Passive and Tight Passive that I can, as they are the easiest to play against. There’s an option to filter the amount of shortstackers on the tables out so you can play comfortably, but this filter generally reduces your options to 0, you generally have to play with at least 3 shortstackers.
I’ve found them extremely annoying and hard to play against, if you forget they are short and make a mistake, you could be giving yourself odds to make decisions you would rather have bypassed all together, and the options you are presented with are limited at best. You fold your drawy hands because you can’t play fancy postflop knowing they will shove or fold regardless of how much effort and thought you put into your bet sizing. Most of them are nits looking to make value from decent hands, which works well when they are to your left, you can generally steal from them a lot, but if they play back at you, you have to decide your level of commitment then and there, have they adjusted? or did they hit a hand? am I willing to put 25bb in to find out? Am I ahead or behind the majority of their range knowing that this is going to be the only decision in the hand I get to make.
It’s just an adjustment we all have to make, to pick our spots, and more importantly, know what to do when they have picked their spots, how to get away from being valuetowned by them. Playing in position is probably the best tool to use against them, if you can look at the players left who are yet to act, according to their stats you can judge who you will possibly be up against, and by looking at their stack, you can find what position you will put yourself in if you do find yourself up against them.
Ok, run on sentences and repetitive words aside, shortstackers are bad, and make life difficult, hang around them as little as possible.
