Short-handed hold’em #1

Last time we talked about patterns of deception and the need to recognise and counteract these patterns in your foes’ play. Fortunately, many poker players will do you the favour of being so routine and predictable in their style that you can assign labels or nicknames to them, and devise general strategies for taking them off their coin. Since I never use a one-syllable word when a three-syllable word will do, I call these styles archetypes, and rank them here according to the level of difficulty they present.

Tighty Tighterson

As the name implies, a Tighty Tighterson is a fairly tight player who carries over his habits of selective, hitto- win full-handed poker into his shorthanded games. He fails utterly to realise that aggression is the key to short-handed success, and his lack of this essential tool is your key to controlling and defeating him. Simply take his actions at face value. When he has a hand, he bets; when he doesn’t, he folds. Check-raising with a monster is about the limit of his deceptive capabilities; big bluffs are beyond him. With this in mind, feel free to attack him whether you have a hand or not, for he’ll only play back at you when he really has the goods.

Cally Wally

A Cally Wally is out of his depth in a short-handed game, because he knows that he has to play a lot more hands, but he doesn’t quite know how. Timid by nature, he becomes weak/loose in short-handed play, which is a disaster for him, but a profit opportunity for you. Recognise the Cally by the infrequency of his raises. Like his Tighty cousin, he’s a ‘get the goods, then bet the goods’ type, who shouldn’t give you too much trouble.

Paradoxically, Cally Wallies are often loose pre-flop and tight post-flop. They’ll limp with almost anything, but fold when they don’t connect to the flop (which is, of course, most of the time). Against such a player, simply dial down your pre-flop raises and dial up your post-flop pressure. He’ll contribute dead money to the pot hand after hand after hand.

Serial Dater

A Serial Dater is a blend of Cally Wally and Tighty Tighterson, being a slightly more aggressive version of the former pre-flop and a slightly looser version of the latter post-flop. Serial Daters have a problem with commitment. They’ll splash around in a lot of pots for cheap, but when the price gets too high, they’ll head for the hills. If they don’t head for the hills, you can be sure that they’re in there with something – and that they’ll likely overvalue just how strong that something is.

For example, while it’s true that middle pair, top kicker is a strong hand short-handed, your typical Serial Dater might do you the favour of betting that hand, and then betting it again, into your top pair holding. To beat him, then, either apply pressure to drive him off his bad hands, or lay back and let him bet into you with his middling hands when you’ve got something strong.

Location Station

A Location Station loves position. Worships it, in fact. Pre-flop, you’ll find him surrendering his blinds and folding under the gun, because he hates to play hands out of position. On the other hand, his raising requirements are very liberal when he has the button or the cut-off seat. To compete effectively against this player, consider his early position bets to represent strong hands, and his late position bets to represent pure cheese. Attack his blinds liberally, since he hates to defend, and defend your own blinds more often than you would against, say, a Tighty Tighterson.

Since the Location Station believes that position trumps card strength, he’ll frequently get out ahead of his hands with late position bets – bets he’ll often feel constrained to reinforce with continuation bets on the flop. If you call along from the blind and hit your hand, you can check-raise his continuation bets and either take down the pot right there or get him on the hook for more chips on later streets.

Dr Overbite

Ah, the good Doctor, how he loves to overbet the pot. Not just overbet, but overbet big. This move tends to work quite well – until it catastrophically fails. Dr Overbite will open-raise for something like eight or 10 times the big blind, knowing that his foes aren’t getting the right price to call or defend their blinds. Most of the time he wins without a fight – but when someone else has a hand, he gets killed! The way to beat Dr Overbite is to get inside his head. Since he knows that his grandstand overbets generally force folds, he’s very respectful of re-raises, and very suspicious of flat-calls.

You can bluff him successfully, just by using these moves sufficiently infrequently that he credits you with a real hand. Fortunately, the size of his overbet is so large that you can afford to surrender lots of blinds, mix it up with him only rarely, and still come out way ahead.

Of course, you can also trap him with your hidden big hands, but that’s just gravy: most of your profit comes from the fact that he over-invests pre-flop, and then surrenders in the face of real or apparent strength.

Ben Bucks

Ben Bucks is the toughest foe you’ll face. He’s aggressive, creative and unafraid. He loves to play in big pots, and loves to use big bets to put other players’ feet to the fire. He doesn’t play his cards so much as his opponents. He reads patterns and constantly adapts and adjusts to what’s happening. Strong, smart and attentive, he’s an altogether dangerous foe – really the only one you have to watch out for short-handed. Once a Ben Bucks has you in his sights, he’s a difficult opponent to outthink and outplay.

His one flaw is his tendency to overestimate both his skill and the strength of his hands. He’s so used to having his way at the table that he leaves himself open to occasional traps. Trapping, therefore, is your best defence against Ben Bucks. Limit your aggression and just let him bet into you when you have the best of it.

Sometimes, the best thing to do against Ben Bucks is just get out of his way. Go find some Wallies and Tighties to pick on and leave Ben to his business. There’s no shame in leaving a game when you’re outclassed, and if you’re up against a BenBucks and you’re not one, too, that’s likely to be what you are.

Well, there you have it – a quick overview of the types of foes you’ll face in short-handed play. To defeat them, simply combine your analytical skills with their revealed weaknesses to build an appropriate strategy, viz:

Tighty Tighterson
Exploit his timidity. Pummel him with raises, but if you’re beat… retreat.

Cally Wally
A loose caller is not necessarily a loose bettor. When Cally bets, consider getting out of his way. Otherwise, value bet him to death!

Serial Dater
Don’t be scared off by pre-flop aggression. You can often take the pot away on the flop – whether you hit it or not.

Location Station
Much as he loves his position, he won’t throw away bets recklessly. He’s a loose raiser in position, but if he calls, assume he has something he likes.

Dr Overbite
Lie in wait. The more successful his overbets are, the more liberally he’ll use them. Win pots by trapping with good hands or resteal bluffing with bad ones.

Ben Bucks
Find other targets. Remember, don’t challenge strong players, challenge weak ones. That’s what they’re there for.

One final caveat: There’s a danger in seeking to categorise your foes too firmly. If you try to put everything into pigeonholes, all you’ll end up with is a bunch of squished pigeons. It’s quite possible, for example, to find someone who’s a Cally Wally pre-flop, but a Tighty Tighterson post-flop. Also, of course, people will shift their game according to their mood, stack size, level of tilt, or phases of the moon.

So analyse and categorise your foes in order to play against them most effectively, but don’t let your analysis blind you to what’s real. That’s worse than no analysis at all.