Today I'm going to explain three more concepts for short-stack play.
Calling all-in preflop (Continued from my last blog)
Calling all-ins preflop are a function of just two variables: The opponents raising range, and your stack size. If you know these two things, you can define an exact range to call an all-in. Here are these exact ranges, already calculated. If your stack size falls between categories, then you'll have to use a little guesswork to find the appropriate calling range. Print this out and place it next to your computer.
If the SB is shoving 25% of his hands and you are 6BB deep, then you should call with 22+,A2+,KT+,K6s+,QJ+,Q9s+,JTs+. This chart is also found in NLHE Theory and Practice by Sklansky/Miller.
Raising and CBetting
When under 10bb, I hardly ever raise preflop, preferring to push or fold. When 15-25bb, though, it's better to minraise than 3x and it's better to cbet 1/3 pot or 1/2 pot instead of 2/3 pot. These two adjustments are always the case no matter your hand. When stacks get short, you don't need to raise as much preflop in order to pot commit yourself on the board of your choosing. Therefore, you can get away with minraising and cbetting halfpot with a monster and still get all your chips in on the turn or river. With full stacks, this is hardly ever the case.
Checkraising
What's the purpose of a checkraise? At the core, it builds the pot faster, because we put in two bets on the same street instead of just one bet on every street. This means a hand that goes bet-checkraise-bet-bet will have a larger final pot than a hand that goes bet-bet-bet. When you're shortstacked, you get much less value from checkraises, because chances are you can take either a check/call-bet-bet or check/call-check/call-bet line for more value and still successfully stack the same types of hands that you would stack with a checkraise. Checkraising vulnerable hands or draws still has merit when shortstacked.
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