Playing in Shorthanded Poker Tournaments

Back in the day, shorthanded poker tournaments weren’t much of a draw since man had yet to even conquer traditional Texas Hold’em tourneys.  But now that regular Hold’em tournaments feature so many good players, people have moved on to new types of tourneys and shorthanded tournaments happen to fall into this category.  6-max table tournaments have especially gained popularity since they’re prominently featured in the FTOPS series. 

I’ll admit that I have yet to master the shorthanded tourney, but I have employed some strategy that has helped me cash in plenty of these 6-max tournaments.  The first thing I always do is open up the range of hands I am willing to play.  This not only includes playing hands like pocket 9′s more often, but it also includes playing them out of position too.  For instance, if I’m two seats to the left of the big blind, and first seat has called then I’ll almost always play the pocket 9′s (assuming they’re not a major rock).

Another thing I do when playing in shorthanded tournaments is play more loose and aggressive.  In a shorthanded tournament, you don’t have time to sit back and wait for everyone to beat each other up; if you do this then you’ll be blinded out of the tournament in no time!  So you’ve really got to open up your play and start being more loose and aggressive.

One more thing I like to do when playing in 6-max tournaments is spend the first 20 minutes of a new table studying opponents.  Now this might sound a little contradictory to playing loose and aggressive, but you’ve got to play tight in the beginning since you don’t have the luxury of sitting back and gathering info like in traditional tournaments.  If you do these things then you should be pretty successful in 6-max tourneys right off the bat.