The hardest part about playing live is when a player at the table gets up from the game. They decide to call it a night or go look for a different game to join and soon all the other players are getting up from the game too. I don’t know if it is because of years of misinformation or the lack of skill to play shorthanded, but eventually the game starts to fall apart. I suppose there is a chance that looking for a full game is a side effect created by lower stake. Whenever I see bigger games one thing, I have always noticed is that they seem to always be playing shorthanded.
Maybe I am a degenerate gambler who just likes the adrenaline rush but personally I don’t mind playing shorthanded. It is fun and you get more hands in. You might see things that you normally wouldn’t see. You can try strategies that you might not have the chance to try when you are playing a full game. It’s a chance to grow as a poker player. Looking back on the past few years since I started playing poker seriously in Las Vegas, some of the most fun sessions I have had have been when I played shorthanded. When you play at two, three, or four in the morning you don’t always have much of a choice of who and where you are going to play. When a table starts to lose players, I am always the last one to ask about breaking the game. I am there to play poker and if there is another player willing to play, we can continue to do so.
One of my more recent sessions had me thinking about shorthanded play. On this night I met a young kid from Kentucky who had been going around the country playing poker as much as possible. While it seems like he would like to continue doing just that, it sounded like he was winding down and thinking about going home. I also met a gentleman with an accent who seemed to be a grinder. We had been playing $3/$5 No Limit Hold ‘Em, the game was good. There was laughter at the table and one of those general vibes where even though there were some experienced players, it would still be a social table with action. Unfortunately, it was short lived. What I had not realized is that a couple of the players had been bum hunting the player who was seated to my direct left. His style of play didn’t shock me that he was being targeted by players. What surprised me is how quickly they left the game once the splashy player picked up his chips and left our game. Soon it was just the kid from Kentucky, the gentleman with that accent and me. We all agreed to continue playing. I figured this would last for a little while and then the game would break. Then I would go to play craps or something.
As we played, we continued to talk and joke around. Soon we came across our first problem, the kid from Kentucky needed to go to the restroom. The gentleman with an accent and I both told him to go. While he was gone, we decided to continue playing heads-up while we waited for the kid to come back. We ended up getting in a big hand. I had 56 suited on a board of K64 rainbow. The flop action had been standard. I checked, he bet, and I called. The turn was a 7 of hearts giving both a flush and straight draw. I checked again, he bet again but this time I decided put him in the blender. I made $300 raise and waited has he tanked hard, eventually he folded. By the time this happened the kid had returned, and we went back to playing three handed. The entire time that we had been playing, the kid had been trying to recruit players to come and join us. He found a total of three players who all said they would come to our table if we started to fill up. Even when he told them that if they joined, we had other players willing to join and it would make it six handed.
We continued playing for about forty-five minutes before someone joined us. Suddenly went from playing three handed, to playing shorthanded, to playing full ring. You never know what will happen. Don’t be afraid to play shorthanded.
