A piece of advice on how to play the shorthanded game the right way by the pro himself – Russ Georgiev:

“Realize that anyone that waits for a hand in a short-handed situation will lose many blinds while waiting. Also, when they gets involved in betting, the opposition will know they has something and will be waiting to check-raise them and trap them, or let them win the minimum.

Short-handed players that win bet their own hands, they don’t bet yours. You have to learn to do this yourself. The object of the game is to get the money called when you have the best of it and have free cards given to you with the worse of it. Short-handed is not a game for callers.

Not having the opposition able to read your style is the difference between winning and losing. The key is being able to have so many different styles that the opposition doesn’t know how to combat it. All shorthanded players are aggressive. But in a horse race, the speed of the speed is the one to fear.

However, do you always want to be the speed, if the pace of the game is fast enough? The answer is no. The name of the game is knowing how to bet to get the most information about a player’s hand. Sometimes it is best to lay off the pace and punish him in the last quarter of a mile, meaning the river.”

The skills Russ has advised about only come with a lot of practice. You cannot simply raise with a draw of K9o from late position without knowing the quality of the game, and the styles of all the players at the table.

The ability to figure our when to raise, which hands to begin with and which hands to wait with is something you can only learn with time. The trick for beginning is to realize the fact that you should never ever underestimate your hands.

Just do it, bet on whatever you have got, raising and check-raising more, even sporadically when you have nothing. Do not take it too far though, specifically when you are just starting out, but drag yourself out of your comfort zone, does not help to stay there forever.

You will be surprised at how much fun you it can be even when you are in the learning phase and your curve is slowly but steadily climbing up. The curve should not surprise you though because poker might not be an easy game to learn but it sure is not rocket science either!

It simply takes time; time you spend practicing that is to hone your skills at this game, practice on playing different games and employing different tactics and styles of play. You might be good at one style of play while you suck at another. Just keep practicing and you will eventually have your way.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.