When moving from a full table to a short table...

Atmosphere · #1 01-26-2007, 03:52 AM

What pocket hands are better, and which are worse at a small table (5 or so players)?
Do drawing hands lose value?
Does Ace-small gain in value?

iFlopGood · #2 01-26-2007, 04:10 AM

small pocket pairs go up in value.
Big connected cards go up in value.
small suited connecters go down in value.

Atmosphere · #3 01-26-2007, 01:31 PM

in a loose 5-handed home game would this be a good general pre-flop strategy (of course some adjustments would be made hand-by-hand)?
Open with
Any pair
Any suited ace down to A7s
Any ace down to A9
Any two suited or connecting face cards
Suited connectors down to 98
Suited one-gappers down to J9

ottsville · #4 01-26-2007, 02:11 PM

Wookie's post for limit has excellent info...

Acein8ter · #5 01-27-2007, 05:08 PM

I'd suggest that you master FR games first, then switch to 6-max if you like it. There's a lot more action, partially due to the blinds coming around so fast. You can't afford to wait around for a top 10 hand.

IMO, you need to be a very solid player to play 6-max profitably.

Atmosphere · #6 01-28-2007, 09:01 PM

Actually, this is the home game I play at... It's tournament style and we start with 100BBs, and we raise the blinds every hour or so. NOW can I wait for a good hand?

dc_publius · #7 01-29-2007, 01:16 AM

For cash games, I look at shorthanded as a fullring game where the first X people folded before me.

Tournament play is very different from cash games, though.

ottsville · #8 01-29-2007, 12:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, this is the home game I play at... It's tournament style and we start with 100BBs, and we raise the blinds every hour or so. NOW can I wait for a good hand?

[/ QUOTE ]

With your starting stacks and slow blind raising, you can wait for good hands.

In an Nl structure like yours, a lot is going to depend on the stacks behind, how passive/aggressive the game is, and the players.

Poker 101: as the number of players decreases, the quality of the winning hand also decreases. When you are short handed you are looking for hands that have showdown value on their own or will make a decent top pair hand. That doesn't mean that there aren't situations where you can play your speculative hands.