Theoretical and Practical Differences playing short handed

In practice, I think what you’re observing is partially because people change gears because they feel the blind pressure and know they can’t just TPTK/set-mine. Also probably a combination of confirmation bias (being more attuned to CO/BTN open folding in the rare times it folds to them in a 9-handed game) and selection bias (games go shorthanded more often between more aggressive/reggy players and in more aggressive/reggy games).

In theory, I’m not entirely sure how big of a difference bunching makes, largely because solvers don’t even account for it. The basic arithmetic suggests it’s not insignificant, but probably not so large in a live setting that it outweighs other factors like weird open sizes, straddles exploitable tendencies, and all the other things that make live poker live poker.

I should also point out an important distinction/confusion: if you were to account for bunching effects, your raise first in FREQUENCY would be the same from each seat for both games. It’s just that (for example) the top 30% of hands is going to be stronger when accounting for bunching effects than the top 30% of any two cards in a vacuum. So in order to raise 30%, you would only raise hands that are actually in the top 25% of any two cards, or whatever.

So in theory, if people are accounting for bunching effects, you would not notice a difference in raising frequencies 9-handed vs short handed. Conversely (and maybe counterintuitively) if they’re not accounting for bunching effects, people would actually raise MORE from each seat 9-handed than short handed (all else being equal).

I think there is a very slight difference because of bunching. But I think it is a tiny difference and you are probably fine playing this same ranges.

Some people do play different short handed, but there isn't really much theoretical basis for it. I would just take note of how they play and try to adjust to it. If they are playing looser you might 3bet them more. If they are calling 3bets too wide you want to 3bet more linearly. If they are cold calling with bad hands and not 3betting a lot I would open larger preflop.

One live aspect I've noticed: In full-ring its so rarely folded to the CO or BTN that people don't really know what to do. I had a guy open limp K9s OTB the other day, I raised 97s from the BB and we went to a board like 7c-7s-5c-4c-3d where I made trips and lost to his flush but a straight one-liner slowed me down. I never for a moment though he could be limping a hand that strong. Whereas I think the same guy would have opened that hand 4 or 5 handed.

Whatver theory says, if you don't get the rake reduced a LOT when you're playing short, the house will eat you alive. This is far more important than any slight adjustment in ranges.

Just general observations...

Most people seem to play the same when the game goes from 9 handed down to 8, and then to 7. I'll often adjust by getting more LAG-isg when it's 7 handed, but I think most people don't adjust.

Once we get down to 6, and then 5, the table dynamic often starts to shift, with many players starting to tighten up a lot, when they should be loosening up. A lot of players will want to break a table when it's five handed.

Once we get down to 4 handed, the dynamic shifts again. People who willingly play that short handed tend to want to play more hands, and so opening CO/UTG wide becomes more risky.

So, my basic strat for short-handed play looks like this:

8 - mostly the same as 9, maybe slightly more LAG.

7 - open up a bit.

6 - open up a lot.

5 - see if opponents want to break the table. If not, really start amping up the pre flop aggression.

4 - tighten up a little from the CO and BTN, open up a bit in the blinds.

A lot of players don't have much if any experience playing short handed, so it's a good time to start putting them in the blender more, by opening up our range.

Most people dont adjust to position as much as they ought to, and being blinded every 4 hands lets them start to play LP closer to correct (generally still not loose or aggressive enough)

I dont think your range should change substantially enough that its worth putting any thought into, so long as your co and btn RFI ranges are correct, but are they? Are you raising T6s from the btn? Are you 3 betting K8s from btn over CO raise?

If we look at short-handed and especially heads-up play from tournament final tables, the ranges widen a lot. If we're playing short-handed in a cash game, the ranges should open up even more, because we're not dealing with ICM implications that come into play in tournaments.

If a novice player asked me to explain the reasoning, I'd tell them that if they're playing 1/2, 9-handed, every hand they're dealt costs them $0.33. At 8 handed, it's $0.375. At 7, it's $0.423. By the time you get to 4 handed, the cost of being dealt into a hand has more than doubled to $0.75.

Every hand costs more. And every hand, we're facing fewer opponents, so the value of every hand goes up. Even at a reduced rake, we still need to be opening more hands for a raise, and defending our blinds more, just to compensate for the blinds coming around more quickly, if we want to beat the game.

