Hey All,

I often end up playing short handed for a while at one or more tables, either when I want to get a new table started because there aren't enough to 3-table or when, for whatever reason, time of day, tournament schedules, whatever, a bunch of people leave the tables in short succession and it takes a bit of time for them to fill back up.

Now I know one needs to loosen their starting requirements a little when short handed, but it's easy to take this too far.

I'm aiming to play ~27/20 when 6 handed, and I would tend not to adjust this much for 5 handed. But for 4 -, It seems like I'll be giving away/failing to steal too many BB/orbit if I don't loosen up some.

-Any thoughts on good VPIP numbers 4/3/2 handed?

-What hands, if any, do you start mixing in shorthanded that you would otherwise fold?

-Would you play just as tight OOP 4 & 3 handed as 6handed and only open up more OTB?

Any thoughts welcome!

The only time you alter your ranges are when you are HU.

The rest of the time it's identical to if you played 6 (or even 9) handed and everyone folded to you on the X ... the reason you "play more hands" is only because you aren't playing the first two positions that you'd play with the smallest ranges.

3-5 handed play is a subset of 6-handed play. Structurally, 3-handed play is equivalent to 6-handed where UTG-CO have all folded. VPIP/PFR getting higher 3-handed is a natural consequence of tighter positions no longer existing -- BTN and SB opens are now a higher % of all hands, and blind defenses against BTN (and SB) opens are also wider than against UTG-CO opens.

So, in sum, you don't do anything different, or "loosen up your starting requirements", all else being equal. That happens automatically. (In practice a 3-handed game will be tougher on average, because games with clear marks tend to fill, but that actually should call for more solid play shorthanded than in the analogous 6-max situations. That is, in weaker games one can find more spots to be exploitatively loose first-in from the CO/BTN.)

6-handed play with table selection can mask suboptimally nitty preflop play (e.g. if you are only VPIP-ing the BTN 30% first in, you can probably not lose as much if there's a big fish 6-handed). But the adjustment to 3-handed play is not "playing looser because it's short-handed"; rather it's, "now you actually have to play properly preflop, because that nitty play will be preyed on a lot more relentlessly".

In actual terms, HU is much different from 3-handed than 3-handed is from 6-handed, because the structure is different.

Okay, so let me rephrase what I understood from what you two said to see if I've understood you correctly:

If I'm 3-handed, my VPIP goes up, but not because my hand ranges in a given position should change all that much, but because I am now OTB for 33% of all hands being dealt, which means I'm playing my wider button hand range more frequently in terms of the number of hands being dealt, and I'm defending my BB vs a BSA more often as a natural result of that as well.

Have I synthesized the gist of that correctly?

Yep. BTN also opens all the time, rather than sometimes having UTG-CO action in front.

For OP the best practice here is that when it's 6 handed you should see some hands (mostly BTN, and some CO) and be thinking "if this gets folded to me, I'm going to open, but if someone opens I'm going to fold" ... and thus. when you are 3-4 handed all those hands are auto opens.

Makes perfect sense now.

Thanks guys, you quickly cleared up a major mis-conception for me here!