Pot Odds In Shorthanded Situations

The concepts presented in this article relate to shorthanded situations, defined as post flop situations where there are no more then three players still involved in the pot. Shorthanded strategy is not confined to situations where the table is shorthanded, but to situations where there is a significant chance of the pot being taken down before a showdown is reached. Such situations will rarely come up at a table full of loose passive calling stations, but at the higher limits where players get tighter and more aggressive, then shorthanded situations become the norm rather than the exception.

When involved in a shorthanded pot you should immediately realize that you are involved in a completely different kind of a game from a no fold'em hold'em game. In a loose passive game, most of the hands you play after the flop should be hands where you figure that you are not a favorite against the lot, but where you get proper pot odds to chase. In shorthanded situations you rarely get proper pot odds to chase, but this is to some degree compensated by the fact that you will sometime be leading when you expect to be chasing, and by the fact that you should expect to take down some pots without reaching a showdown (rendering your hole cards irrelevant). You should still think in terms of pot odds, but pot odds are estimated in a different manner in a shorthanded situation than in a multi-way pot. When deciding whether to play or fold in a shorthanded situation you should try to figure out:

1) the chance that you are currently in the lead and will end up with the best hand,
2) the chance that you might catch up and end up with the winning hand for the times where you are currently on a chase, and
3) the chance you might take down the pot without a showdown through making an aggressive move now or on a later round.

If the pot is laying you better odds than the sum of these three probabilities, you should probably stay in contest. There is, however, a catch in this method, and that is that each of the three probabilities are to some extent dependent on how you play out your hand.

The probability of 1) is dependent on how fast you play your hand. Whether or not you are in the lead depends solely on the cards of you and your opponents, but the chances of your hand holding up when you have a marginal holding that is currently the best is strongly dependent on you betting and raising it, so you don't want to hand out many free cards. Most people seem to think that you should be most aggressive with your monster hands, and reserve the check raise for these situations. But if you think about it, you have much more to gain from playing your marginal hands aggressively, as these hands are in more urgent need of protection.

The probability of 2) is only dependent on the hole cards of you and your opponents. It is in a sense the probability of you saving your ass when you guessed 1) wrong.

The probability of 3) is independent on your hole cards, and solely a function of your betting patterns (for a thorough discussion of this, see my article "Learning The Art Of Bluffing"). This is why shorthanded poker is very much a game of representation. For a bluff or semi bluff to succeed it must be credible. Betting and raising like a maniac wont cut it in itself. Instead, you must time your aggression in a way to you make a credible representation of a specific strong hand through betting exactly like you would have done had you in fact held that hand. The key to maximizing the probability of 3) is therefore, timing.

Before continuing on timing, it might be worth noting that when you hold a marginal hand you are usually quite happy to take it down without a showdown. Therefore, you should often play hands in a way that will maximize the probability of 3), as 1) and 2) are primarily dependent on the cards, whereas 3) is solely dependent on your actions.

What is timing? Timing is much about realizing when a card hits the board that is a scare card that you "own", due to the betting pattern up till this point in the hand. When such a situation comes up, you must represent the hand without hesitation. If you hesitate your opponents will doubt you, and doubt leads confusion and confusion leads to curiosity calls. One of the most common and most costly mistakes made in shorthanded pots is players failing to perform a specific analysis on whether and why they are going to stay in the hand, as this often leads to them never taking shots at stealing the pot when an opportunity arises. If you don't win your fair share of pots without reaching a showdown, you are doomed.

These are the principal principles of shorthanded pots. This article will be continued next month where I will try to discuss timing more thoroughly through discussing specific shorthanded hands.

Thanks to Leigh Lightfoot-Martin for proof reading this article.

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