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Winning Poker Tournaments is an in-depth training course made for serious tournament poker players. Your new coach, Nick Petrangelo, reveals the exact tactics & strategies he uses to crush the world's biggest buy-in events. The Postflop Poker Podcast. Join host Merv Harvey and resident pro Ben 'Gamb64' Hayles on the first poker podcast dedicated to the subject of postflop poker strategy. Our show is aimed at the serious recreational player. And inspired by Ben's books Postflop Vols 1 & 2.

If preflop play in traditional Texas hold'em is checkers, then postflop plays definitely becomes chess.

Anyone can play a couple of aces preflop, but things get much trickier once the community cards start hitting the felt. How are you going to tread with once the flop hits? It isn't completely clear what the best line is, as how you proceed often depends upon variables like stack sizes, position, and opponents who are constantly changing.

And that's just on the flop. Things become infinitely more complicated on the turn and river, not to mention more important as the pot gets bigger and mistakes become more costly.

Short deck hold'em might have only 36 cards, but many of the same principles apply. Postflop play is going to be a deeper, more complex thought process compared to preflop, where equities run pretty close, as Part 2 of this series outlined.

In the last installment, we went over some guidelines for preflop play in short deck, with none other than the great Isaac Haxton offering up some thoughts. This week, Jason Somerville speaks to PokerNews about postflop play.

Thinking About Ranges

One of the things Haxton mentioned in discussing the transition to short deck from traditional hold'em is the need to recalibrate our mental perception of some of the cards and hands. In his example, he pointed out that you must register as and realize this hand is terrible.

Similarly, postflop ranges have to be mentally recalibrated, particularly in heads-up pots.

For example, Somerville suggests thinking about which flops you're continuation betting as the preflop raiser. In hold'em, you'd likely bet often on a flop if you open preflop and get one caller. In the same vein, if the flop comes in short deck, that's essentially the same situation.

'That's a very good flop heads up as the preflop raiser,' Somerville says.

Continuation betting in general, he says, follows a similar line to hold'em. It's not as common simply because preflop raises aren't as common as in hold'em, so there are more limped pots. Consequently, one player doesn't have the betting lead going into the flop as often.

'There are a lot of similar boards you'd want to be betting,' Somerville says of continuation betting postflop, while cautioning that the reverse is true as well: know your opponents' ranges.

'Similarly, under the gun versus button, button is way more likely to have a six or seven than you are,' he continues. 'Understand what kind of boards hit you and what kind of ranges your opponents have.'

Overall, Somerville feels it's actually a little easier to range your opponents in short deck compared to no-limit for the simple reason that there are fewer cards in the deck. The complicating factor, of course, is all of the multi-way pots.

Operating in Multi-Way Pots

As we established in looking at preflop play, it's frequently correct for players to limp into the pot in short deck. From a mathematical perspective, the first player to act is getting something like 8-to-1 on his or her money to put in one more ante to see the flop. Obviously, a raise behind would change things, but that's still an attractive price in a game where many hands are playable.

Thus, heads-up pots are relatively rare in short deck (where players tend to see lots of flops) when compared to no-limit hold'em games (where players should be folding the vast majority of their hands).

'So many people see flops [in short deck], the decision trees are harder to solve than no-limit,' Somerville says. 'That makes short deck more complicated.'

As an example, he points out, think of the most 'traditional' sort of hold'em pot.

'Button raises, big blind calls,' Somerville said. 'We as veterans of the game can figure out these ranges. These are the hands you should have.'

Contrast that to a common short deck situation — e.g., four limpers see a flop.

'Who of the four limpers has the strongest range here?' Somerville asks. 'It's not necessarily nearly as clear.'

This creates many difficult situations postflop. Somerville believes that makes short deck a more complex, interesting game than many might give it credit for if their only exposure is seeing preflop shovefests in tournaments and knowing how close equities run.

Next week, Somerville will expand with some thoughts on bet sizing, position, and playing later streets.

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  cash game strategytournament strategyJason Somervilleshort deck hold’emsix-plus hold’empostflop strategyboard texturerangesrange reading

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  Jason Somerville

Table Of Contents

Last week, we got into the 'chess' segment of short deck hold'em, examining some of the principles that should guide postflop play in this high-action, increasingly popular format.

The Run It Up patriarch himself, Jason Somerville, shared his thoughts on ranging opponents and operating in multi-way pots in Part 4 of this series.

