Multiway Versus Short-Handed Play
In multiway pots, you need very good hands. In short-handed pots, it doesn’t matter as much.
Of course, good hands always do better than poor hands, but most important in short-handed pots are position and playing against weaker opponents over whom you have good control.
For instance, suppose but have the best position and are heads up against a weak opponent whom you can maneuver well.
All but your really trash hands have a good expectation, and you generally should play aggressively in this situation.
If your opponent can’t make a low, he usually folds, and unless he has a great high hand, he gets scared by any card that comes out.
Because typical players are accustomed to seeing so many cinches in multiway pots, they don’t realize that in heads-up pots, they are not running into monster hands all the time.
Consequently, many players are so “gun-shy” from seeing all the big hands that you can bluff and maneuver people when the pot is short-handed.
In a multiway pot, everyone is drawing at something, and many players usually are drawing at nut hands.
They tend to stay in, and much of the time they have close to the proper equity to continue. Thus the outcome is usually determined by who catches the best hand.
If you are capable of recognizing when this occurs, you will be able to get out at the proper time and will not get caught in a jam and lose a bunch of extra bets.
In Omaha eight-or-better, most people play scared because they frequently are up against the nuts.
Because of this fear, especially in multiway pots, when someone comes out betting in an early position, he usually has the nuts or something close to it.
It is unlikely that anyone other than a very good player will bet on the come or with a weak hand to see where he stands.
So if players are playing as just described that is, they are announcing the strength of their hands you usually should get out unless you also have a big hand.
Announcing the strength of a hand does not cost very much in multiway pots, since enough players will tag along trying to draw out.
So it doesn’t necessarily hurt the player who announces his hand as much as it helps you to know not to get involved at that point.
If four or five players are in the pot, it is clear that they have fairly good hands, and you have a wrap - around hand with draws at both a good low and a good high – that is, you have lots of outs for both ways but these outs are not for the nuts – you still a heads-up situation, can easily be beat in a multiway pots, no matter which side you happen to hit.
Thus, in pots with many players, these hands clearly can be folded, but in a heads-up pot, you can go ahead and raise or reraise with them.
Notice that a deuce, four, six, or eight will give you a low, but only the deuce will be the nuts. Also notice that a four or an eight will give you a straight, but only the eight will produce the nut straigh.
In addition, if a club gets there, someone else could make a higher flush. Hence, even though it appears that you have a lot of outs for both a high hand and a low hand, if many online poker players are still in and it looks as though there may be a lot of action, you should fold.
This is partly because those few times when you make the nuts, you have a high probability of being quartered, and most of the hands you make will just be flat-out losers.
However, if your are heads up and have a fairly big hand, you should play it as such.
That is, go ahead and bet or raise, except if you are against a very tight player who almost has to have an ace-deuce, in which case most of your lows will get beat.
Introduction / Automatic Play / High Versus Low in Three-Handed Pots / Loose Games / Multiway pot Versus Short-Handed Play / Scare Cards / Getting Counterfeited / Getting Quartered / Playing Against Steamers / Playing Against Tight, Solid Players / Your Playing Style / Fluctuations / Pot-Limit Omaha Eight-or-Better / Afterthought
