Poker Articles

Today's world is all about convenience
By Nick Eisel

People are always looking for the easy way out or quick fix in anything they do. Can you blame them? If it saves time or effort, where do I sign up?

With poker, however, having this sentiment will do you little good. Cutting corners and not practicing or studying enough will only lead to your own eventual downfall. This is good news for anyone who's already willing to put in the time, but what about the rest of you out there only looking for the easiest way to make the big money playing poker? I think I may have found your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in the form of Shorthanded (6 players max) Low Limit Hold'em.

The overwhelming majority of poker books out there focus mainly on full table Limit Hold'em. While these tables are a great place to build a foundation of your understanding of the game, the real money is made in shorthanded play. Oddly enough, little has been written on the subject of shorthanded save a small chapter here and there in some of the major full table books. I plan to change this by writing almost exclusively on the subject.

I guess I should probably introduce myself before I get too far along here as this is my first article and all. I've been playing poker seriously for a little over a year and a half. While that may not seem like a long time, you have to consider that I was playing 60-70 hours a week for a good portion of last year, and have read essentially every book on the subject and spent even more time thinking about the game. While I do play the full tables at higher limits (10/20 & 20/40), I mainly specialize in online shorthanded low limit (2/4, 3/6, 5/10). My series here on PokerPages.com will cover all aspects of shorthanded play and show you how you can beat the games for much more than a big bet an hour once you gain some experience.

So what's so special about shorthanded anyway, and why can you make more money at it than a regular game?

The first thing that initially turned me on to playing with less players than a full table was the fact that I found it really hard to find bad game conditions. This isn't to say that I didn't find tables with good players, but rather that it was hard to find a table that wasn't profitable to sit at. This is not true with full table games, however, as a game can be considered bad for a number of reasons.

A lot of full table games are just too tight to make any real money with the action folding to the cutoff or blinds far too often, and the only real profit being made by someone who is taking advantage of stealing from late position and then playing superiorly after the flop. So a generally tight strategy doesn't work very well here since the only way you're going to get action when you finally do pick up a hand is if someone else has something they think is good and ends up making the 2nd best hand. Sounds a lot like waiting around hoping to win the lottery if you ask me. You could argue that adjusting your strategy and just raising more and outplaying people can make you some real money in this type of game, and I'd have to agree except for the fact that most people do not play well enough to use this style. So generally these tight full table games will be unattractive to the run of the mill solid player.

Full tables can also be too maniacal with every preflop getting capped, making it hard to play anything marginal. I've found that in these games you really won't make any significant money unless you make some big hands as it's near impossible to steal a pot. These games aren't horrible either, as obviously if people are capping everything, they're doing so with sub-par hands, but it's just not my idea of an ideal game setting.

With shorthanded, things are generally different. I think the main reason for this change is because most people have absolutely no idea how to convert full table strategy over to short. They know to play looser, but they don't know exactly what that means. You'll still see people limping in with suited garbage, which gets punished even more in a short game. They also don't understand that you want to have the initiative if you're coming into a pot, and they generally don't get value out of their hands. We'll talk more about that later though.

So let's get back to the benefits of choosing a shorthanded game over a full table.

First off, you get to play more hands. While this in itself is enjoyable, the main reason it's a benefit is because you get to be in the pot more often against weaker players. Just being in there ensures some sort of long-term profit if you play reasonably well. You also get more opportunities to benefit from your opponents' mistakes, and also more chances to induce mistakes than you would at a full table where you are generally playing tight preflop standards. And remember, we are playing shorthanded, which is generally heads up or three-way action, so little mistakes get punished much harder than they would at a full table where there may be six people in the pot giving them far better odds on some of the atrocious calls they make.

As I was saying earlier, it's really hard to find bad conditions in a short game, so even if you are getting outdrawn, you'll generally be able to make that money back easily by just stealing some pots and have people calling your preflop raise and then folding to you after the flop very often. Uncontested pots should be considered the poker player's best friend, as there's nothing better than taking one down as there's no way for you to be outdrawn and lose. This is where most of the money comes from in shorthanded since people like to see the flop too often and will then just give the pot to you when they don't flop a hand or draw. Playing generally tight and using selective aggression you can double your buy in pretty easily without even having to showdown very many winners.

Another benefit is that you get more hands in per hour since they go faster with fewer players, and we all know that more hands means more chips in our stacks. Another thing I've noticed is that virtually every player you play against online will have at least one habitual movie in his repertoire that you can easily spot and take advantage of. Playing shorthanded just allows you to do this more easily.

Finally, the art of blind battles is one that doesn't take extremely long to master, and is far more important in a short game than a full one. Taking advantage of these heads up situations will really add up, as most people are pretty passive in the blinds and easy to push around.

In the coming months I plan to cover as much as possible about shorthanded play in order to help you up your hourly rate and also give you some insight into this exciting version of the game. Some of the things you can look forward to reading about include high percentage bluffs, why suited connectors are a leak, how to play the blind battles, avoiding marginal situations, and more.

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