Short stack Shootouts in Zynga Poker

[Kork]

I won several pictures final shootout. Almost all have been from the short stack. Of all the shooting rounds I've played, I can count the number of times I have pushed pre-flop first-hand with one hand. I rarely play hands for at least half of the field or gone. Lately, especially in sit-n-go, I'll play solitaire while waiting in the field to reduce.

[Wyvern]

Most all of my successful shootout heads-up play has been a result of intense psychological warfare as opposed to betting good hands. The bluffs and semi-bluffs put chips on your stack. Combine that with actual winning hands and your opponent quickly finds him/herself going from a massive chip lead to cripple in fairly short order. A couple of good flips and they're gone.

[ApplePowerPC]

It occurred to me throw this in. When playing sit-n-go, do not play short draws. Slower mean bigger blind tables at the end of the game. For more blinds when playing against inexperienced or unskilled players.

[MacIntel]

That is not my experience on Zynga. Maybe it's true from a theoretical standpoint among seasoned players. I find that once the blinds reach 200 and above in the money or heads-up, few will call a 2 or 3BB raise because they haven't loosened up and fear the board. Most all of my stack building heads-up comes from bluffs. As I said before, a few steals, a few winners, a few more steals, and by the time they realize what's going on they are dominated. I do find that in general, on Zynga, aggression drops significantly for "most" players in the money and especially heads-up.

[Common]

So would playing a 5 player sit n go be better than a 9 player table, just due to the fact that there are 4 less players to worry about. Have to place 2nd at least to make profit at a 5 hand table. 3rd place and you're out of pocket. Plus, smaller sized final pot with -4 players. 9 players at 10k buy-in = 90k, 5 players at 10k buy-in = 50k.

[desilva]

Here I also add something in this case. Let's keep in mind that this is nothing you can't also do as the big stack. One key difference is that you don't have to win several all in pots to ship the sit n go - one will suffice. Effectual stacks will all the time be identical in any heads up disagreement. For what it's worth, the exact opposed of this is true in fact- especially if you're going into the fizz and beyond as the short stack.

[RyanInt]

Even if the blinds are small by the time you are heads up, they still eventually increase to whichever size you prefer anyway if you haven't already won by that point. In the meantime however, a skilled player has more hands, more rounds of betting, and more plays at his disposal into order for his advantage in ability to manifest itself. The blinds only increase to force a conclusion to the game. A good player will always rather skill decide the outcome instead of letting blinds decide the outcome, since any one hand can always go to either player even after the chips are in. To put it another way, if two players were playing heads up to determine who was better, would a 5 hand sample or a 500 hand sample prove more accurate.