I’m predominantly a limit hold’em cash game player; this is where I’ve built the vast majority of my bankroll, and this is where I feel the most at home. Not long ago, I decided to start attacking the shorthanded tables, with the idea that since there are more chances for my opponents to make mistakes at a shorthanded table, there ought to be more money in it for me. I was right; shorthanded competition is generally awful (or good, depending on how you like to look at it). The tight/passives that frequent the full limit tables (who don’t make a lot of money from you, but you don’t make a lot from them either) are usually not found here - instead, you find the people who like to see a flop with a little over half their hands, like to raise preflop with about a third of them, and like to call down with A-rag, just in case you only have K-high.

I made quite a few adjustments during the first 10k hands shorthanded I play, and I learned a whole lot. I was expecting there to be new things for me to learn, but I hadn’t realized the staggering amount of nuanced differences there would be, and I hadn’t realized how much I actually had to learn. Blind defense, for instance, was something I quite frankly didn’t care much about in full games, but in the shorthanded games I realized I was sacrificing too much equity by folding everything but great hands from the blinds. This was a valuable (albeit rather expensive) lesson to learn.

… and that line of thinking is what now has made me interested in no-limit and tournaments. There are concepts which I started developing a sense for earlier when I played these games more often, but that I’ve been neglecting lately. Bet size vs. stack size, continuation bets, steals, laying down a strong hand on the river (rare in limit games, of course), and so on. Not to mention hand reading - a skill that is necessary but difficult to cultivate in limit. You can make some educated guesses about hand strength, but the limited actions that the opponent can take makes the guessing a lot harder, and the ranges of possible hands a lot wider. This is an aspect of poker where I have a lot to learn.

I’m not sure constantly switching between different forms of poker is something that would fit me, though. I need time to focus, to study and learn, and then to practise, and then rinse and repeat.

Wish me luck!