by Aisthesis » Sun Mar 11, 2007 5:10 pm
I'm fairly flexible with online stack-sizes. At the $20, probably about everyone is a target, so I'm less sure. At the $100, there are usually quite a few familiar faces, though, and usually on Stars quite a few tight players.
What I generally try to do is make sure I cover loose idiots on whom I have position, and if half a stack is all it takes, then that's fine with me. I'll just play half-stacked for a stretch. The other thing, though, is who has position on me, since I could also rebuy for full stack and still have those guys covered. If it's more of a dangerous type LAG who's going to make for difficult decisions on later streets, then I don't really even want to have a full stack.
And I'm not talking here about someone who'll try to take just anything away from you: Against that guy, I'll still want to be full-stacked but try to let him hang himself by check-raising or check-calling. But there are also difficult players against whom I don't like to be full-stacked OOP. That's the main time when I don't mind staying short, if I still cover the targeted stacks on whom I have position.
Also, short-stacked play (one lesson to be learned from Rolf) generally means playing tighter rather than looser. Admittedly, even 100 BB isn't a huge stack by PLO standards. What you gain mainly are some re-raises PF without a big risk when you're hopefully marginally ahead and then the ability to push immediately on the flop and not have to worry about later streets. But there's not enough stack-depth to make it worthwhile to pursue something like half-ass draw with nut runner-runner or something like that--which can sometimes be profitable with very deep stacks, since runner-runner has a very high payoff potential.