The last time I got heads-up in a tournament, I jammed A9s pre, my opponent with a 4:1 chip advantage snapped me off with K6o. In a 9-handed game, K6o is unplayable. In a heads-up match, K6o is a pretty strong hand.

My observation is that most players don't adjust from 9 down to 7 handed, and only start to notice the difference when it gets down to 6 handed.

Once you get down to 5 or 4 handed, it becomes more like playing full ring with multiple straddles, where good players will start limping in from MP-LP with some stronger hands, and getting more aggressive with raises coming out of the blinds/straddles.

IMO this is it. Lots of people aren't intentionally changing ranges but not being aggressive with the "worst" parts of their open range in the CO/BTN is fine 9 handed (might happen once in 80 hands) but they fairly quickly adjust to not limping/folding them when it's 4 handed (it's happening once every 8 hands or so).

It depends on a million factors, but cash game ranges aren't broadly speaking wider than tournament ranges. Tournaments are rake free and have antes (by the time you get to shorthanded), and you can get away with smaller raises (especially compared to live games) .

ICM only forces certain players at certain stack sizes to play tighter at certain stages of the tournament, and in particular it's not a thing HU. You can say it generally encourages aggression and discourages looseness (especially calling), though this is sort of a boon for raisers because they get more relative leverage out of smaller raise sizes, which allows them to open up their range.

It is probably true to say that 6-handed at the final table, most of the players at the table probably have to play their button a little tighter than 45% (both because of stack depths and ICM), but LJ will probably play wider and there are a couple players at the table that are playing MUCH wider, but I don't really know what the A9s v K6o AIPF HU example is doing here...

Not sure if you misunderstood me, or if I'm misunderstanding you.

Playing cash vs tournaments may not differ in theory, but in practice, my observation is that they do differ a fair bit. Most average players will play a little tighter in tournaments than they do in cash. But that's not what I was referring to my in my previous post.

What I was saying is - as the game gets short-handed, the value of all hands goes up, regardless of cash or tournament. The difference is that there are ICM implications in a tournament which may make one decision higher EV than another, because of the payout jumps, not because of the size of the pot.

Like, if we're in the CO, in a 4-handed game, but it's a tournament, and we're the 3rd or 2nd chip stack, while the chip leader is on the button - we have less incentive to get involved, knowing there are 1 or 2 players on shorter stacks, who could be knocked out ahead of us, allowing us to ladder up. In that scenario, we have more incentive to fold than we do to raise with a lot of hands.

In a tournament, the short stacks need to think about increasing blinds, whereas we don't have that factor to think about in a cash game. We might be able to fold our way to a pay jump if we have the 2nd or 3rd largest stack in a tournament. It's not even a consideration when we're playing cash.

With no ICM implications or increasing blinds to think about, a short-handed cash game should play a little looser than what we'd see in the final stages of a tournament, because we're just playing for what's in the pot, not trying to make the next pay jump.

I mentioned heads-up because it's the simplest way to think about how the game changes as there are fewer people in it. When we're heads up, we're forced to play a super-wide range. Any combo in the top 90% of hands stands to have reasonable equity against a range of any two cards.

The A9s vs K6o example was a real-world example. I thought my opponent was nuts for calling off my jam with K6o. But discussing it with some other experienced players, it seems that K6o is a reasonable call there, in a heads-up match, when I have 20bb (only 10 if we count the bb ante), he's got 80bb, and the blinds are about to go up again.

The more players in the game, the higher the EV of playing a stronger range. Therefore, as the number of players decreases, the wider our ranges should get, at least generally.

But the ranges can shift when things get very short-handed. In a 4-handed game, the CO is also UTG. A raise has to get through 100% of his opponents, one of whom will have position post-flop, and two who've been forced to put money into the pot, and will feel compelled to defend wider., when everyone is playing half their hands from the blinds.

Playing UTG/CO in a 4-handed game is a lot different than playing the CO in a 9-handed game, and shouldn't necessarily be a position where we want to be super-aggro.

There's value in understanding how theory applies as the game gets short-handed, but also understanding how most players fail to adjust accordingly, because most don't have enough experience or understanding of short-handed play to be comfortable playing hands that would generally be considered trash in a full ring game.