Feeney's Game preservation- Maybe slightly LC

[flair1239]

I imagine a lot of us are spending more time on smaller sites the last few days. I have been playing a lot of smaller sites for the last 6-months (Not tiny but maybe medium is a better term 6000-8000 players at peak periods). Anyway depending the limit you play sometimes games are scarce at your limit.

The adjustment that I have made is to be more willing to play short-handed for longish periods (unless it is obvious that I am taking the worst of it EV wise), and even HU for a period of time.

What this does is essentially give the fish a place to sit. If I am at a site and there are no open games but 3-4 people on the list I will start a new table. If there is a 2-3 handed game I will join it.

Aside from The positive benefit of starting new games, these situations present excellent profitable oopurtunites in and of them selves. Some of my best nights have been times where a full game has stayed 3-4 handed for a long period of time. I think a short full game plays easier than a 6-max type game, primarily because you have a better chance of not being up against a specialist.

If you are going to be frequenting these sites, I would suggest that you try to start/join short tables. Enough people doing this consistently will really have a positive effect on the games and in turn give us more options as full-ring players.

NOTE: This probably pertains more to 3/6 and 5/10.

[thejameser]

i essentially suck against highly-experienced SH players, but give me full-ring players that stick around as a table breaks up and i can own them! good point.

[flair1239]

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i essentially suck against highly-experienced SH players, but give me full-ring players that stick around as a table breaks up and i can own them! good point.

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Also you will be suprised by how quickly you become comfortable and even start to look forward to these siutations.

[thejameser]

its been my experience that it takes me about an orbit to adjust my aggression/looseness. after that i like to capitalize on my opponents mistakes/shortcomings in a SH situation. i like the idea of starting up tables, btw.

[TheHammer24]

I've played at some super profitable 40 VPIP 2/4 tables that started when I found a table where three donks were playing together.

Harv comments on this in my 3/6 table selection post.

[brettbrettr]

When I was playing 3/6 my entire process of game selection was to find a short table, take advantage of guys who had no idea how to play short, and then continue to take advantage of them when the table filled up and they didn't adjust. This was before the 3/6 6 max tables and I'd say it worked 80% of the time, at least.

[Harv72b]

I /images/graemlins/heart.gif being heads up vs. a donk.

Seriously....I couldn't tell you how many times I had a losing session turn into a big winner just by lucking into a HU situation against an opponent who didn't know how to play HU.

[private joker]

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I /images/graemlins/heart.gif being heads up vs. a donk.

Seriously....I couldn't tell you how many times I had a losing session turn into a big winner just by lucking into a HU situation against an opponent who didn't know how to play HU.

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Yes, I love full ring games that are temporarily short-handed. People say the 6-max games are fishier, but 5-handed games where your opponents are all in 10-handed mode are awesome. I too have had sessions where I went from red to green in the final 50 hands because of smart short-handed play against fools.

[habsfanca11]

Brett, Harv, PJ,

Care to make a list of what you do differently to be successful? OK dumb question, but I can't think of the right way to phrase this. So let me try and put it a different way ... I've got a lot to learn, and don't play 6 max., so I would be lost playing short handed (exactly what you are looking for) - care to outline some of the adjustments you make? That way I have a starting point to look at things to be learned to take advantage when the tables get short. Right now I just get up and leave. I'm really clueless in this regard. I know you can loosen up and press the advantage of position more - but how much more is where I get lost.

[private joker]

A few tips:

1) Play raise-or-fold PF. Limping is rarely correct short-handed.

2) Flopping a pair is a monster. Treat it as such. In a 4- or 5-handed game, very few hands will really connect with dry flops (not the case, say, with a JT9 monotone flop), so if you have something like T7o and flop T63, bet, raise, and show it down. With a hand like A7s, flopping 972 is a similar situation. It's a good hand and you should show it down.

3) You won't have odds to draw, so play your big unsuited cards stronger than your middle suited connectors. Whereas in a full ring game I like 98s better than KTo, in short-handed I'd rather have KTo.

4) Ace-high often has showdown value.

5) Also, defend your blinds more often. Playing them passively is fine -- like if you defend and flop a pair, check-call it down hoping a big ace-high keeps trying to push you off.

[jason_t]

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3) You won't have odds to draw, so play your big unsuited cards stronger than your middle suited connectors. Whereas in a full ring game I like 98s better than KTo, in short-handed I'd rather have KTo.


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On the other hand you sometimes have more outs than you "think" you have because pair outs are sometimes good.

[Harv72b]

What Joker said. Basically, treat every single hand like it's a blind steal situation (because in a 5-handed or less situation, it is).

When you get down to 3 or 4-handed, and especially HU, the game becomes very mental. You have to be able to detect patterns in your opponent's play, and you have to vary your own. Few opponents really understand this, especially when you're talking about small stakes players who generally stick to full ring. For example, I wound up in a 3-handed situation the other night against one player who was a short-handed wet dream: he never folded preflop, he never bet or raised the flop without either top pair, a 4-flush, or an OESD, and he never called a flop bet without a pair. Ever. The third player was halfway decent, but never really tried to challenge me while I cleaned out the other guy...which was pretty easy to do, since I always had a very good idea what he held after the flop.

That said, I suck at 6max (I think I'm a little too aggressive in that game, and too unwilling to fold mediocre hands); I think I'm pretty good at full ring and games shorter than 6max, though. It's kinda weird.

[sfer]

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i essentially suck against highly-experienced SH players, but give me full-ring players that stick around as a table breaks up and i can own them! good point.

[/ QUOTE ]

Also you will be suprised by how quickly you become comfortable and even start to look forward to these siutations.

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Good post and good line of thought. It's even better in live games where the players are generally worse and adjust more poorly. Linky. (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=smallholdem&Number=320 2705&Forum=f3&Words=shorthanded&Searchpage=0&Limit =25&Main=3189500&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=75 40&daterange=1&newerval=4&newertype=m&olderval=&ol dertype=&bodyprev=#Post3202705)

[newhizzle]

i agree, i had one of my best sessions ever last night and a lot of it was at shorthanded(normally full ring) tables, i played heads up and 3 way for a while and managed to accumulate about 6 and a half buy ins at one 5/10 game, of course i was also running like a complete luckbox

but the games do fill up, when there was only one table going last night, i sat at another one by myself and waited, it filled up fairly quickly