Poker Articles

A Bit of Maths: Short Handed Play
By Paul Samuel
(The UK's answer to Mike Caro or Lassie)

1. Introduction

I am sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry.

I am very very late with article 41 and 40 is missing !

Tina and Kevin have been so understanding I am almost tempted to force Mike Caro to write articles on PokerPages for free !

I have been really caught with all sorts of non-poker related business and the poker related stuff just hasn't been that good. (More on that in the Poker School).

Anyway, today I want to look at short handed play.

Clearly three or four handed, aggression is paramount.

He who bully's is worth two in the bush.

A tough cookie gathers no moss !

The point is, shorthanded one must take advantage of stealing as many pots as possible. As I have said before, in no-limit hold'em the uncontested post is key !

Lets look at some rough numbers.

2. Analysis

Suppose you raise and raise BIG with 'n' players left to act.

What is the chance that all your opponents will fold ?

Now it is far too difficult to exactly calculate these odds but we will you an estimation tool that is fair.

Now the stack sizes and nature of your opposition will determine the range of hands that they will call for all or most of their chips. I mean a low stacked player may just gamble so we will create four categories of player, each category relating to a range of hands that meet the 'calling' criteria, thus:

Table 1 - Table of player categories

You see how category 4 represents the 'loosest' player or indeed the player with the least to lose.

He will call with any pair of even a JT. Still this still means that he will only call 28.57% of the time.

Now lets look at various sample tables.

Lets say there are seven players to act and you make your move. Here's the profile:

In this case our little model gives an approximate value of 51.77% ! That is 51.77% of the time we will be called. In this case it is high risk that our 'move' will have an unhappy ending.

Lets take an example with two players to act !

Say:

Here in this example we get a call a mere 8.93% of the time !

But for:

We get a call 33.47% of the time, and for

We are called 48.98% of the time.

In a four handed example,

We are called 20.99% of the time.

3. Conclusion

Well its intuitively obvious.

Short handed, know your players and take account of their stack size and if the factors are favourable.

Bully, steal & bully.

The odds are in your favour !