• Sympathy for the Donkey
• …Or Maybe the Problem is That I Think too Much
• Playing in Short-Handed No Limit Games

A lot of the poker strategy caters to cash games revolves around full – or near full – tables. Whenever you see articles talking about thing like starting hand requirements, table position, and reading opponents, they will often be based on play at tables that have 7 to 10 people playing at them. The mistake that many people make after reading this type of advice is that they go and try to apply it to cash game situations where the table is short-handed (a table that has 6 or fewer people playing at it). And when a person tries to do this, they often end up playing way too conservatively and making a lot more mistakes. That’s why it’s definitely best to go into a short-handed game armed with the right strategy; this article targets more specifically short-handed No Limit games since they are increasingly popular these days.

Starting Hands

I have never been a big fan of rigid starting hand requirements, especially when referring to games of the No Limit variety. It’s definitely good to keep a rough guideline of what hands you are willing to play in certain positions, but don’t get carried away with these as they can change depending on three factors: what limit you’re playing, the people that you are playing with, and how many people are at the table. The last one is what we’re most concerned with right now.

That being said, people will often fold hands like K-10, A-4, and J-10 when they are sitting at a full table since the chances are high that at least one or more hands are better. However, this dramatically changes when the table becomes short-handed since there are not only fewer people in the game, but fewer possibilities for better hands too. When you are playing at a short-handed table, then it’s definitely a good idea to play more aggressively with non premium cards so that you can bully other players at the table who are playing like it’s a full table game.

Table Position

Anybody who knows anything about poker strategy realizes how important table position can be for deciding when to stay in a hand or not; but again, most No Limit strategy only covers this aspect when speaking about full table games. Common table positioning advice states that there are early, middle, and late positions that people must be mindful of when making decisions. This all changes when people are sitting down at a short-handed table though.

 

First off, people should forget about the whole middle position aspect since a short-handed table is too small to include this factor – there’s only early and late position in this case. And early position is stronger at this point since considerably fewer people will be acting after you at the table. So, just like with the starting hands, more stuff is playable in early position such as small pocket pairs as well any hand with an Ace, King, or Queen, in it. You can also raise while holding less in these situations too.

And I joined the table.

Reading Opponents

One great thing about the short-handed table is that reading opponents becomes a lot easier for one obvious reason: there are less people. Keeping this in mind, the strong players become identified a lot quicker while the fish stick out more as well. Stealing blinds will become a much bigger part of the game at a short-handed table since the weak and ultra-tight players will be less likely to stay in hands; this is because good cards will be seen less frequently in each hand.

Likewise, you’ll also need to know when to cut it off and avoid getting into any raising wars with tight players who suddenly start throwing chips on the table like crazy. The last thing you want to do is lose a third – or more – of your stack because you were trying to steal the blinds while holding very little in the way of cards.