I’m still here. Just haven’t played much recently because of some new XBox games. The big tournament that was supposed to be this weekend was canceled because they couldn’t get 10 people. Some other day I guess. Over the weekend I moved up limits and am now playing $1/2 at Party Poker. I had the bankroll to support it and was inspired by Double As’ post a few weeks back. My original plan was to play 10,000 hands at $.50/1 before moving up, but after about 5,500 hands I was over 300 BB to the black so I said why not.

I’m testing out the 1/2 6-max tables and doing pretty well. Well…doing well as far as being ahead for how many horrible beats I’ve taken. I’ve been beaten by runner-runner at least 10 times and in just over 1,000 hands. I’m playing somewhere around 20-22% of the flops at these tables and I’ve gone to the showdown 35% of the time. In a quick (and very guesstimated) calculation I’ve been to showdown about 75 times. Figure in some room where they missed and folded and I’m looking at somewhere around 100 hands. 100 out of 1,000….1 in 10. Runner-runner, according to the odds should hit in the neighborhood of lets say 1 in 45 (if it’s even that good). To make a long story short…these games are lucrative when the odds don’t bite you in the ass. And yes, I know this is a very small sample size to measure any of this, but the point was to show that there is plenty of money to be made there.

I’m curious as to how I should be changing strategy for these short-handed games. My bible, SSH assumes a full table for everything. So far I’ve been using the starting hands they give for a loose table and it seems to be working well. Is this too tight for a 6-max table though? I also try to make sure I get in my value bets and maybe play the middle pair type hands a little more aggresive. I’m very interested to hear what others, who have played these tables, have to say.