Playing shorthanded against weaktight players is heaven for me...I push em and push em and eventually they do something stupid and lose their stacks to me. No problems there.

My problem is joining a table at paradise at 1 or 2am on a friday or saturday and find myself up against a piece of shit table consisting of 2 shortstacks and 2 calling stations. I dont think I can buy 25% of the pots I raised PF, even if I am playing normal, tight aggressive 10 person poker.

Heres how it usually goes: I get AKo or KQs in late position and I think 'great! its about damn time!' and raise 4x after everyone has limped in. Assuming some shortstack jerkoff doesnt suddenly go allin for $34 or $27 after limping in (they do this regularly) I fold the shortstacks out and at least 1 calling station who is always up my ass calls. The flop comes out with a bunch of crap and he calls my flop bet. I check, he bets, I fold. Repeat 4 times.

Ok, I tell myself, Ill just follow up with a turn bet next time and keep the pressure on - they cant hit something every time can they? So next time I do the same with AQ and I get a shorstack caller. He checkraises allin about every time plus one.

Fine, Ill wait for the shorstack to run into TPTK and hope he doesnt suck out on me next time. Those arent as bad, but they piss me off because added in against the other players, its hard to find an optimal strategy for playing against both at the same table.

The calling stations are the worst, because I have absolutely no idea where I'm at postflop. Is he chasing the flush for $12 and $28 potsized bets? Maybe, but maybe not. I saw a flopped set of 4's get check-called all the way down last night, two pair checked called my tptk down last night and I lost my TPTK flush draw flop alin to some motherfucker with a pair of jacks rivering a freak straight.

Now I know that its good to get in situations like the above as often as possible, but shorthanded isnt about sitting around all day and waiting for the nuts. That would suck and it would be easy to see through and I dont want to do that when Im playing against anybody. I still want to raise my marginal hands like AJo, KQ, KJ, 99 because I usually have the best hand compared to all the crap J5 hands I see shown down, but its hard to not go into passive call the blinds mode because I feel that the hands Im raising with should be winning more than their fair share of the time.

What do you do when its shorthanded and youre up against calling stations/shortstack checkraisers?

I would definitely go into nutpeddle mode if this was 10 person, but does that work as well in shorthanded? Surely even the vilest filth of a human corpse calling station zombie can tell you're on something when you bet big for the first time in 120 hands.

Is table selection (ie going to bed after 2) the only answer for me?

I really feel stupid asking about how to deal with the most lucrative, chip-spewing poker players online, but I keep losing money to them lately.