FTP Addressed the Short Stackers! Stars Next?

The past couple of days have been pretty cool. My computer continues to give me troubles, but while it has been getting worked on I have been going to the golf course getting my game ready for the Pebble Beach Pro Am tournament that I am leaving for in 10 days. The preparation has gone really well so far and my ball striking has been excellent. I am going to play a few rounds this week with the Oregon Ducks golf team and that should also help me figure out where my game is at. I am a volunteer asst. coach for the Oregon Ducks, so it is great to be able to help the kids out and get to play some golf with them as well.

Poker went poorly on Friday, but went well on Saturday. I am up $41,000 on the year now. I would be doing a lot better, but I have been so bogged down with a bunch of nonsense this year that it has distracted me from playing poker as much as I wanted. I look forward to putting some of this stuff behind me and focusing more on my game. Doing a lot of away from the table poker related stuff is great, but not when it becomes burdensome. Fingers crossed things work themselves out nicely and I can get back to what I do best which is simply playing poker.

I really want to applaud FTP for getting rid of the short stackers. One thing that has really bothered me is that A. they even exist and B. that people have such a great misunderstanding of what short stacking is and the implications it can have on the game of poker. Some have viewed it as a “stylistic preference” and “who are you to tell someone they can’t play the style they want.” Guys, let me be perfectly honest here and have some trust that I am not bullshitting anyone. Short stacking is a method of playing the game that a bot could easily employ or a person could easily teach to someone who has no understanding of the game of poker. What short stacking is is a style of play where a person can sit in front of the computer with a chart and simply click buttons and profit off of some of the best players in the world.

Short stacking (with 20BB stacks) is an entirely solvable game and is the single greatest threat to poker in my opinion. There is literally nothing stopping someone from starting a company (and I think some already have) where they have hundreds of computers in an office somewhere where they could have people clocking in and playing a short stacking style with a few supervisors roaming the building to make sure they were on task. If they wanted to do it cheaper, they could create bots to do the same thing and not have hundreds of people clocking in each day.

There is no skill involved in being a profitable short stacker, and for the life of me I can not understand why some people do not see a problem with it. Most of us online guys came to poker after watching the movie Rounders and wanting to log on and play the “Cadillac of poker.” Well, the “Cadillac” is looking more like a Pinto right now. When I go to log on these days to Poker Stars, there are legions of these short stackers (some of which I suspect are potentially bots) who are ruining the game. Please, please do something about this Poker Stars.

In any event, it is a very scary thing that poker needs to overcome and I applaud FTP for being the first major site to step up and resolve this issue. I am certain Stars will soon follow. I don’t think they really have a choice. They created one of the best poker rooms in the world and it has devolved into a cesspool of short stackers who are doing their best each and every day to ruin the game we all love. Please, please help all of us who want to play real poker. Please, take a page from FTP and do the right thing, Poker Stars.