FR v SH

[Anosmic]

1. The only difference between full-ring and short-handed tables is the number of players
2. Not realising this is a roadblock to poker development

Agree/Disagree?

[bode]

#1 is obvious, but it doesnt take into account the numerous changes one has to make to compensate for the fewer number of players.

[dev]

A lot of it has to do with what your opponents do, and they're adjusting to the amount of players too, so yeah, it's different.

[Anosmic]

Okay, so take the example where you are sitting on a stars $200NL FR table. There's a guy sitting out between SB and BTN waiting to post.

You are in UTG+2. The two players before you fold. You look down at your cards and see 99.

What adjustments need to be made, this being a FR table compared to if you were sitting UTG at a 6-max table?

[nickthefool]

Preflop it's not massively different, postflop it is.

[Renton]

enormously different

[thizzSantaCruz]

99.....utg+2? raise it. I started off playing FR and I think 99 has too much value to limp with, but then again I sucked at FR so I don't really know.

[Deanglow]

If you say SH is the same as FR then you might as well say Heads-up is the same as FR too.

[Anosmic]

If you say SH is the same as FR then you might as well say Heads-up is the same as FR too.

What's the difference between HU play and playing FR and it being folded to the SB?

[Renton]

If you say SH is the same as FR then you might as well say Heads-up is the same as FR too.

What's the difference between HU play and playing FR and it being folded to the SB?

Im gonna go out on a limp and guess that it has something to do with hand ranges being about a million times narrower.

The reverse position thing is kinda a difference too.

[Anosmic]

If you say SH is the same as FR then you might as well say Heads-up is the same as FR too.

What's the difference between HU play and playing FR and it being folded to the SB?

Im gonna go out on a limp and guess that it has something to do with hand ranges being about a million times narrower.

The reverse position thing is kinda a difference too.

Can you give me one reason why good HU strategy wouldn't apply in a blind battle in full-ring?
Tightness is a sliding scale. It's not like HU play stops the moment your opponent's VIP falls below a certain number.

[biondino]

Can we get some more in depth discussion on this subject, it's quite an interesting one.

Anosmic's fundamental assertion is that, if the 1st four positions fold, then FR plays EXACTLY like 6max. This assertion ignores one marginal difference; if the first four players have folded, the remaining players are likely to be holding very, very slightly better cards. But apart from that, what's the difference?

The supposition that enables this presumption is that all players are able to adapt perfectly to short-handed play. And at the lower levels of FR at least, this simply isn't true. Most FR players have a tighter range, correctly, than SH players, and they expect others to be the same. This means that they have two instinctive prejudices to overcome here; the fact that they don't loosen up when short-handed, and that their opponents will also remain tight.

What naturally follows on from this, then, is that a lot of FR players will also play tighter post-flop, only continuing with hands which, in their experience, are worth playing at FR (TPTK+, say). They will lose value when they fold second pair, TPWK type hands which would be marginal to them normally but short-handed are correct to play. But when they DO play, your average SH player needs to be aware that there is a good chance that they have a stronger hand than he might normally expect to come across at 6max.

So, assuming you are an aware player who understands SH poker and can adapt when FR tables become per se short-handed, you can't simply play with the same cards and tactics as you would do at 6max because without a read, you have to factor in the FR effect to the remaining players.

Which brings me onto a slight counter-argument. Everything I have outlined in the paras above is determined by the other players' psychological reaction to their game. So can't this be considered a read in itself? Well, yes - but unless you have played thousands of hands with these people (and are an exceptional reader yourself), this is simply adding in another variable to consider when playing the player, so it is likely to complicate your decisions rather than facilitate them.

One final, technical comment. SH is different from FR because sometimes players in EP do bet, and while of course a strong 6max player can extrapolate their betting ranges fairly well, it is an additional skill to bear in mind which doesn't come into play short-handed.

[Anosmic]

What's this? A logical argument? How rare...

Anosmic's fundamental assertion is that, if the 1st four positions fold, then FR plays EXACTLY like 6max. This assertion ignores one marginal difference; if the first four players have folded, the remaining players are likely to be holding very, very slightly better cards. But apart from that, what's the difference?

Okay, we're talking very tiny little variances because, depending on their ranges, we can only remove a few hands for the 'cannot have have been
dealt because they wouldn't have folded' list.

