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Short stack strategy - typical rookie mistakes

Poor Bankroll Management

Probably the most important thing for every successful poker player is a conservative bankroll management scheme. This means that you always have enough cushion not to go broke and to continue playing during a streak of bad luck .

Pokerstrategy has put together such a scheme for you, and you should use it and stick to it. The great danger in breaking your own rules here is that you could easily lose all your funds in a short time because of bad luck only because you were playing a limit that was much too high.

Remember: you cannot always win. Playing poker means losing money, too, sometimes for long spells. Beginners might also make grave mistakes from time to time. Only a proper bankroll management can protect you from unlucky hands and grant you the luxury of dropping the ball sometimes.

Fear
This point might seem a bit overdone, but it applies to a lot of players. Take the example from the forums of a hand, where the player folded his jacks (JJ) on the button just because other players he didn't know (on whom he had no reads), besides the UTG limped, that is they called and didn't raise the big blind. The reason was that he thought the UTG-limp surely meant AA.

You should respect your opponents at the table, but fear is the mind-killer when playing poker. If you fear, then you'll think of nothing but the hands better than yours and you'll have no chance of delivering your best performance. It will be hard to make money this way.

One trick to overcome this fear is to remember that you are not playing with your own money. You didn't pay anything, rather, you started out with 50 dollars from Pokerstrategy (and later another 100). You are learning poker for free!

You can also see plenty of players in the community who have done this and are now successfully established on the higher limits because they learned one thing: to bet without fear in a situation where this is correct.

It sounds harsh, but if you are too afraid to risk money and to lose money, you will lose in any case. Poker is a game where you must lose sometimes and by constantly taking on risk.

Tilt

Tilt is a problem for many players, not just beginners. This means that you change your style of play in response to immediate events, like bad beats (unlucky losses). You don't play your perfect game in this state. It can be just as bad if you have good luck and start to believe yourself invincible. Some people become very aggressive in this state and raise a lot, others become complacent and fold too much (see 2).

If you notice yourself tilting, take a break and wait until you've recovered before sitting back down at the table.

Tilt is one the biggest bankroll-annihilators out there, since it magnifies small but painful losses into large losses, both emotionally and financially. You should see it as a tactical decision and a part of your game not to play when you are on tilt. This way, you can avoid the inevitable high losses this would entail. Stop playing is a good move if you are on tilt.