Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 22 August 2008 / Leave a comment

Texas hold'em is usually played in three different formats - either in full ring games, which usually have between nine and ten players; shorthanded, which is usually six players; and heads up, where players battle it out one on one. Picking which if these options suits your playing style best is critical to ensuring poker success.

The main difference between these different formats is the number, and type of hands you will have to play. In full ring games, due to the number of players involved, you will have to stick to reasonably ridged starting hand guidelines - there are just too many hands out there every game to swim upstream constantly. This means that you will usually be involved with solid hands, which drastically reduces the scope to get in tricky spots with weaker hands, and makes your life much easier. The main key problem with full ring games is that due to you having to be involved in less hands, you will typically take longer to win a weak player's money than when playing shorthanded (due to the increased turnover in short handed games)

In short handed games you will have to start loosening your opening requirements. Due to the blinds and antes coming round so often it is imperative to constantly be trying to attack the blinds with marginal hands. It is much easier to beat less skilled opponents in short handed games, as their weaknesses will be much more exposed. Are they folding too much? Go ahead and constantly attack their blinds. Are they playing too many hands? Hit a good flop and stack them. Conversely, against skilled opponents you will have a much harder time shorthanded, as you will constantly have to play pots with marginal hands against them.

Heads up play is perhaps the game where the best player will win the most regularly. Due to having to play all but the weakest hands (in order to not get blinded away) it requires a player to know how to read the board well, be extremely aggressive, and to try and really get into their opponent's head. Heads up play requires a huge amount of concentration, is very labour intensive and can be extremely psychologically draining (due to constantly having to think about past hands and the precise mood of your single opponent). For this reason it is not for everyone.

Try and pick which game suits your mood for the time. If you would like to relax and stick to the more basic sides of poker, get involved in the full ring games. If you're in the mood for some major league psychological warfare, sit down in the shorthanded or heads up games and get ready to play.