Erica Schoenberg--one of the newest Full Tilt pros--will be hosting tonight's $1,000 6-max FTOPS event. She also won an event at Mandalay Bay and made a final table at the World Series.
Playing a 6-max tournament can, at times, be a completely different game than full-ring tournaments. During the 2006 WSOP, I had the chance to talk to Joe Hachem about shorthanded tournament strategy (he was runner up to Dutch Boyd in a $2,500 event). Even though he's not quite as attractive as Erica, he had some helpful strategy advice.
I've reposted the highlights of that conversation below:
1. Open Things Up Without Overdoing It
I play a lot faster in short-handed events. I’m seeing many more flops; I’m raising with many more hands even from the early stages. I’m calling raises with hands I would normally fold. There is a fine line though because people think they have to become super-aggressive. You don’t. You can still play a tight-solid game, but you have to be able to open it up a little bit.
2. Don’t Undervalue Your Starting Hands
Many people undervalue their hands like KQ; they’re afraid to play it because it could be dominated. Others think because it is short-handed they have to play super-fast. You have to find a balance. If I have A8 and there’s a raise in front of me, I might repop to take it down there. Because there’s so many less hand possibilities, there’s a chance I have the best hand.
3. Play Small Pots Early
If I can just pick up a pot here or a pot there without risking my chip stack, that work’s the best for me. I’m not having huge confrontations early in a tournament. The 25-25 and 25-50 level you don’t want to be involved in big pots there without a big hand. Contrary to popular belief, a big hand is not top pair. To play a big pot in the first two levels, two pair is the minimum.
4. Don’t Get Cute With Aces
If you are at an active table with a raiser and a few callers, don’t get cute. If the blinds are 25-50, there’s 500 in pot if someone raises and two people call. If you have AA in the small blind, you want to take it down right there. Make it 1500. You just picked up 20% of your chip stack. Other people might want to gamble and try to double up early. There’s no reason too.
If it’s a very active table and I’m under the gun, as long as my image is not too tight at the table, I’ll just limp in with them and wait for the raise. But if you’re gonna limp in with aces, you have to be prepared to drop them after the flop...but people just get married to them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve folded aces after the flop.
5. Take time to figure your table out
Don’t go in saying, “I’m going to raise with this,” or, “I’m going to play this hand this way.” This is especially true in short-handed. You must feel your way through it. Get a feeling of what your table image is. Have they played with you before? Some tables I can sit down and raise every hand and they are expecting me to do it, and they still let me. If I sit down and think these guys are gonna be after me, then I just sit back and chill, picking my spots.
6. Sometimes your cards don’t really matter.
Everything depends on your table. I will make a decision on the spot about a situation. I will decide I’m raising Jeremiah’s big blind this hand. My cards are irrelevant, so why even look at them? I try to play each player individually. If I known you are not coming after me unless you have a hand, I’m stealing from you all day long.
7. Always be ready to pull the trigger
There’s a certain stage in the tournament where playing just small pot poker becomes hard because there’s so much out there. You are always ready to maneuver. In a shorthanded event, you are always ready to pull the trigger. If you are involved in a pot and you feel you have to go for it, go for it.
8. Push hard with AK
In short-handed events I will push a lot harder with AK than in full ring. The chances are even that much smaller of someone having a bigger hand. Again, in the 25-50 level there’s no reason to go broke with top pair; but as the tournament progresses, push hard with it.
9. Play your tightest game after the dinner break.1
Play always tightens up when you are close to the bubble, of course. Just before dinner time, play tightens up. Just after dinner time, everyone blows themselves up. They go and have dinner and they think about what they are going to do and they come back and just…blow themselves up. The start of day two people just come in, they’ve thought about it all night, they haven’t slept, “I’m gonna do this, this, and that;” they come in and boom boom boom, you lose a big percentage of the field in the first level. I want to wait and wake up with a big hand so I can get some of the sugar.
1 I'm not exactly sure how this applies to an online event. I've never really noticed if people play different after 5 minute breaks or not.
