If I were teaching a new player to play no-limit hold’em, and my goal were to get this player up to a professional level of play, how would I do it? What would my lessons look like?
Let’s say I had only three months to do it. With most people, I will admit, it would be a tall order. The learning curve is steep these days, and I don’t think everyone could make it from zero to pro in that short a time.
Short Deck Hold’em – also known as Six Plus (6+) Hold’em – is No-Limit Hold’em played with a stripped-down deck. All of the deuces to fives are removed to make the total deck just 36 cards. All of the deuces to fives are removed to make the total deck just 36 cards.
I’d have to make compromises. I couldn’t try to cover every possible situation. I’d have to find the important bits and skip the rest.
I’d also have to tailor the lessons a bit to a specific type of game. The most important skills in some game types are not as important in others. With this in mind, here are what I think my top five lessons would be for a new player trying to beat the $2-$5 no-limit hold’em games in Las Vegas.
Lesson No. 1. Don’t limp into pots ever. And don’t call preflop three-bets unless you are trapping with an ultra-premium hand.
Limping into pots, calling the preflop raise, and then check/folding the flop when you miss is an enormous leak. It’s also one that nearly every player who hasn’t been specifically coached out of it exhibits.
In my opinion, most players would see an immediate improvement in their winrates if they simply refused to limp in with any hand, especially if they chose to instead fold most of these hands.
For most players, refusing ever to limp means playing much tighter, particularly from out of position. Until you’re already an established pro player, tighter is better.
Lesson No. 2. Don’t pay off big turn and river bets.
This lesson might be different in some types of games, but in the Las Vegas $2-$5 games, it’s easily a candidate for the single most important piece of advice. Do not pay anyone off. When someone makes a big turn or river bet or raise, your one pair hand (or whatever other hand you’re thinking about calling with) is a bluff-catcher. That means, in the great majority of cases, your opponent won’t be trying to make a value bet with a worse hand. Either you’re beat or your opponent is bluffing. And players in these $2-$5 games do not bluff often enough to make calling worthwhile.
So you don’t pay off. I know it can be frustrating to feel like you’re getting muscled out of a huge pot, but the fact is, most players in these games do very little muscling. They try to make hands, and then they bet the hands they make. A big bet usually means a big hand. You don’t need to call to find out for certain.
No Limit Holdem Tournament Strategy
Lesson No. 3. Your opponents will limp into pots, call raises, and check/fold flops. Take advantage of this weakness by raising lots of hands with position, betting the flop, and often also betting the turn.
It’s a simple play, but it’s one that generates a very consistent profit in these games. Players play too loosely preflop, are too willing to call preflop raises after limping in, and are too willing to check/fold the flop or turn if they miss. With many players, you can ignore your cards and raise the limps, bet nearly all flops, and bet most turn cards as well.
Say two typical players limp in a $2-$5 game. You raise to $25 on the button. Both limpers call.
The flop comes 10 8 2. They check, and you bet $50. One player calls.
The turn is the 5. Your opponent checks, you bet $120, and he folds.
In this scenario, and in many like it, it doesn’t matter what you have. Your opponents are beating themselves by playing call/call/fold so often. All you have to do is put the bets out there and let your opponents run repeatedly into the brick wall.
Yes, there is some nuance to this, and some boards are better bets than others. But against many opponents at the $2-$5 level, most flops, turns, and even rivers are good bets. Keep betting until your opponents prove to you that they won’t beat themselves by folding too much.
Lesson No. 4. With value hands, don’t try to blow opponents out of pots. Instead, play most value hands with the goal of keeping a player in through the river.
Value hands — hands like top pair, two pair, or any other hand you think is a favorite to be best — lose their value when all your opponents fold. If you win without a showdown, you might as well have been holding 7-2. (See Lesson No. 3.) With your value hands, you generally want opponents to get to the river.
Most players like to see showdowns if they feel like they can see them without losing too much money. No one likes to fold and think, “What if I was good?” If your opponents get to the river, often it’s an easy sell to get them to call a final value bet (as long as you don’t make it too big).
Calling these value bets is one of the biggest mistakes that $2-$5 players make. (See Lesson No. 2.) Allow your opponents to make this mistake.
Most players try to end hands early when they feel like they have the best hand. “Don’t want to get drawn out on,” they think. But this is backward thinking. End hands early with strong bets when you have nothing but a weak draw. Allow hands to reach showdown when you actually have something to show down! (Makes sense when I put it that way, doesn’t it?)
If I have top pair, I’d much rather get called for $30, $50, and $80 on flop, turn, and river than get called for $30 and then blow my opponent out of the hand with a $100 bet on the turn. The chance to win $160 with the hand instead of $30 outweighs the risk that I’ll get outdrawn.
Lesson No. 5. Think every hand about what strategies your opponents are using and how they’re thinking, and (almost) ignore the two cards in your hand.
I’ll put it bluntly. Most $2-$5 players beat themselves. They tend to play strategies that are extremely transparent, overly simplistic, and inflexible. You can beat some of these players simply by betting every time it’s your action (See Lesson No. 3.) You can beat other of these players simply by waiting for hands that beat top pair/no kicker and then making value bets. (See Lesson No. 4.)
Your job as a poker player is to identify the strategy each opponent is using and deploy a counter strategy. In many cases, the two cards in your hand become irrelevant. My experience is that the players that are always thinking about their hands never figure it out. It’s the players who are thinking on the next level that do. ♠
Ed’s newest book, Playing The Player: Moving Beyond ABC Poker To Dominate Your Opponents, is on sale at notedpokerauthority.com. Find Ed on Facebook at facebook.com/edmillerauthor and on Twitter @EdMillerPoker.
