Disclaimer:
This guide (like all other poker books) is not capable of giving you the secret to making easy, instant money. Poker is a game that cannot be mastered overnight and there are no easy success secrets. Experience is the most important factor in becoming a successful poker player. Some people learn this game very quickly, others progress more slowly, but in all cases, experience is the key.

On the other hand, poker is not a very complicated game. The rules are simple and most of your small stakes opponents are easy enough to beat. It just takes experience to recognize certain situations ? for example when your hand has just been outdrawn. There are some basic guidelines that winning players keep in mind when playing and this guide aims to pass these ideas on. Additionally writing this guide will help me with my game and hopefully it will create discussion among those who read it.

Why play shorthanded no limit?
The first answer to this question is to make more money. The vast majority of opponents play poker incorrectly. This applies to limit, no-limit, shorthanded, full ring, tournaments, whatever. Shorthanded allows you to play more hands against these bad opponents in the same amount of time. When you're sitting at a five handed table with a couple of decent players and a couple of fish, you're going to have so many more opportunities to play hands against the fish than you would in a full ring game. What makes this deal even better is that most opponents play even worse in shorthanded games. So not only are you playing more hands against this fish, but he's also playing even worse in a shorthanded game. Opponents in short games will often play too loose. If they don't play too loose, then you'll notice that they play too tight. Some play super passive and will call you down with anything ? not even raising when they finally hit a strong hand. All of these mistakes are compounded by the extra hands you are getting to play against these opponents.

The second answer to this question is to develop your skills. Shorthanded (SH from now on) play puts you in more pots and makes you make more decisions than nut peddling and playing 11% of your hands in full ring games. you're going to get more practice in less time and be forced to learn. If your goal is moving up to the highest stakes possible, you're going to have to learn SH to play because there are few tables and few players at the highest levels.

Let us begin with some basics:

Common Mistakes/Misconceptions about SH NL
A. Top Pair Top Kicker (TPTK) is a made hand in SH NL and should always be shown down with all your money in the middle. I used to see various forms of this comment everywhere, but it simply isn't true. Single pair hands (in fact, any 2nd best hand) can be very dangerous in NL. I think this sentiment is left over from the old 50BB PartyPoker days (ie at 25NL the blinds were .25/.50 as opposed to how they are now with .10/.25 blinds).

B. There is a good time of day where there are more fish. This one is debatable, but in the 10-100NL games, almost everyone you play against is fishy no matter the time of day. If you're playing at 10 in the morning on a Monday at Ultimate Bet, you may find more tight players, but they're still fish. By adjusting your play to the different styles you encounter in the small stakes games, you bring out the fishiness in everyone.

C. Tight-Aggressive (tag) sucks and Loose-Aggressive (lag) is the only way to make lots of money. There is nothing wrong with playing a tag style in SH games. There are plenty of fish willing to donate to a good tag player. Playing a lag style can be even more profitable against tight, ABC players, but a lot of times you just need to camp for good hands and the opponents will pay you off no matter how tight you are. This doesn't mean I dislike lag play. In fact I love being a lag, and I'll go more into it later.

D. Its ok to call a raise of up to 10% of your stack with a small pocket pair in the hopes of hitting a set. In a 100NL game, a $10 preflop raise is quite a bit. The argument to this rule is that to call off $10 raises all the time in a 100NL game you're going to need to win your opponent's entire stack every time you hit the set to profit in the long run. However, due to set over set situations, opponents? abilities to fold, and boards that either screw your hand or scare the opponents, you won't get paid in full every time. A big preflop raise like 10% of your stack can mean your opponent is really attached to his hand, but it just doesn't mean you're going to get paid every time. If you call a 4bb raise and someone behind you pops it up to 10bb, then go ahead and call again, especially if the original raiser calls it ? but do NOT get stuck in between two raisers ? only call a reraise like this if you close the action.

Preflop
Preflop is where it all begins. When the hole cards are dealt, you need to know what kind of hand and what kind of pot you are looking for. If dealt a small pocket pair, for example, you want to hit a set and play a large pot on a non-threatening flop or a medium-large pot on the river if you don't improve to a full-house. If you hit that full house, the goal is to play a huge pot. If dealt a hand like As5s, you're looking for a flush ? sure a bicycle straight is ok if it falls in your lap, but with this particular hand it cannot ever be a nut straight. Other random flopped full houses, trips and such are good too, but the main goal with a hand like suited aces is to hit the nut flush on a non-paired board and play a gigantic, multi-way pot. If you get AK Preflop, you know that most likely you're going to be playing to spike an ace or king and play a small-medium sized pot. Remember to know what kind of hand and of pot you're going to be playing for when you see those hole cards.

One other important thing to note before moving to the next section is that everything changes based upon the table and your opponents. The following guidelines about where to limp and where to raise are only guidelines. For example, if you have an opponent who is a pushover (weak-tight) then you should be more willing to raise weak hands against him and get it heads up vs. him so that you can either take his blinds or limp money or steal the pot postflop. If you have position on a calling station, then make the most of your small edges by raising hands like medium pocket pairs or decent aces.

This is the first in a series of articles that make up my complete poker strategy guide. The next article will continue with a preflop discussion and go into detail about the best ways to play specific hands before the flop.

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