Feuled by seemingly nonstop television coverage and internet access in nearly every house, internet Texas Hold em is exploding. There are dozens of online poker rooms, with over 75,000 players often playing at the most popular site, Party Poker. While there is money to be made everywhere, the shorthanded games offer some of the best opportunities to make a healthy living.
The standard poker table in an online poker room has ten seats. However, the poker rooms also offer shorthanded games where a maximum of six players sit at the table. The rules of the game are the same, but the strategies employed should be vastly different to take advantage of the different conditions. I liken it to tennissingles and doubles are similar, but to be an effective doubles player one must approach the game with a vastly different mindset.
The most important component to playing winning poker, whether it be shorthanded or at full tables, is starting hand selection. The vast majority of starting hands are losers in the long run. There is a limit poker concept called Expected Value (EV) which is basically the number of big bets a player can expect to win per hand if he were to play that...