2 things I have no idea about.

1) If I was misplaying this system somehow for 1600 hands, or if it was truly bad luck because everything is working now and Im winning again, not at the pace of the beginning run which was unsustainable, but at a pace that I do think is semi reasonable

2) If anyone is reading this journal.

Im now at 4900 hands with a total win rate of 3.39 PTBBs. Since returning from Vegas and to the short stacking, Im at 7.8 PTBBs. The lowest point in the graph (around hand 3400) is where I started playing after returning.

Remember, that a win rate of 3 or 4 or whatever, is exactly the same amount of money no matter if youre playing with 20BB, 100BBs or 200 BBs. So its not like the 3.39 PTBBs has to be written off as only 20% of a real win rate or anything like that. I think 4 PTBBs is sustainable and probably at much higher stakes than Im playing. We shall see.

One thing that is fun about short stacking is that you can shove all sorts of draws / overcards and things like that.

So far I dont have the answer, but to help alleviate the problem, Im limp reraising all in with AK / AQ from UTG for now.

People love to raise limpers nowadays and they rarely want to fold to the shorty once I reraise so it works well.

I don't see any flaws per se in your system, but over smallish 2500 hand sample sizes you are going to get crazy variance playing short stacked.

I'd guess playing short stacked, you might see 50-75% more variance than you're typical full stack game.

Now of course, the amounts are smaller so it won't feel quite that much, but when you are just getting it in no matter what in X situations, you are going to have huge hot/cold runs.

As always, as soon as you think things are going smoothly, you smacked upside the head.

I lost 4 short stacks in 100 hands

#1) Total idiot raises $3. I shove with AKs. He calls with KJs and wins

#2) Someone raises to $3. I shove for 16 BBs with AJs. He calls with 66. I lose

#3) Dufus min raises,,Next guy makes it 7.5 BBs. I shove for 21BBs with AQs. They both call. Flop is A83...they check...the min raiser shoves the turn and other guy folds. He has A8. I dont get very many triple up chances so missing this one sucks.

Blah

Short stack is working well and about as expected (other than that one hellacious losing streak). Afew hands from the last 2 days:

#1) Guy who just open limped 95s on the button raises to 3.5BBs. I shove with AKs. he calls with K6s.

#2) UTG opens to 4BBs. A guy just sat with 20BBs ands posted. he calls. I shove for 21 BBs with AK. They both call. They both have KQs

#3) Got all in twice with KK vs AK

#4) Guy min raises...gets a call. I shove for 20BBs with JTs. The min raiser calls me with 44.

These guys just have no idea how to play vs a short stack. I have hands like these over and over again. I think I'll move up pretty soon.

One thing I just learned about photobucket. If you put a new picture (in this case of a picture of this graph) into photobucket ..and you use the same file name after delelting the previous file with the same name...it changes the previously posted picture. In other words, the graph posted 2 posts above this one now looks different. The picture was replaced with the new one. The 6 short stack loss I mentioned in the post above this one occurred between hands 5700 and 6100.

Since then, I hit a hot streak and Im now at 5.32 PTBBs for the month. This includes some 1/2. Most of this is .5/ 1....I may move up to 1/2 permanently soon. All seems to be going well.

I just listened to the Excession / Xaston interview. I especially enjoyed the part where Xaston talks about the few good short stackers and how they bascially mathematically cant be beat (although he didnt say it in those exact words), by people trying to play correctly against other full stackers. This is the whole purpose of short stacking.

The online environment has changed and I want to change and adapt to beat it. For a long time, I could play TAG and easily beat the games. Then came Cardrunners and the UIGEA or whatever its called, and the games got really overaggressive. My old style wasnt workign any where near as well. But since most people are now raising all kinds of marginal hands, I have changed my game and Im just taking advantage of their overaggressiveness preflop. There is no way to combat this strategy and still play other full stackers correctly. People want to play their game. They dont want to adjust to shortstackers (and dont really need to for the most part because shorties suck almost always). They would also rather make a mistake against me, than a mistake against a full stacker, because a mistake against me costs them less.

So they will still raise 55 in the cutoff even though Im sitting there in the blind with 20BBs and I may shove it in at any moment. They will also still raise from the cutoff with some junk after I limp UTG because they want to take control of the hand and be in position vs the blinds who are probably fully stacked. Now when I reraise all in, they have to call and I will almost always have a better hand than them in that spot.

They cant beat the math.