Recently, PokerStars released a statement that they are considering raising the minimum buy-in on most of their PL and NL cash games from the current low of 20-BB. I know a few players who have been taking their business to Full Tilt. Full Tilt implemented a similar policy a few months ago, and it looks like PokerStars is set to follow suit.

I’m guessing that the reason both sites have had to do this is player complaints. If played correctly, a short-stacking player can win by getting a mathematical edge over the other players especially in PLO games. I’ll explain but the days may be numbered.

The way to get the mathematical edge basically requires a player to play extremely tight. When he catches a strong starting hand, his goal is to get as much of his money in the pot pre-flop or ideally to go all in. Often, he will try to limp-reraise preflop to trap as much money in the pot as possible.

Once he is all-in, the short-stacker simply watches the action as any of the other players in the hand compete for both the main and side pots. If the hand began with 4 players on the flop, 2 of those players will likely have folded before the river – giving the short stacker protection of sorts. Let’s say the short-stacker is able to go all-in pre-flop with 3 other players, which gives him the possibility of quadrupling his money. By the time he gets to the showdown, he only has to beat one other hand. In this example, as long as he wins the showdown greater than 25% of the time, he will show a profit in the long-run. He has a good chance to win these showdowns, because he only chose strong starting hands to begin with.

This strategy is particularly effective in Omaha games, where multi-way pots are much more common. For more information on how you can exploit this strategy to your advantage, read the short guide over at http://www.omahaplanet.com/pot_limit_omaha/potlimit_strategy/Short_Stacking_In_PLO_Cash_Games.html.

For players with a normal to large stack size relative to the blinds, these short-stackers cause all kinds of problems. It is difficult for the regular players to counteract them. It also forces them to be ultra aware of every player’s stack size at all times (which they probably should already be doing) and adjust their play in sub-optimal ways.

Let’s say that you are in late-position and you raise. The BB is a short-stack and he re-raises all in. Mathematically, you may be forced to call because of the size of the pot.

What began as a solid raise or a steal has turned into a coin flip. You raised pre-flop, hoping to pick-up the blinds. Normally, you don’t mind getting called because you’ll have position for the rest of the hand. This positional advantage is completely eliminated, and now you are forced to call and often are behind.
Yes, you could adjust your strategy if one of these short-stackers is on your left. You could tighten up your raising range. But that would mean that you give up a huge amount of the advantage you gain by raising pots in position. Now you are playing out of fear of the small stack and giving up much of your positional advantage.

So the short-stackers are a problem. What’s the solution? So far, it has been to move to another table with a higher buy-in requirement. Unfortunately, this higher buy-in requirement often discourages the fish from playing at those tables.

As for the short-stackers? I’m not worried about them. They will just adjust and short stack with a 35BB stack or whatever number Pokerstars comes up with.

This new rule change by PokerStars, if implemented, will in my opinion be good for both the players and the site. As someone who enjoys the strategic elements of poker vs flipping coins, I like this possible change.