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Many players dislike shorthanded play, which is a shame. Full-ring game limit play is certainly profitable against the right lineup, but it can also be fairly dull as you fold hand after hand. Of course, playing more hands in full games is more interesting, but it is a sure way to lose more in the long run.
In shorthanded games, you get to play many more hands; not all of them, as some players believe, because a somewhat tight-aggressive game is still the key to long-term success. Your range may open up from, say, 15 percent-18 percent in a nine-handed game to 55 percent-65 percent in a five-handed game.
Playing more hands usually increases volatility, and your stack may routinely yo-yo far more than it would in a typical full game. Coping with swings is one of the adjustments
that you will have to make if you play shorthanded, as it simply cannot be helped. If you just tighten up, you will lose your blinds way too often. Don’t forget, in a five-handed game, you are in the blinds 40 percent of the time, as opposed to 20 percent in a 10-handed game.
You also get a lot more time to study opponents, since there are fewer of them, and they are probably playing many more hands. This should enable you to pick out traits and styles that you can exploit to your advantage later in the session.
Live shorthanded play is rare in many places, but if you play late at night or early in the morning, you can often find such a game. And being able to play shorthanded enables you to play when the games get short, instead of feeling that you have to pack up and leave; more fun, more play, more potential profit.
Here are a couple of hands that I played recently in a shorthanded $40-$80 limit hold’em game at Bay 101 in San Jose. I will take you through my thought process and share my conclusions. Shorthanded games are more situational than full games are, but you may pick up something from following the logic of my play.
Hand No. 1: I pick up the K Q on the button. We are four-handed. The player on my right folds, I raise, and as usual, both blinds call. In
shorthanded play, most players in the blinds call with whatever they are dealt, so you can’t draw any conclusions. I like the flop of K 9 8, and bet when the other two check. They both call. While calling, the guy in the big blind says, “See you at the river!” Now, I have played long enough to know that when guys say that, they usually mean, “Please don’t bet the turn. I have a little something, but would love to get to the river as cheaply as possible. Perhaps by saying this, I can scare you into not betting a hand like ace high, so I can get to the river.”
Frankly, it’s rare for an opponent to say, “See you at the river,” and actually call on the river.
An interesting and rarely discussed aspect of shorthanded play is that players generally become far more chatty. After all, there are only a few players, and they are in virtually every hand together. Sometimes this talk can give away useful information, such as this case.
The three of us saw the turn, the 2. Again, I bet after two checks. Again, there were two calls; the small blind called reluctantly, and the big blind rather quickly. Once again, he volunteered, “See you at the river!” The river was the 6. Both players checked again. I had every reason to believe that was a safe card, and that I would win the pot. I bet, and again the small blind called reluctantly. I was sure that I had her beat. But before I could celebrate, the big blind check raised! But this time, he gloated, “I told you I would see you at the river.”
Well, it was nice that he was having fun, but did he have the best hand? And if so, what could it be? It is highly unusual for a player to attempt to bluff-raise two players, because even if I was somehow bluffing, the caller certainly was not. I cannot beat any legitimate raise, as he would need a minimum of two pair to raise. He more likely had 10-7, flopping an open-end straight draw and getting there on the river. There were 11.5 big bets in the pot, so a call would seem to be in order no matter what, but I hate to give away money when I know that I am beat. Plus, guys who bluff almost never make a speech while they are doing it. They do not want to do or say anything to make opponents suspicious enough to call, so they sit there silently and think, “Fold. Fold. Fold.”
Given the speech and the intermediate caller, I did not think it was close. I folded, as did the small blind. But the winner was not finished gloating. “I told you I would see you at the river,” he announced as he flipped over his 10-7. So, at least I knew for sure that I saved the $80 correctly.
Hand No. 2: We are still four-handed, with a slightly different lineup. Again, I am on the button, and the player on my right folds. I raise with the A 9, an easy raising hand when shorthanded. The small blind three-bets, and the big blind folds. This is now a question of expectations. He expects me to raise here in a shorthanded situation with pretty much any two cards, so my A-9 is well above average for what I could hold.
On the other hand, he will three-bet with any playable hand (as would I), so his range is quite large. He bet the flop of 8 4 2, and I called. So far, his range is unchanged, as he would continuation-bet every single hand that he three-bet, from A-A to J-9, and maybe even less, as some people like to try this play with hands like 6-5 suited.
The turn is the 7, and he bets again. I like this bet less than the last one, but I am near the top of my range for my button raise. Sometimes when shorthanded, you have to call with hands like mine even if you lose fairly often. If you fold every time that you don’t have a pair or better, opponents will run all over you. My current plan is to call all the way.
The river 4 pairs the board, but this time he checks. I am delighted to check behind, as A-9 is not a hand that I would like to bet for value. He tables the Q 10, so my hand is good, but I need to be aware that he gave up easily, and must worry next time if he bets the river under similar circumstances.
Conclusion: Shorthanded play presents many opportunities for reads and good play. Sometimes you have to lay down top pair, and sometimes call with no pair at all. And, of course, you will be wrong some of the time, but so will your opponents. Shorthanded play can be challenging and interesting, as you get to play a lot of hands and get involved in many difficult situations. But this experience helps you to hone your judgment and make money in situations where others feel they have to leave. Try it if you get the opportunity.
Live No Limit Holdem Strategy
Barry Tanenbaum is the author of Advanced Limit Hold’em Strategy, and collaborator on Limit Hold’em: Winning Short-Handed Strategies. Barry offers private lessons tailored to the individual student. Please see his website, www.barrytanenbaum.com, or write to him at pokerbear@cox.net.