I play in a home game that has been breaking into two 6-7 handed tables. I play pretty tight, and most of my money comes from punishing draws (several regs will call anything short of an allin with a fd/sd) and limpers at a full table. I know I can't sit and wait for top 10% short handed, but I'm a little uncomfortable opening my range and getting money in with marginal holding. I'm raising in with suited aces and broadways->9 and the occasional one gapper j-6.

Should I add suited kings? Should i value my one pair hands more, as the likelihood of opponents having larger hands decreases the more hands they play?

Additionally, should I try upping my aggression, or will I just be going into spew mode betting 3/4 pot with qt on a q82r board?

I know its all villain dependent but I'm still tweaking my ranges/reads and am looking for general approach, as I'm used to kind of nitting it up with the random action generating hand to keep them paying me off, so any thoughts appreciated.

Opening up your range on the button to include more speculative hands becomes the main focus of shorthanded.

You can still be conservative with 1 pair holdings and still show the same amount of aggression post-flop, but consider this:

--You see the button 1 out of 6 times, not 1 out of 9-10.
--You are a blind 1/3 of the time, not 1/5 of the time.

You will need to utilize your positional advantage more than in a full ring game to win small pots.

im sorry one gapper j-6? im lost.

I think he means J9s through 86s.

I think you need to open up in this type games for sure. If I remeber right the draw dogs are also the guys that call down with second and third pair right.

With less players your starting requirements should loosen up but like stated above USE position and aggresion to punish your opponents you should see your profitability in these games increase as well as your table image.

I would say that you do have to value one pair hands a bit more, but that dosn't mean go crazy and fire 3 psbs w/ q 10 like in your example. Just ratchet up the aggro factor in position some, and possiblely defend from the blinds a bit more liberally.

Thanks for the advise, I was worried I may be over/under compensating.

I agree I need to work on my button play/steal and resteal %'s, as blinds become much more noticeable drain to my winrate shorthanded.

Summing up- Don't Spazz, Do value bet a tad thinner, and pay more attention to using positional advantage to pick up blinds/attack weakness.