More often than not, at some point during your poker playing career, you’ll find yourself playing on the short stack during a tournament. It happens to online poker pros and amateurs alike. If your bankroll doesn’t support it, you may also find yourself struggling to support yourself in a ring game. Therefore, one of the top strategies you’ll need to learn is how to play effective short-stack poker. After all, at a typical table, about half of the players will have more than the mean number of chips. Half of the players will be on the short stack. Here are a few strategies that you can follow to improve your game when times are getting tough.

1. Take advantage of acting first. Your number one friend when you’re on the short stack is position. If the pot has been folded around to you, push your chips into the middle of the table. It doesn’t matter what your two cards are: 8-4, 10-9, 2-6, or A-A, it doesn’t matter. Just push your chips in and hope no one calls. If you’re the first one to be able to open a pot, take advantage of it and push. It’s especially profitable since every player after you in the pot must decide whether to call your all in. Because you’ve opened the pot, you’re in control. Who knows, you may get lucky and double up. Always utilize your position when you’re low on chips.
2. Don’t wait too long. If you’re going to make a move to try and tack on chips by pushing all in, don’t wait too long to do it. You need to have enough “fold equity” in order to make your short stack worthwhile. It’s not possible for you to wait until you pick up pocket jacks to push all in. Chances are, you’ll probably be doing so with a marginal hand. That’s okay. Just don’t wait too long to get all of your chips into the middle. Getting blinded out is worse than losing with 8-2.
3. Attack tight players. This relates a little bit to the first point I outlined, but take advantage of opportunities to attack the tight and weak players at the table. If you’re isolated against them for any reason, push all in. If you blank out on the flop and you’re first to act, push all in anyway. It’s important for you, as the short stack, to be aggressive. Again, the cards that you have are irrelevant. The effectiveness of pushing all in depends on your chip stack relative to others’. It’s a numbers game.
4. Be resilient. If you’ve pushed for five consecutive hands, push in again on the sixth hand. It doesn’t matter. Whether you have pocket kings or 7-5, your action is the same: push all in. You can pick and choose your spots depending on position, but if you’re able to open a pot, do so for all of your chips. There’s no in between here. You shouldn’t be calling the big blinds and playing post-flop. You don’t have enough chips for that. You should be pushing all in or folding every hand.
5. Don’t tilt. If someone calls your all in holding Q-6, don’t go on tilt and take your bankroll to the ring games. It’s possible that the way you end up going out will be brutal. You might get called by seven high and lose. Just keep your cool when someone finally calls you.

Hopefully, you’ll never have to play on the short stack. If you do, you’ll know exactly what to do.