Short handed play
I made some comments recently in a thread on short handed poker games that I think are worthwhile. Bascially I'm suggesting that you might need to adjust to the change in the way other players behave but you don't need to adjust to the number of chairs at the table.
I made some comments recently in a thread on short handed poker games that I think are worthwhile. Bascially I'm suggesting that you might need to adjust to the change in the way other players behave but you don't need to adjust to the number of chairs at the table.
posted by Gary Carson at 11:45 AM
2 Comments:
Im not sure I agree entirely on your views of shorthanded play. Yes, a lot has to do with adjusting to different types of opponents than those who play full ring. However, you can't separate the "opponent-driven" root cause from the difference from the fact that, postflop SH requires a lot different skills. For example, in a SH game you're going to be calling down with a lot more marginal hands, and you need to be a lot more attuned to semibluffing. Because full ring games tend to be more multiway, you just see fewer semibluffs, whereas in SH play, the tools your enemies use are just different. Its a different kind of poker.
I'm guessing you play on line a lot.
I think in the chapter on game selection in my hold'em book (which was written just as online poker was getting started) I talk about the difference between short-handed games by time of day.
In B/M rooms a short handed game is just one with empty chairs, not like online where it's a game with only a few chairs at the table.
During the day a short-handed game was likely just started and all the players knew it was short-handed when they sat down.
Late at night a short-handed game is likely a game that's been going and is dwindling with no new players.
That daytime short-handed game has players who probably know what they are doing.
That nighttime game probably doesn't.
The players in that nighttime game are likely both tighter and more passive than they should be simply because they aren't comfortable short-handed.
The "skills" required in those two games aren't the same if you want to consider using various tactics more often than other tactics a skill set.
Online the short-handed games are almost always players who know something about what they are doing.
The difference is in the players, not the number of chairs.
If you consider making more thin calls a skill, you don't need to call down with a lot more marginal hands in SH games just beause it's shorthanded, you need to do it because in most SH games online your opponents will be making more thin value bets. I'm not sure they'll actually be making more semi-bluffs though, certainly not more semi-bluffs than you're typical semi-good player will be making against you when heads up in a fairly tight 10 handed game.
It's not a different kind of poker at all.
By the way, I consider being able to value your hand relative to the distribution of possible hands your opponent might have a skill.
I consider being able to estimate the distribution of hands your opponent might have a skill.
By that definition of skill, the skill set needed is the same whether it's short-handed or not.
When short-handed you might assign different values to the parameters of whatever model you use depending on whether it's a 3 handed game or a 11 handed game. But I don't consider saying in one case you'd do that with the best 10% of his hand and in the other case saying he'd do that with the best 60% of his hands two different skills. Just two different estimates of the same parameter.
I understand what you're saying though, and I think you're expressing a common opinion. I just think it's an opinion based on a very tactic driven idea of what a poker skill set actually is.
That kind of thinking of tactic as high concept started when Sklansky titled the best book ever written on poker tactics "The Theory of Poker".
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