What's the deal with everyone hating short-handed?

I used to play in a semi-regular game that was always and only short-handed, like just three of us. But it was an unraked private game among friends, for low stakes, so I didn't mind.

I don't typically mind when a 9-handed game gets down to 6-handed, because I figure short-handed play suits my action style better anyway, and I'm comfortable playing the wider ranges short-handed play involves.

I don't really love it when a raked game gets down to 5-handed, because the rest of the table isn't all that likely to loosen up and play more hands. The pots get smaller, the blinds come around quicker, and the rake becomes a bigger consideration.

I'm more annoyed when 2 or more players are frequently away from the table for extended periods, forcing the rest of us to play short handed while their seats are locked up. I pray the table hits the bad beat jackpot while those players have a missed blind button in front of them, just so I can break off a tiny chunk of my table share, when they come back to the table and expect to be cut in for a full size piece of the jackpot.

Don't even get me started on the people who leave their chips on the table for an hour, only to come back and immediately pick up. I want to walk up behind them and trip them, so all their chips go flying.

also our rake is 10% to a max of 7$ at all stakes and reduced to 5$ max at 7 or less players.

Yeah a lot of players don't like playing short handed. It's partly the fear of the table breaking. Also when I ask people why they don't like playing short handed I have been told that they think the table plays different, but I haven't heard them articulate how it plays different. I think maybe part of the issue comes from the fact that when you are full, the table is more likely to have a few loose recreational players driving the action. Short handed there are more walks and uninteresting pots. If you get a premium,you are less likely to get the kind of action you want.

In reality short handed is great. You get to see more hands. But if it is short handed with a high reg/rec ratio, that's not ideal for anyone involved.

Short handed is a specialty, and if you are not used to it, you always either are, or think you are, making massive mistakes, especially IRT relative hand strength. People who play a lot of STTs have a huge edge short, especially if stacks are short, and HUNL specialists have an even huger edge. Thus most folks are very uncomfortable with it and would rather not play it.

Blinds come around faster. They understand they need to change their strategy but feel uncomfortable doing so.

It's uncomfortable for people. At a full ring table, you can hide a lot easier.

I also think recreational players love multi-way action. They love completing in big limped pots and trying to hit a bingo. They love playing low pairs and suited trash in multi-way raised pots to hit their jackpot. When they have Aces or Kings, they want as many players at the table as possible so that someone will have another big hand that will give them action.

Heads up raised pots are hard to play if you don't know what you are doing. You have to make a lot of marginal, unpleasant decisions. You hear it all the time, stuff like "Oh, if someone else had called, I would have called." It is sort of counter-intuitive. A studied player will look at a 6-max game as "I get to play more hands in this format" whereas for the loose-passive fish, it's almost the opposite.

The reality is that in 9 max holdem, the majority of hands should be folded to the HJ or later, at which point the game should play essentially the same as a short handed game. Most 9 handed are the same positions as short handed. Btn vs bb, co vs bb, and hj vs bb are some of the most important spots to spots to study. Whoever is better short handed is almost certainly going to be better in full ring.

That is probably true, but has little to do with how uncomfortable the average rec is short.

I came to FR cash NL from a STT background. I was constantly over aggressive for sticky full ring games. When it got short, I printed money. Needless to say, the LP fish were not happy and didn't like playing short.

As others have suggested, some recs and regs feel out of their comfort zone. They understand the need to adjust and play more hands but aren't confident doing so (while the nits just believe they are bleeding chips as they're more often in the blinds). If a room doesn't adjust the rake then short-handed can become a trap. Back in the good old days, the floor in my room would allow a game to run rake-free in the wee hours to keep it running, which felt like paradise. If you have the floor onside, in respect of rake adjustments and related concessions, it's certainly worth the effort convincing others that short-handed poker is the most entertaining, purest and rewarding form of the game.

I doubt my room is any different from any other regarding the fact that the vast majority of players hate playing shorthanded (with the obvious few exceptions).

Personally, even as a solid winning player in my room, I also hate shorthanded tables.

- a large part of my strategy involves attacking huge dead money preflop; there is no huge dead money preflop in shorthanded games
- shorthanded games become much more confrontational as it is often the same couple/few players butting heads hand after hand, and people can feel they are constantly under attack / targeted, which can produce bad table vibes
- you'll get far more people making loose preflop calls at full games where they feel they're just one of the crowd; no one wants to be the only guy making the preflop call in a shorthanded game (there's no "well, you called so I can too, pot odds!")
- paying for the blinds gets you 8 "free" hands at a 10 handed table but just 3 at a 5 handed table, and patient players feel they are being ripped off
- the blinds come around super often and players feel they are paying far too much money to play; at a 10 handed 1/3 NL table at 30 hands an hour, you're paying $12 per hour in blinds; at a 5 handed table at 50 hands an hour, you're paying $40 per hour
- back in the day our room used to reduce the rake at a shorthanded table; those days are long gone
- poor players can hide and survive in the midst of lots of other poor players at a 10 handed table; they can't do that at a shorthanded table (especially if there is a solid player at the table, whereas a single solid players table dominance at a 10 handed table is very much regulated)

Our poker tables were 10 handed from when the room first opened in 2005. Last year, we went to 9 handed (my preference would have been 12, no joke). The room's reasoning is that they'll make more rake due to more hands per hour, but I'm not convinced as I don't think as many hands make maximum rake ($90 pot) at a shorthanded table as they do at a full table (but I'm sure the room is doing its own math and knows the numbers). My winrate didn't suffer last year but lol sample size. But I certainly have heard a lotta complaints amongst the players, as a 9 handed table can often get very short very quickly (one player picks up, another two walking).

