To Make Money. Hopefully lots of it.

On TV, poker has become somewhat of a fad. We see people playing in huge tournaments, making crazy plays, and winning huge cash prizes; but this doesn't really catch the true essence of poker for most of us. For the average player, we play much smaller games but we enjoy the company of our friends, the challenge of outthinking our opponents, and the emotional roller coaster that is Texas Hold 'em.

We don't wear stupid sunglasses and try to stare into our opponents' souls; we simply try to make the best decisions possible each hand. What many people who are new to poker don't realize is that us small, unknown poker players are steadily making profits in ring games that easily surpass the win rate of the average tournament player. Some of us only play small stakes poker part time for extra spending money, some of us 8-table medium stakes no limit games at an easy clip for $50/hour, and some of us eventually move up to the highest stakes online and achieve win rates surpassing $1,000/hour. No joke.

To make even more money

The vast majority of opponents play poker incorrectly. It doesn't matter if you're playing limit, no-limit, shorthanded, full ring, tournaments, or whatever; your opponents will, for the most part, be inferior. 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.

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.

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