I think I'm right in saying that if you'll open with any PP then that means the odds even out across them, which leaves you what? High-cards like AK, AQ, AJ, KQ? In very EP it might even be that it's only AK and maybe AQs that opens... in which case we've really eliminated VERY few hand combinations.

Anyway... whatever. Good point, but we can agree it's made a tiny difference to the hands but it grows with every player which also means that in a blind battle it's had more influence... but still fairly negligible.

[/quote]
The supposition that enables this presumption is that all players are able to adapt perfectly to short-handed play. And at the lower levels of FR at least, this simply isn't true. Most FR players have a tighter range, correctly, than SH players, and they expect others to be the same.
[/quote]

But again tightness is a sliding scale. And I've seen 30/20's at FR and 8/8s short-handed... what you're saying is that we assume players are going to be playing tighter overall until we develop a read. But that's making assumptions about players not changing the game. I mean I assume that people at $5NL are going to be loose-passive a lot more often, but I'm not saying $5NL is a different GAME to $100NL.

This means that they have two instinctive prejudices to overcome here; the fact that they don't loosen up when short-handed, and that their opponents will also remain tight.

Again, this is just saying making assumptions about how various players play. Yes we adapt to our opponents, but that's the point, we adapt to our opponents in the situations we face, not to how many other chairs there are.

What naturally follows on from this, then, is that a lot of FR players will also play tighter post-flop, only continuing with hands which, in their experience, are worth playing at FR (TPTK+, say). They will lose value when they fold second pair, TPWK type hands which would be marginal to them normally but short-handed are correct to play. But when they DO play, your average SH player needs to be aware that there is a good chance that they have a stronger hand than he might normally expect to come across at 6max.

But we're just talking about Nittyness and so on.

We know that even slightly aware players play more hands the closer they get to the button. We adjust to the idea that a late raiser is likely to a
relatively weaker hand than an EP raiser.

If we don't factor that thinking into our post-flop then that's just foolish.
Therefore a player who doesn't evaluate a TPTK hand as more valuable against a standard player who opens in the blinds than he does against the same opener in EP is just asking for trouble.

So, assuming you are an aware player who understands SH poker and can adapt when FR tables become per se short-handed, you can't simply play with the same cards and tactics as you would do at 6max because without a read, you have to factor in the FR effect to the remaining players.

Isn't this just saying again that on a lot of FR tables you should assume that players are nitty in these situations? We make the same adjustments based on sites all the time "prima is a rock garden", "party is full of loose-passives right now" etc etc

Why does that not make them different games and yet the fact that they may be more tight in these situations on FR tables renders it a different game?

One final, technical comment. SH is different from FR because sometimes players in EP do bet, and while of course a strong 6max player can extrapolate their betting ranges fairly well, it is an additional skill to bear in mind which doesn't come into play short-handed.

I would contend it's not at all. What has happened, someone has bet and you have to decide whether to call, raise or fold and you'll use much the same decision making factors: what's his range? how much is in the pot? what's his stack size? what's my stack size? How many are left to act and how tight and aggressive are they? And so on and so on and so on.

There are situations of course that cannot occur in SH games, you cannot sit in the BB facing 9 limpers. But the decision is still the same, given the pot size and my opponents' tendencies how much do I expect to win with this hand?

So what I'm saying I guess is when it's folded to you in the CO at a FR table your play should be the same as it would be at a 6-max table but with the caveat that you expect opponents to be a little tighter until proved otherwise.
Does the fact that they're tighter make it a different game?

[Chopper]

i think what you guys are kind of talking about is the fact that MOST fr players have ways/strategies "stuck in their heads." as do most 6max players. they play a "range" and dont play outside it. they use starting hand charts like handcuffs.

a 6max players range is wider, typically, than a fr players range. both pre and post flop. we all know that one.

the exploitable issue is when the pot goes HU, these players are not changing anything. they are taking their pre flop strategy post flop saying to themselves, "if its good pf for a 9 player table, it must still be good post flop when i connect," etc.

this is something a thinking (FTR) player can take advantage of easily in both games when you identify a player who thinks he needs to "open up" in a 6max game...because he read an article.

essentially, 6max is no different than fr once you get to the post flop stuff (well, not by as much as rookies think). but it SEEMS different because a non-thinking player has opened his pf range in 6max w/o realizing why he did so. therefore, he carries marginal hands way too far post flop getting himself crushed by deeper, experienced stacks.