Tip 5: Use Polarized C-Betting Ranges

When you open from early position and get called by the big blind, you have a massive range advantage.

You often have a profitable continuation bet with your entire range. This doesn’t happen when the effective stack is short because there are many good, but marginal hands in your range that cannot stand a check raise all in.

This is not a major threat 100 BBs deep because you can comfortably call the raise without being pot committed, but not when you are only 25 BBs deep.

For this reason, your c-betting range should consist of hands like:

  • top pair,
  • top kicker,
  • combo draws that don’t mind calling a shove,
  • bottom pair or gutters that don’t mind folding to a shove.

Marginal hands like second pair or weaker draws should be checked back on the flop and often called on the turn in order to get to showdown and realize their poker equity.

You always have the option of betting the river as a bluff if you don’t think that you can win at showdown or betting for value once you become less concerned about a check-raise.

Tip 6: Just Push with Small Pairs

If you have small pairs like 2-2 through 7-7 in late position, you very likely have the best hand, but you’d rather not raise and play it post-flop or call a three-bet shove from a hand like 9-8-suited with it.

Consider open shoving with them for 20-25 BBs stacks and three-bet shoving with them for 25-30 BB stacks.

These hands lose a considerable amount of value on the flop. When they are ahead, they rarely hold up on later streets and when they are behind, they do not make good bluffing candidates due to only having two outs.

Additionally, the smaller ones like 2-2 and 3-3 work well as pre-flop shoves because they often fold out a few hands that dominate them like 4-4 and 5-5, but retain good equity against many of the hands that call like A-K and A-Q.

Tip 7: Consider Using a Limping Strategy

One of the first poker tips we learn as we become better at poker is that open-limping is usually a bad idea.

While this is true, it can have its merits once stacks become short.

With 25 BB stacks, you may want to open-raise a hand like J-9-suited from the button, but fear a three-bet shove from aggressive players in the blinds.

Using a limping strategy can allow you to increase your chances of seeing the flop in a spot like this one.

Of course, you will have to have some strong hands in your limping hands as well. You may even want to use a limp-only strategy in the right scenario.

It isn’t something you need to do against all opponent types, but it can be a powerful weapon to have in your tool belt if you know when to use it.

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