As already said, to play skew change: use delta-neutral vega-neutral risk reversal. If you want option-only strategies, the delta hedging is replaced by synthetics. For instance: Buy OTM put / sell OTM call / buy fraction of ATM call / sell fraction of ATM put Such that: Vega(OTM put)= Vega(OTM call) and Delta(OTM call)-Delta(OTM put) = fraction
When you say short term, how many days/weeks are you talking about? I am playing with similar strategies inspired by destriero. Seems to me 40-50 DTE allows you to do some adjustments if your initial directional bet goes south by a lot.