Somerville had plenty of further thoughts to share about postflop strategy in short deck (or 'six plus') hold'em, including topics like bet sizing, using blockers, and what sort of play best prepares someone to tackle short deck.

Bet Sizing

Sizing your bets is an integral part of poker, both for getting maximum value and forcing folds from hands that may be better or have decent equity.

Short deck is no different, but one of the things that changes in a big way is typical sizing.

In regular hold'em, a popular line in the current meta is to bet on the smaller side on the flop, sometimes as small as 20 or 30 percent of the pot on some textures. Then, players will follow up with much bigger bets closer to the size of the pot on the turn and/or river.

That sort of line doesn't play as much of a role in short deck, Somerville explains. Instead, players frequently size much bigger, including shoves for over the size of the pot.

'Full-pot bets and overbets are more common,' Somerville says. 'Denying equity is more important. Getting people to incorrectly fold their equity is great.'

If you contrast two typical situations, it should be obvious why small bets can work wonders in hold'em but aren't so helpful in short deck.

Take against on . In hold'em, a bet of half the size of the pot — giving the opponent 3-to-1 odds — makes it incorrect to call with unless you are sure you'll win more money down the line, as it's nearly 5-to-1 against making the hand on the turn.

But in short deck, is getting correct immediate odds to call even if not another penny goes in the pot, since there is a 26 percent chance of filling the straight on the turn.

For this reason, bigger is generally better in short deck. Somerville says smaller bets can play a role against inexperienced foes but won't work against opponent who understands some of the math behind the game.

'Against more sophisticated players, they'll realize that [when facing] smaller bets, they should probably just call,' he says.

Representing Hands and Bluffing

Attempting to read opponents' hands in short deck can be a little akin to playing pot-limit Omaha — more on that later — in that it can be easy to find monsters under the bed, so to speak. That is to say, turns and rivers will frequently change what hand is the nuts, so it can be easy to get gun-shy and go into shutdown mode.

'There are tons of bluffing opportunities in this game, more so than full deck,' Somerville points out.

Somerville says position, having the betting lead, and blockers are all still factors when it comes to bluffing, although there may be additional nuances here and there to consider.

For example, take a hold'em situation that involves a fairly dead board featuring a flush draw. A player with the betting lead who is out of position will frequently check if a card that potentially completes a flush arrives on the board in hold'em or Omaha.

In short deck, that's not so much the case, because there are far fewer flushes made due to the lower number of cards in each suit available in the shortened (36-card) deck.

'It's hard to represent flushes because flushes are hard to make,' Somerville says. 'In a heads-up pot you have to say, 'Is my opponent the kind of player who would believe I have a flush here?'

Straights, on the other hand, are quite plentiful in short deck. However, because the board will very often feature possible straights, it's important not to go crazy and be tempted to try to blow your opponent off of his or her hand any time a card that completes possible straights hits the felt.

'You can't be over-bluffing in these spots,' Somerville says. 'Think about the history between you and your opponent, what kinds of hands have been shown down. Does this create a good situation for you to be bluffing?'

Blockers have become an important part of game theory in other games, and Somerville says that 'absolutely' holds in short deck.

'If you have in a spot where a ten is a critical card to make a straight, and that's all you have, you have a very good bluffing opportunity,' Somerville says. 'Any time you have information that your opponents don't have, you're certainly incentivized to bluff.'

That includes having position and seeing an opponent's action in front. Betting in position, Somerville explains, is still a 'very powerful tool.'

PLO Players' Paradise?

If a lot of the above advice — sizing bets bigger in a lot of spots, leveraging position frequently, and (especially) the importance of blockers — sounds like it applies to pot-limit Omaha as well, that's probably because it does.

'It's very similar to PLO in many ways,' Somerville says. 'When you look at some of the guys who put their brains into it, a lot of them are excellent PLO players. It feels like PLO in terms of bluffing frequency and how you construct your decisions in a lot of spots.'

Just like PLO, short deck is a very complex game postflop that gets much deeper in terms of layers of thinking required when compared to heads-up hold'em pots. Both games feature tons of action and multi-way pots that make decisions tricky, and that's why Somerville has enjoyed trying to work out correct strategy in the early stages of short deck's life.

Poker's Postflop Course Part 1 Pdf

'The game tree is much deeper postflop,' he says. 'It's a beautiful game, really. A lot going on.'

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  cash game strategytournament strategybet sizingbluffingblockerspot-limit OmahaJason Somervilleshort deck hold’emsix-plus hold’empostflop strategyboard texturerangesrange reading

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  Jason Somerville