Given the name of this blog I think it’s only right to delve into short stack strategy. I’ll be covering short stack strategies over the course of the next few blog posts with a view to covering only multi-table tournament play initially.

Even the strongest of online poker players have played in a MTT shortstacked. It’s the nature of the game that cards and momentum will ebb and flow unless you favour the uber aggressive style whereby you will either become a deep stack pretty quickly or go down in a blaze of glory before you have the indignity of being a table pauper.

For the most of us, we will consider ourselves to be playing the short stack if we are in the range of 10-35 BB. Note that short stack strategy is determined by your stack relative to the blinds and not when compared to the stack size of your table competitors. In a nutshell short stack strategy dictates that you only play a small range of high value starting hands, and play them hard. The trick is to determine the correct starting hands to play in relation to stack size, table position, tournament position, opposition and a range of other lesser factors.

Playing a short stack style can be a fairly mechanical way to play poker because you should be familiar with which hands you are going to play in a given position which takes away some of the finer points of the game. In some respects because you are short stacked you have effectively relinquished the element of bluff to some extent – you simply don’t have the luxury to lose your chips to elaborate bluffs. This isn’t to say that bluffs don’t have a role in short stack strategy – they do, but they have to be played with more discipline.

With good judgment and a bit of luck, by playing a solid short stack strategy you should hopefully propel yourself from the realms of the short stack to a more manageable mid or deep stack. At that point you can pick up your normal poker style again and go for the win.