Short Handed Limit HE

[shipitfish]

As I've mentioned a few times in my journal, I am really starting to prefer either PL or NL betting structures. However, lately I have taken a break from that, and I have been enjoying short-handed limit HE games. I find these games better than full table limit games for a few reasons.

First, a short-handed limit game allows you to legitimately play about 1.5-2 times the number of hands you can play at a full table. This increases variance, but it allows you to be in many more positive EV situations. Limit poker becomes profitable when you can make many good decisions over long periods of time. Short-handed poker gives you more hands per hour, and allows you to play more of those hands. You thus can make more good decisions over the same period of time and have a more profitable session.

The key danger is that you might become far too loose in your starting hand requirements, especially after you watch many of your opponents steal blinds. You begin to think you can raise from the button with any two cards when it is folded to you. You somehow convince yourself K8 is a playable hand. That sort of thing.

However, I have found if you overcome that tendency, and stick to solid starting hands (but looser than a full game), and don't start calling raises cold preflop with junk, a solid player can do well in short handed limit HE.

Most of your opponents have picked the short handed game so they can be overly aggressive with marginal holdings. This means they can steal more blinds than you, but in most online short handed games, I don't think blind-stealing is the key profit center. The blinds defend too much with holdings that are slightly better than your stealing requirements anyway. In essence, solid tight aggressive poker works, more or less, just as well as it does at full games. Once I started making slight modifications to my full table game for short-handed games, rather than a full "bluff overhaul" I originally tried (that cost me $4k at 10/20 short handed), I have been able to hold my own and make better profit.

The variance can get annoying. You can get a reasonable starting hand, hit a flop, and get rivered six or seven times in the matter of just a few hours. So, $600 of variance in a 10/20 game isn't that uncommon. But, if you can handle that, the games are pretty good.

On final nice thing about short handed limit is that the pot odds rarely end up so big that two players are simultaneously correct in betting and in calling that bet. This is one of the most annoying aspects of limit play: you can bet your hand for value even while someone is able to call you with odds. You both are winning, and you both are losing at once. In short handed limit HE, since the pots are smaller preflop, your bets and check-raises on the flop have more strength and can force draws to pay more than they are worth.

Comments

My own on-going debate of short-handed play...

[frankieriver.livejournal.com]

Let me first give praise to you and all the other posters in this journal as it has shed some light on how good players think - a vital aspect to the game we all love. Here i'm adding my own 2 cents.

Great short essay on short-handed play: I use a similar strategy myself when playing the 6max tables online - but would like to offer a varying opinion/strategy that has worked for me, and I am myself still working on to improve (suggestions encouraged). Short-handed play with less than 6 people.

To me, this is in a different category than a 6-handed table where I believe the strategy you outlined above is optimal. You state above that blind-stealing is not the main profit-center when 6-handed (I agree), but when less than 6-handed (2-5 handed?), focusing on blind-stealing is essential. When there's less than 6 people at the table, my normal/prefarable TAG-image (I hope) is changed to extremely LAG. I make at least 1 attempt, if not 2 in a round to blind steal. Creating this loose image in an attempt to generate action. For me, this puts you in the biggest postive-EV situation when short-handed, which is action on your big hands. You don't want everyone to fold to your raise the few times you get AA and win the blinds and you want to win several BBs when you turn the str8 with 10 8o - you want to get re-raised and jam it. Key to this strategy is relatively tight post-flop play: certainly bet when checked to, but I wouldn't continue position-bluffing anymore than the flop without a draw or made hand. Much more can be discussed on this be there's the prelim.

Please note that I am constently adjusting my strategy in this situation and alter it every session I play in an effort to experiment and find the best way to play when 2-5 handed - which from my experiences has been the majority of winnings from online play. Make this a working discussion and please dissect my views. A great site to check-out talking about this strategy as well is http://shipitpoker.blogspot.com/ great discussions here.

Currently debating whether this LAG-style is better for NL/PL, as opposed to limit. Only time can tell. Looking forward to a response and keep up the awesome posts Bradley.

-- Frankie Guest, a sometimes Riverstreet player = ).

Re: My own on-going debate of short-handed play...

[(Anonymous)]

Frankie,

Thanks for mentioning us in your post and gl at the tables.

-Lloyd

www.shipitpoker.blogspot.com