OK month wasn't that successful poker wise +$400 or so which was mostly RB..

I did a couple of interviews (with Xast and then with Roy/Zmej and Piers) which seemed to go well. Would do more if anyone bothered to join Skype and add me [andy mcnish] to their contacts.

Started my own short stack experiment (devising my own system) and am set up to play as AardvarkAttack at iPoker for the month. I can 6 table without mouse on my laptop or 8-9 table on my desktop upstairs.

Playing short (at least while you try different things and develop a system) is quite fascinating (I'd never done it before) and as you can play really short sessions if needed I should be able to get some good hours in this month. I also have RB and a $500 bonus to clear at the same time so that should insulate me form running bad.

I played 1300 hands at iPoker at the end of July and made $300 or so (running at 10.5PTBB/100). PokerEv -which is great for analysis of the short stack game - says that I am running hot and have an adjusted PTBB/100 of 4. That is still pretty good if I'm playing twice as many $100 6 max tables as usual.

Played 1.5 hours at Will Hill 4 tabling $100 short last night. Ran bad (ugh) but still made $25 or so thanks to $30 on WH bonus. Have 1.2 more total table hours to get in tonight (for the last $20 bonus) and then it's off to iPoker for some serious shortstacking..

Cheers

I

My 2300 hands are split across 2 computers at the moment (one of which my wife is on now)- I will post the combined graph tonight

On both of them though I think my expected all-in EV is about breakeven (and I'm slightly up in reality)

It's the other hands where I'm making the $$ and you appear to be making a loss Ice - I think the problem isn't in the big all-ins...it may be just that villains are so super-aggro at your stakes that I am picking up lots of dead money that isn't available to you @$1000 of course...

Ok played another 500 tonight.

Played really pretty well - made two mistakes - one was, after not raising QQ UTG, finding myself HU with BB and stacking off on the flop to his flopped 2 pair - the limping UTG is fine here - the stacking off on flop unforgiveable

Other was getting all in with AQs again as a UTG limper vs OTB stealer who had AKo - actually with 4 limpers (including me) and his 17% PFR range I think I had to push - but overall I think raising a hand like AQ and AJ utg for say 3BB and dropping to a 3 bet may be best

As you can see from the graphs, and as Ice will know better than me, playing well as a shortie and winning can be two different animals - so I lost 2/3rds of a buy-in in the 500 hands - $10 bonus and 50% RB will mean I end up maybe a $40 loser for the session.


That's the best thing about short-stacking - even 5 horrendous beats in arow only cost you one buy-in.
Here is the graph of the 500 - notice how the bad beats really hit over the last 50 hands




Finally how the overall graph for teh iPoker shortstack experiment is starting to tend towards the norm (adjusted PTBB should be about 4)



Still Ice will be happy to hear that actual winnings and expected winnings don't keep diverging forever!

I think raising AQ and then folding to a 3 bet all in is a bad idea. I also think limping UTG with AQs and then reraising all in after the button raises a bunch of limpers is a no brainer.

Also, limping QQ and then getting all in with a blind is no problem when youre this short. I limped 88 today and got a flop of 632. I got all in with the BB and he had J6 and this is 5/10 mind you. Of course as expected, he outdrew me, but the point is that they wont fold TP when youre that short, so missing the chance to reraise with a big pair and then still getting all in with the overpiar is fine, I think.

Yeh - they are EV mistakes against the particular holdings (so showed up as the worst plays on PokerEV) but may well be optimal play vs the range.

I did donk in $17 over his $2 bet out in the limped QQ one though which sure feels like pretty terrible play even if he would have taken my money anyway just by 3 betting if I had put in a smaller raise.

The AQs push in this instance was trivial but I am still undecided whether the limp-push with non-premium hands played from EP like AQ, 88 and AJ is optimal or whether a raise would be better - and if you raise whether a smallish 3BB one or a big 6BB flop committing one is best- let me play 20k hands trying all 3 strategies out and I will have a better idea,,it may depend on the players behind of course..

I am coming to the conclusion that with big pairs like AA and KK in EP you dont want to push all-in pre-flop - just raise (or re-raise) so that slightly less than a pot sized bet is left to you on the flop - palyers tend to overcall your 6-7BB raise but afterwards, as they feel you would fire with any two on the flop they call off the rest of your stack with hands that they wouldn't have called a simple pre-flop all-in with.

With other premium hands like QQ, JJ and AK I am definitely looking for the limp-push from EP.

With less premium hands like decent KQs, AJ in EP you need to leave enough behind for a small overbet if you miss, so that you retain some folding equity if they did too. That is is if they are +EV from EP which I suspect they are but will keep an eye on.

I think that the two key elements of good short stack play are getting into +EV all-ins pre-flop and manipulating pot size for optimal betting out on flop (or not betting out on flop occasionally) considering position, reads, flop and the type of starting hand you had..

As the red line on the graph shows I am getting better at short-stacking even as my winnings have stalled (although the $140 in RB + bonuses will mean my roll is increasing overall still).