22 is the maximum number of players you can have in hold ‘em without running out of cards. 44 hole cards, 3 burn cards, 3 flop cards, 1 turn, and 1 river card = 52 cards.

How would strategy be affected. Would hands like AA, KK, and AK still be the best preflop, or would suited connecters go up in value?

Would small pocket pairs be worth anything? If you flop bottom set, chances are someone has a higher set.

What about non-nut flushes? Chances are someone has the nut flush.

Would bluffing become less profitable?

inb4 G-man locks this

Yeah, locking it is definitely my first instinct.

What are you trying to do with this thought experiment OP?

Obviously AA remains the best hand, and obviously everything else would depend on stack sizes, opening sizes, etc. I just don't see how there's any valuable strategic insight to be gained from this, but I'll elave it open for a bit for you to convince me if you'd like.

Would be interesting to see how tight opening ranges should be UTG on a 20 man table. Probably a terrible game.

i imagine preflop could be very funny with the right group of lunatics.

how about make it no-limit, but you can raise a bet to any increment > 1bb.

Recs/fish would still whine if 3 seats were unattended

"No more than two off the table! Where are you going? To the restroom?! Floor! Floor! Stop that man! Supposed to be 22 man not 19 man!"

I just thought it would be interesting.

Many players claim that even 10-handed is too much. I tend to prefer bigger games (i.e. more people at the table).

I was just wondering how the dynamic would play out if 22-handed.

Obviously I know AA is still best hand, but would it still be AS GOOD as in a 6- or 9-handed game?

Would ranges be so tight that you would need to fold hands like AQo without even facing a raise?

I guess there isn’t really any reason I posted this other than curiosity as to why everyone thinks it is so bad to play with so many players.

does not compute

Given people play way too many hands in LLSNL, I think AA would be better 22 handed in later positions since you might have 10 to 15 people in already, so you're raising the nuts into a bloated pot which must be a good thing. It may be less valuable in early position since you ideally you don't play AA 15 ways OOP in a single raised pot.

Whether it is HU or 22 man, you still only have a 6% chance of being dealt a PP. It doesn't matter if the cards are dealt out or in the stub. Set will be more likely, but not like it is going to be like PLO. Most likely hands will be more MW because more players will be dealt hands they feel are playable.

The number of players in a hand are going to be a big tell on the value of Ax. The more people in the hand, the more likely the aces you need will be busy.

Ultimately, each extra player around table changes the strategy less. The strategy of HU vs. 6 max make it different games. The adjustments of 6 max to FR are much smaller. Most players don't make any adjustments going from 9 to 10. You shouldn't be playing many non-paint Ax hands anyway for intrinsic value.

I’ve always laughed at this because these guys likely stand to lose less money as less players are in the arena. Their limp/calling and random spazzy moves postflop can be tough as you’re frequently playing a wider range as well (but obv if they want to keep donk betting top pair weak kicker to “see where they are at” when we have a strong range, I welcome it)


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Full ring with blinds is already a horrible nitty game when played correctly.

You can’t generalize so much. Hand values are going to be massively different depending on the scenario. UTG rfi and BU vs CO ranges are going to be massively different. As usual when discussing number of players, the difference is just that certain positions are added/removed, and later positions are affected by card removal of the folding ranges in earlier positions.

Good players would get incredibly bored by having to fold almost all the time but they’d make a lot of money from loose fish who would get completely destroyed limp/calling garbage in EP.

Small pairs go way down in value. Suited aces go up in value. EP play would be extremely tight because you have to go through 20 players.

No one except GG would ever want to play this game.

What constitutes as EP in a 22 handed game?

UTG, UTG+1, UTG+2, UTG+3, UTG+4, UTG+5, UTG+6, UTG+7, UTG+8, UTG+9.

If played live, with people playing like typical live players, you'd need to try and play hands which are able to make the nuts multi-way, namely AXs, and obviously the larger pairs too. A lot of the pre-flop mistakes made by live players would be hugely magnified, meaning they would lose more per hand than at a standard full-ring table; however these losses would be spread amongst more players, and the hands per hour would definitely drop significantly too.

However if played 'optimally' (good luck finding the computing power for a 22-way pre-flop sim), card removal effects would be huge when folded to later positions (which should happen often). It would mean that the BU open range would be significantly tighter than in a standard 6 max game, since the hands for the players behind become more condensed towards those containing high cards.

For reference on how significant the card removal from folded cards is, a guy I know who runs sims has estimated a change in EV of 5-10% in BU ranges depending on whether it's in a 6-max game where LJ-CO hand folded, or if it's a 3 handed game. Since a 5-10% change in EV results from 3 players having folded ahead of us, it would presumably be huge if there were 19 players folded ahead of us.

If the table is full of loose passives, raising huge over 10 limpers seems like it'd be insanely profitable. In massively MW limped pots, obviously top pair goes way down in value, but nutmining should work very well, since lots of opponents won't tighten up their stackoff ranges enough.

We should be folding nearly our entire range preflop pretty often, so this game will be boring as hell.

This wouldn't be for 100 big blinds though. Making it spread, pot-limit, or some variation to minimize risk and open up ranges.