My local poker room is open offering 6 max tables. Until now I've never given much thought of how much the blinds impact my win rate. I've always left the poker table when the game was less than 6-handed.

The game would be 5-handed from time to time. I left when the game was 4-handed and there was no one entering the poker room to play.

In addition to the SB & BB there is a mandatory bet OTB equal to the SB. So if a 9-handed game has about 30 hands per hour, it would be fair to say that 4-handed would play at least 60. That's a lot of money per hour in just mandatory bets. At least the rake comes out of a pot I've won.

Just how good do I have be and how bad does the competition have to be for this game to turn a profit of 10/bb per hour?

Having to pay the blinds doesn't decrease you win-rate because everyone has to pay them equally and they don't take money out of the game.

The casinos that are opening around me are 6-handed with a $3 max rake. You can also get more hands per hour and have less opponents to learn to exploit. Short-handed games are a good thing, IMO.

The blinds don't kill you (unless you are way too nitty), as they just provide extra money in the pot that you can win. e.g. You could be in the BB and the BTN and SB both fold.
It's rake that kills, but I don't know how much rake you're paying.

Good question, I hope you get more answers. A lot depends on how much people buy in for also. If everyone buys in $100 there's only $400 on the table to be won, and rake is taking about $150-$200 per hour off the table. So unless someone keeps rebuying you'll all lose. But full-ring nine-handed games are the same way, there's just more money available to be won and tighter ranges.

Low-limit poker should really only be played for fun anyway because most people are not going to beat the rake. (But if you're good you can win a little, or lose less money than if you played other games at the casino.)

I think short-handed NL poker is much more fun (unless there's one really aggressive person at the table winning every hand). It's much more like pure poker, you don't have to sit around waiting for premium cards because it's correct to play looser, and it's easier for recs to win. Hopefully it will catch on and be the new normal way to play poker.

My thinking is that if a 4-handed table is dealt 40 hands per hour that's 10 orbits at a cost of $4 per orbit. So I have to win $40 just to break even for the hour. I know that's not correct, I should win my "share" from the BUT but that still leaves me putting up $30 from the blinds.

How exactly are you calculating "your share", as it looks like you're doing it wrong

browni has it right, you're only paying the blinds to each other, that you do so more frequently doesn't affect your EV unless you are bad short handed and are getting run over

My apologies for not using the correct terms. So over the long term a player can expect -EV from the blinds? Now, I guess the question is does the +EV from the BUT make up for that?

I guess that I was just startled by how quickly the BB, SB, and BUT Blind(?) come around in a 4-handed game. After 3 hours of playing anywhere from 4 to 6-handed I left up $182. I guess I should stop my bitchin and just play poker!

As a full ring player, shorthanded poker is a bit of a mindset shift. Some portions of FR poker is just sitting there, avoiding tough spots, and waiting for a time where a bad opponent gets money in hopelessly against you. The whole "if I play tight, I don't have to pay my fair share of the rate" issue works in your favor.


As a shorthanded player, you are pushing your edges more often. You have to understand the times when K4s is a good hand. You're getting to showdown with lesser hand values. You can't just be tighter than everyone else, because it is you, two blinds, and a guy with suspect values UTG (what you full ring players call the CO). Once you know these spots, they're really profitable. It is also much more fun to play more hands more aggressively.

Playing shorthanded vs full ring players must be a dream for those who know how to do so. If you don't? Could be tough, though the skills are worth learning. For me, the biggest issues were in not turning my bluff catchers in to bluffs. I did that in every game type (LHE, NL, and PLO/8).

Just look at one single 6max hand in a vacuum without rake:
One player pays the BB, one player pays the SB. Now let’s say the blinds don’t win the hand because they are in a crappy position. That means those $4 (in a 1/3 game) are distributed among the other 4 players.

If you distribute that money equally, everyone is getting $1 for every hand they’re not in the blind. After 4 hands of not paying blinds, you have $4. Then you pay the blinds, $4 total so you’re back to 0 after six hands which equals an orbit.

Compare that to a 10 handed game. In the 8 hands you’re not in the blinds, you make 8 x $0.5 (your share of $4) for a total of $4. Then you pay the blinds and after that you’re back to $0. So again, you ended the orbit with the same amount of money you had when you started.

You're also less -EV in the blinds, because you aren't going up against the collective best hands of 7-8 other hands. Think about a 3 handed game. Is the BB a huge money loser? You're up against 1 non-random hand on the BTN. You get position on another blind on every street.

Yes.
Think about heads up games. It's disadvantageous to be in the BB vs the SB/BTN who has position on you for one hand, but then the button moves on the next hand, so now you have the advantage. It all evens out in the end.
Think of it this way: Paying the blinds gives you the right to play a whole orbit of poker, and during that orbit you'll be in more profitable seats than the blinds, so make sure you use those opportunities, then quit the table just before you're about to be in the BB again.

The really profitable BTN and CO seats come up way more often. That's why you love shorthanded, more buttons.

There are some other advantages to short handed play. Let's say a player is really bad. He's extremely passive, but will call almost anything. This is a very profitable opponent to play against, and short handed you will be playing against him more often than not. And because there are fewer players to be dealt in, and fewer actions to be made, you get more hands per hour. So a really good table you can have a higher winrate per hand (because you don't have to share the donator or donators with as many players), AND more hands per hour.

Conversely, if the game is bad, it becomes really, really bad.

one of the biggest profits in poker comes from starting with better hands than your opponents. shorthanded that diminishes because of the blinds. but you make up for that
by playing more hands with weaker players all of you having about the same starting hands.

shorthanded the rake can kill you and the whole game. the same amount per hand taken off the table when you are playing all marginal hands is tough to beat. unless the casino lowers the rake substantially or the players are really bad. and generally they dont lower it enough and really bad players dont play long shorthanded. and if they do you are lucky that day for sure to have them.

That’s certainly true for some players and you could argue that group is probably highly represented on a forum like here.

But there are also groups of players that highly benefit or suffer from playing shorthanded. If you’re a nit waiting for premium hands you have a problem playing shorthanded, especially because you have limited postflop skills because you just don’t flop many straight draws or non-nut flush draws if you usually play a super tight range preflop.

A group that benefits is the one that knows it would be financially beneficial to play less hands preflop in a full ring game but plays very lose anyway. Why? Because they didn’t drive 30 minutes to the casino to fold for 3 hours. That group of players not only benefits immediately from weaker ranges overall but also from the fact that they know how to play their range postflop. You only learn postflop play by playing hands postflop, that’s why the hardcore nits usually play horribly after the flop.

I'll admit to having one of the biggest "downswings" in my poker career after switching from FR to 6m. My two issues?

• Probably not playing that well postflop for the reasons you give.
• Bum hunting any player that played looser than I did -- not realizing that actual shorthanded crushers fell in this group. Turns out that they didn't mind a FR grinder iso-raising them and then not being able to play well in the bloated pots that he had just created.

The skills you need to play HU and shorthanded are really worth learning. You also have to acknowledge that people who don't have those skills are probably going to not do great in 4 handed games. They'll blame high rake and variance, not understanding that the "laggy fish" they're losing to is either A) a good shorthanded player or B) an aggro bad player whose game accidentally does pretty well in these spots. A fullring fish who plays too many hands and understands how to play tough spots might be a better bet than a FR nit who just always avoids those spots.