Adjusted hand rankings

[3~Libras]

I imagine that everyone here is familiar with Sklansky's hand rankings for holdem. However, these are only good for an assumed full table. Does anyone have, or know where I can find, and a list that is just for the number of players at a table, including heads up play?

[Mike Gallo]

Experience.

[3~Libras]

Thank you. That was very helpful. The orginal hand rankings were made to help a person bypass some of the trial and error associated with experience. In other words, so that you learn faster. But thanks again for your help.

[Mike Haven]

i think the idea with the ranking system is that the hands keep their group number, but the play is different depending on how many players are to speak

[BottlesOf]

In HPFAP it specifically says you cannot think in terms of hand groupings in HU and SH play, it's no longer a necessary or helpful tool.

[DeucesUp]

Such a list does not, to my knowledge, exist and even if it did it wouldn't be very useful because the relative hand rankings change much more drastically depending on situation than they do in full games. For example the rankings would be quite different in a heads-up game vs. 5-handed, they'd also be quite different in a 4-handed game sitting on the button depending on whether the first player was in or it was folded to you.

But here are some general guidelines:

Start w/ the S&M rankings, hands of similar types will maintain their relative values, but certain "types" of hands will change relative to one another.

As the game has fewer and fewer players, the likelihood for needing a flush or straight to win goes down and the likelihood of a small pair or even high card winning goes up. Thus the value of being suited goes down (relatively) as do connectors. The value of pocket pairs and big cards go up.

A couple of example types of hands which change their relative value quite a bit: Small suited connectors like 65s which can, under the right circumstances, be quite strong in full games are quite weak short-handed. And AXo where X is a small card. These are practically useless hands in full ring games (I don't think they even appear in S&M, maybe they sneak into group 8, but I don't think so). But short-handed, particularily heads-up, these become fairly strong holdings because of the possibility of A - high holding up.

[Mike Gallo]

Thank you. That was very helpful. The orginal hand rankings were made to help a person bypass some of the trial and error associated with experience. In other words, so that you learn faster. But thanks again for your help.

Goat,

I gave you a straight forward response.

A "cookbook" does not exist for shorthanded or heads up play. In order to know what hands to play you will need to gain experience playing short handed or heads up. You cannot get around that.

If you read some of the other responses they gave the same answer as I did, only they used more words.

Sometimes a person cannot get spoon fed /images/graemlins/blush.gif

[karlson]

There's plenty of discussion on preflop play once the first few players have folded. Just think of it that way.

[lostinthought]

3~libras,
I know MG's response sounded like a smart ass remark, but in a way, he's right. I've been playing for a little over a year and was awful at shorthanded and heads up play for a long time. Lately, I've been interested in improving those areas of my game for a number of reasons, some of which I am sure are similar to your reasons.

One thing is that you need to be able to play a solid ring game before you can tackle the other two. You have to get beyond hand groupings and mechanical play and start thinking about how different hand types play against different sized fields, in different positions, with different sized pots.
Read all you want, but only experience and reflection will teach you that. And if you don't understand those things, full ring games are better, because you will loose your money slower.. (that is, until you become a winning player).

On the other hand, from my personal experience, playing short handed and heads up (and yes, losing for awhile), taught me alot about aggresiveness and hand reading that has greatly improved my full ring game abilities.

So, in a sense, the learning process for the different sized games feeds off each other. The moral of my blabbing is this - go play, and try to learn from your playing. And if you have to lose a little to learn, try to lose as little as possible. There's no sense to jumping right into 5/10 6max games. Play smaller limits, and smaller buyins. Pokerstars has heads up (limit, pot limit, and no limit) tourneys for as little as $5.

If you want to be mechanical and spoon fed, rather than inquisitive and reflective, than buy a poker bot.. (oh btw, you won't probably make much money with that either...)

good luck.. it takes time and work..

[Mike Gallo]

Jazzy,

Good post.

I've been playing for a little over a year and was awful at shorthanded and heads up play for a long time. Lately, I've been interested in improving those areas of my game for a number of reasons, some of which I am sure are similar to your reasons

Any played who has aspirations of winning a major tournament needs to become a skilled short handed player.

[baztalkspoker]

Hmm, I think it was a pretty valid question, and there definitely does not seem to be a lot written on this area in any of the standard poker texts. I have studied up on heads up and had improved this area of my game quite a lot, the only problem is people who play this online seem to know what they're about, so lately have been playing in 5 to 6 player games and found that I had tightened up too much initially and was playing too close to the times I was in a 9-10 player game. Now I tend to limp in a lot more in these games as you give away too much information with a raise - though I obviously raise sometimes, yip genereally high cards and pairs are more playable and even ace-2 or possibly even k-2( maybe not under the gun) can be valid at times at least when no raise is likely - though i am open to contradiction on this. It's still an area I want to look up more myself but I have started doing ok since loosening up and becoming unpredictable, though I still think I am playing tighter than a lot of my opposition.
Hoping to see more on this topic and hoping to learn more also.

[sthief09]

It is my opinion that before a person becomes a good short-handed player, he must be a skilled full-table player. In short-handed games, your ability to read players becomes more important, and you'll need to be very aggressive to stay alive. Unfortunately, these are two things (as Mike alluded to) that can't be read in a book or taught. You need to have a feel for the players, and a feel for your hands' strengths and weaknesses.

For example, against a calling station, suited connectors lose much of their value, because you won't be able to semi-bluff, and you'll have to show down the best hand to win. Against tight players, you'll want to raise a lot more since you'll be able to win the blinds more often.

But there is a pretty large section in HEFAP on short-handed play (mostly 3-handed and headsup). From your post, I'm assuming you found the hand rankings online somewhere and haven't read the book, so that might be a good place to start.

[manpower]

I'm not sure how well this will help, or whether you've seen it or not, but i'd check here to see if it helps.

http://www.pokerroom.com/main/page/games/evstats/expValue