In all honesty, once you have a strong grasp of hand ranges, playing short stack is failry easy and doesnt involve tough decisions. The othe rplayers make enought mistakes to make it easy....but here are 2 situations that are kind of tough.

#1) Unimproved AK (or AJ ect)


The goal with AK is to get all in preflop but alot of times I make a standard open raise to 3.5 BBs and get a caller. The flop is rags. The pot is 7 BBs and I have 16-25 BBs left. What do I do?

Flop is 843 or J83 or Q55....whats my play? Overbet shove? Check? Standard CB and then give up if called? (Hate that one)

#2) Small pairs.

Its tough to get odds to limp. If I raise Im obviously getting overcards and Im basically in the same spot as the unimproved AK (slightly better maybe)

I raise 3.5 BBs and get called once. Flop is T53 or Q77 or AT5 (I have 44). WHats my best option? CB and then give up if called?

If I CB to 5BBs into the 7 BB pot and get called, I have 11-15 BBs left and the pot is 17BBs. Do I shove and pray?

I did mention in the OP that goal with AK is to get all in preflop. Obviously the more money you get in preflop the better. I just dont see any difference between 3.5 BBs and 4BBs.

If there are 1 or 2 limpers, I often make it 6BBs. if they call, Im obviously shoving any flop and if they fold, thats fine.

But its tough to get any action by opening to 6BBs. They may shove on you if they have a good hand and thats great, but rarely is QTs or JT or anything like that going to call. People will call 3.5BBs all day with all kinds of garbage and probably even moreso since Im short.

I limp / reraise all in when UTG with AK / AQ / AJs all the time just because of this (so I dont get one caller and flop nothing).

But I might not be shoving if I hadnt raised so much preflop because it would be a bigger overbet if the preflop raise was smaller