Cake Poker Moves To Combat Scourge Of Short Stackers

For a long time now ‘short stackers’ have been considered the scourge of online poker, as they often disrupt the flow and dynamics of a game making many of the more sophisticated moves employed by poker players unprofitable.
Short stackers usually buy-in for around 20 big blinds rather than the standard 100 big blinds, and are looking for a quick opportunity to double up before quitting the game; a practice which has come to be known as ‘rat-holing.’
Consequently, they will only wait for premium hands before often shoving pre or post flop, thus reducing all play at the table to a craps shoot. In addition, the quality of the game suffers, as do the pot sizes and general level of customer satisfaction.
Unfortunately, ‘short stacking’ and ‘rat-holing’ have been steadily on the rise in the online game, where the anonymity of online poker allows players to exploit plays which would otherwise get you excluded from live games. As a result, online poker has now been overrun by the practice to the consternation of poker players and enthusiasts alike.
Full Tilt Poker recently lead the fight against ‘short stackers’ by raising the minimum buy-in at their No Limit tables from 20 big blinds to 35 big blinds, and now Cake Poker has followed suit and raised their minimum buy-in to 30 big blinds beginning April 8th.
Following the announcement, Cake Poker’s card room manager, Lee Jones said: “We do, however, understand that many people prefer to play shorter stacks simply because it reduces their exposure to one very good second-best hand costing them a large amount of money. Also, many cash game novices prefer to play with shorter stacks while getting their feet wet in cash game play; it’s definitely a different environment than tournaments.”
” Therefore, in our smaller games, we will offer “shallow” tables, which will have a buy-in range of 20-50 big blinds. Those games will be a great training ground for the newbies and a place where the short-stack specialists can practice their craft. We will, of course, continue to offer 30-100 big-blind buy-in games at those stakes as well.”
Other poker rooms expected to be considering taking similar actions include the world’s biggest online poker site, PokerStars.