GcluelessshorthandednoobG

back in the day our room used to reduce the rake at a shorthanded table; those days are long gone

LOL...I would never play 4 or 5 handed where the room is taking full rake. I've played at 10+ different rooms in the past year, and in every room they cut the rake when asked (either by policy or floor discretion).

Playing short-handed and paying full-rake sounds like a -EV move, especially for someone who plays ABC poker.

i love playing short handed because i can absolutely wreck those guys at the table

everyone needs to open their ranges a bit more and go out of their comfort range or they're just punting blinds

for those who play every hand anyway, i can now go against them heads up far more frequently without worrying about someone left to act having better cards in position - ie i can reliably raise pre with A7o 4 handed knowing i'm well ahead of the range of the guy who sees 90% of flops when we're short handed but at a full table i need to fold that because inevitably someone with a better ace who i'm not targeting is going to also be in the hand

i much better understand the relative strength of my hand in a situation like this than they do - this causes them to bluff in the wrong spots and bet for value when there is none, by far the biggest punts i've ever seen are short handed when someone just goes to the wall with bet/re-raise/call shove lines because they have top pair

yes top pair is usually good, but they are unable to realize that doesn't mean nobody ever has a set, two pair, disguised straight, etc

you get people absolutely stacking off with A9 on a 986 board etc

you can also nearly always request reduced rake, even getting less than the normal reduced rake amount, i've regularly gotten floor to agree to no promo and just take a dollar out of the pot because we were playing 3 or 4 handed

no, i wouldn't, not unless there were some particularly bad players there with particularly big stacks

but every single time it's gone to 4 or less i've been able to get severely reduced rake - you tell the floor the game will break otherwise and he can decide between an empty room and sending his workers home early or letting it run and they'll nearly always take the reduced rake, i'd say majority of my 4 handed or less play has been $1 total rake

there's even been times where someone says they need to go pickup their food and will be back in 20 min, table is about to break as a result, and floor with agree to zero rake until that guy gets back or another joins

My main room reduces the rake cap from $6 + $1 to $2 + $1 at 5-handed or less. Sign me up for that every time. Could do without the "+ $1" part but certainly there is a thrill to the idea of hitting the BBJ at a 5-handed table.

I actually very much enjoy playing short handed. In fact if the table gets to around 5 players I treat it as a sit and go tournament style and play much different but I feel some advantage because I play this so much online. Also used to play a lot of these at charitable games only problem is people do tend to walk if they figure out you can smoke them of their chips.

I'd assumed the OP assumed a rake decrease when playing short handed, as that's the policy in my local card room. It's half rake for 6 handed, and they'll break the table if it's five handed. If there's no rake cut, that's ridiculous, and I'd make a stink.

Our local poker rooms (all but one of which are owned by just two companies) figured out long ago that they can literally make whatever rules they want regarding rake size / not reducing rake in shorthanded games / etc. (some of which admittedly might be mandated by the province) and that it will have zero affect on traffic.

GcluelessbentoverabarrelnoobG

Somewhat related story...

A couple of years ago, I think like 2023 or so, our room began having a very informal poll as to whether everyone wanted to keep playing 10 handed (which we had been doing since the room opened in 2005) versus dropping down to 9 handed.

As I say, it was a very informal poll, in that there were two jars labelled "10 Handed" versus "9 Handed" at the floor desk and you could simply ask the floor for a penny to drop into the desired jar. No tracking on double dipping or anything. Lol. I immediately thought it was just some PR move so they could justify dropping down to 9 handed as it was "what the people had asked for", except for one problem: they had underestimated their customers and the floor eventually admitted 10 Handed won the poll.

And so we remained 10 handed... until 2024, where we dropped down to 9 handed, because that's obviously what the room was going to do all along (regardless of whether that is what the players wanted).

GfollowthemoneyG

Surprised they didn't use COVID as an excuse?!

I have played 10 handed at Grand Victoria Elgin.. I had my fill of that garbage which I am sure some people like, but not me its uncomfortable proximity to other players and if they smell good lord please table change me. You don't have much leg and arm room and their tables albeit standard I found to be much too small. As for the game itself its really hit or miss I didn't find it any more or less challenging really but the game would be much slower then 9 handed really my major complaint.

I admit I like 9 handed much more overall though it is much harder to pay attention diligently to 9 other people vs 8 other people.

For me it's about the rake. If the floor can lower rake by half or more, short handed is fun. Get to (correctly) play more hands.

But there's also that $2 jackpot drop at $20 so maybe opening to $7 or $8 instead of $10+ helps from being eaten alive in small hu pots.

I'm spoiled by being in close proximity to three different rooms, with one being one of the larger rooms on the East coast, such that it's generally not a problem to break a table of five and get a seat in a different game.

If you're in an area with few choices in rooms to play, I can see how the management would feel emboldened to do whatever they please. But if the room doesn't reduce the rake when a table gets short-handed, I think I'd just leave and play when there's likely to be more people in the room.

The rake is basically rent, and the rate should reflect the value of the property. If there's not as much money on the table, the property is worth less, and the rent should go down.

One of the problems I've noticed going from 10 handed to 9 handed is that it seems tables can get short more often, even when there is still like 4 tables running in the room (most full, but one table starts falling apart due to a couple quick bustouts and meanwhile no live players at the moment even though the call-in list is full). The shortness is usually only for a little while until some live players show up, but it can be annoying (at least to those who don't like shorthanded). Didn't seem to happen as much at 10 handed tables.

GattemptingtopushbacktheincomingtidesG