Using 5-10 holdem as an example…It’s the middle of the night, your game has broken down it’s you and two absolutely hopeless opponents. They seemingly call or raise entirely on whim, they see 19 out of 20 flops, If they flop nothing they usually go to the river anyway. You cannot detect any pattern in there play other than they play everything and quite aggressively. The question is what’s the best strategy to get the money? It seems to me that, with minor exceptions, you just play better shorthanded starting hands than they do and meet them at the river…Specifically
1) What is the minimum starting hand you should play?
2) When if ever should you fold the big blind for a raise?
3) When you flop nothing should you chase with 2 over cards (note a king may be the best hand) ,or with various draws. Any comments on the above.
Answer 1:
When open-raising on the button, most people think I’m too loose, but I think it’s correct to play T9, 76s, K7, A3, etc. Heads up fold the bottom 20% of hands, which is all the total garbage like Q5, 73, etc. 42 is okay (!).You should try to get to the showdown with an ace. With a biggish king, you usually want to play it hard to get a weak ace to fold. With a draw you want to play it hard to get a weak ace or king to fold. It appears that you don’t have odds to play a draw, but you do because you have a large chance of your opponent folding, and because you’ve likely got pair outs as well.
Answer 2:
I think you’re underestimating the value of playing rather loose-aggressively and tenaciously shorthanded. If they’re really playing /everything/, then you can probably win by playing something like your normal tight-ring-game hand strategy and calling them down with somewhat weaker hands than you otherwise do, like ace-high. If they’re only playing a lot of hands, like say, 60%, then you might be in a heap of trouble and you should probably find another table. Not that it’s impossible to beat, but this style of play is very effective shorthanded: (medium-loose and hyper-aggressive).
Answer 3:
Actually I have played quite a bit of shorthanded holdem, including against some very strong players and held my own. I am happy to see that I have played very much as Abdul suggests. It seems that when I get my share of cards I bury these games…but when I am unlucky I get crushed. Perhaps this variance should be avoided when playing on a limited bankroll. It also seems that the clueless action man who wanders in from the crap table may very well employ near correct strategy in these situations by accident.
