SHORT-HANDED GAMES
A winning short-handed poker strategy is significantly different from a winning strategy at a full table.
We’ll discuss these strategy differences much later in the book, but for now it’s just important to realize that there is a difference and that many players don’t realize this.
Your profits will come from players who make mistakes. Game selection is the key to finding those players.
In short-handed games, the key to identifying weak players is usually just the time of day.
Evening
Cardrooms are usually the busiest in the evening.
If you find a short-handed game in the evening, you can almost be certain it’s not a good game.
A busy cardroom will have players in it who are looking for a good game and are skilled at finding them.
If a game is short-handed, and the cardroom is busy, that’s game that other players don’t think is worth playing in. follow their lead. Avoid it.
Late Night or Early Mornings
Late in the evening or very early in the morning, the situation has changed.
Now even if the cardroom appears busy, the room is losing players. More people are going home then coming in. any game that’s short-handed has probably only recently become short-handed.
The players who are playing are players who usually play in the evening when it’s rare for a game to be short-handed. Most of them probably don’t have a lot of experience playing short-handed.
Add to this the fact that they’ve probably been playing for hours and are tired, and you have the potential for a very good game.
It’s almost always worth playing a short-handed poker game very late at night or very early in the morning.
Midmorning
At most cardrooms, the regular daytime players start coming in about 10 A.M.
A short-handed game in the midmorning is almost always a game that has just recently started.
These players tend to play every day, and the ones who are willing to start a short-handed game are usually players who play well short-handed. Don’t bother to sit down. Avoid this game.
Afternoon
Games are often started short-handed in the afternoon by players who play in the evenings but come to the cardroom a little earlier than the usual afternoon crowd.
A short-handed game in the afternoon that has just started is usually worth playing, and a short-handed game in the afternoon that’s been going all day is usually not worth poker playing.
Overall
Evaluation of a short-handed game usually involves an evaluation of individual players rather than an overall evaluation of the table.
Until you get to know some of the individual players, you won’t be able to do this.
Pick the Right Table / Picking a Seat / Theories of Poker / Betting Theory: The Odds
A Theory of Starting Hand Value
A Theory of Flop Play: Counting Outs and Evaluating Draws
The Dynamics of Game Conditions / Table Image / Player Stereotypes
Women and Poker / Spread-Limit Games / Double Bet on the End Games / Kill Games
Short-handed Games / Tournaments / No-limit and Pot-Limit Poker
