Short-handed vs. full games

[Jon Poker]

I play pretty tight and notice a huge difference in my winnings when I play short-handed vs. full table. When I play against 8 or more opponents I can almost always pull off some huge winning sessions. But short-handed is about 50/50 and the times I lose I lose a ton.

I think most players (like myself in the beginning) think that a full table will bring your more bad beats due to more people sticking around and getting lucky on the river. However, in reality I would say a short-handed table will give you more bad beats. Because short-handed players stick around even more due to lack of hands they have to compete against.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

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When I play against 8 or more opponents I can almost always pull off some huge winning sessions.

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First off you need to be realistic and honest with yourself. No one "almost always" has huge wins, not even the top pros.

I also don't think it's extra bad beats that hurt you in short-handed games. People chasing gutshots and underpairs are making even bigger mistakes mathematically when chase short-handed, because their odds are lessened. Short-handed games always have larger swings because the action goes so fast, you just have to accept it. Also, you may need to adjust your tactics more. Also, Loose aggressive players are harder to beat short-handed because the nature of the game when short changes to where their style is more suited for play than it is at a full table.

al

[Jon Poker]

Well, does winning $300-$400/night playing 1 5/10 table for 5 hours = huge winnings. I think so. And the site I play at and all its fish makes this so easy that I can do it 13 out of 14 nights. So I am honest with myself and I track my play with much detail.

What I have found is when I play short-handed my winning % is about 50/50 but full table and its over 90%.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

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What I have found is when I play short-handed my winning % is about 50/50 but full table and its over 90%.


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None of the top players whom I personally know (of which several post on this forum regularly) can do nearly this well; your claims FAR outclass all of them by a mile, even the authors. Your six posts surely support your claims too.

This marks the end of my interest in your posts.

al

[Nate tha' Great]

There's no reason to play short-handed games if you don't think there you're strength. They do require certain strategic adjustments: more aggressive play, a considerably higher percentage of flops seen, different starting hand requirements (I'd take KJo over 98s at a shorthanded table) a willingness to fight over the blinds, and perhaps a stronger emphasis on table selection and player reads. A profitable full table player who started playing shorthanded without making any of these adjustments would probably end up break even, or worse.

I suspect the percentage of losing sessions is somewhat higher shorthanded since (some will disagree here) the variance is higher. Getting colddecked will hurt you more shorthanded. You'll have sessions where you drop 100 bucks in a half-hour without making serious mistakes. Then again, you'll also have sessions where you make 300 bucks in half an hour. In the long run, the games can be plenty profitable with the right tactics.

[RydenStoompala]

I improved my game enormously playing short handed and heads up. For obvious reasons, larger numbers of players post-flop means more potential variations and a greater likelihood that the nuts are out there. They are different games but I find the large, full tables much more of a grind especially when there are one or two real morons sticking around with every conceivable piece of crap. Then you really have to be aware of those remote possibilities. I find less stress with fewer players, more hands per hour and more playing the person rather than worrying about Mort the Monkey rolling over 2-6 off suit to kill you with a straight on the river.

[stripsqueez]

i play lots of short handed and much prefer it

i think your confessed ignorance of short handed can only be a bad thing - too much these boards advocate poker theory as a way of understanding the game - experience is the best way to know the game

if i was teaching someone to play hold'em i would first of all teach them to play 10 handed, which in my view most lends itself to a "formula" method of playing and in that sense is easy to play - then i would teach them 9 handed, 8, 7, 6 etc down to heads up - that would certainly teach them a heap about the game, and more to the point i think thier knowledge of the game would be lacking if they could not view it from these different perspectives

to borrow an expression often used in autralian rules football - i like to play the man not the ball

stripsqueez - chickenhawk

[LetsRock]

If you play pretty tight, short handed games will be harder to make money on. You'll be forced to pay more blinds/hand then you do at a big table. Therefore, if your'e playing tight, you're paying more blinds/flop (that you see).

That combined with the tendency for short-handed pots to be smaller then full games makes it difficult to win money in short games.

(This is all hypothetical data for explaination sake.)

Lets say: You win 1 out of 10 hands you're dealt. You call one other blind in that cycle with no other losing action. Same cards, same opponent make-up, same hand results.

10 handed game:
Blinds cost you 2 1/2 BB per cycle.
Pots avg 15 BB.
You net 12 1/2 BB per cycle.

5 Handed Game:
Blinds cost you 6 BB per cycle.
Pots avg 8 BB.
You net only 2BB per cycle.

Obviously, this is a very superficial look at it, but it shold give you an idea of why it's harder to win short games playing tight.

You either need to learn a more aggressive style or stick to full tables.

[Nottom]

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10 handed game:
Blinds cost you 2 1/2 BB per cycle.
Pots avg 15 BB.
You net 12 1/2 BB per cycle.

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Wow ... I need to find this game!

[stripsqueez]

i don't like this description much LetsRock

if you play 6 max at party poker i would guess that the % of hands that see the flop for the usual winning player would be say 28-32% - even assuming a game not full of loose opponents i wouldnt expect the ammount of hands played to be much more - given that you get to be the BB 1 in 6 hands this is not far from how tight you might play in a 10 man game

in practice short handed games are often very profitable because your opponents play too many hands

short handed pots are smaller than a 10 person game but its a misleading statement - if you considered the size of the pot as a ratio to the number of players pre-flop, short handed pots are much bigger

a tight player will clean up small stake short handed on-line games just because he/she is tight

stripsqueez - chickenhawk