1. Shorthand Poker Hands Emoji
2. Shorthand Poker Hands Games

When you are playing shorthand poker games you can r aise with much weaker hands than you normally would in a full ring game with 9 or 10 players. Raising with weaker hands in poker online games is pretty standard and confuses the less experienced players. In shorthand value changes dramatically from a full ring game. In a full ring game AJs. This video is unavailable. Watch Queue Queue. Watch Queue Queue.

This poker lesson is not going to suggest you take a notepad to your local card room and jot down all of the action you witness. Taking a spiral notebook to the brick and mortar felts isn’t very practical and you’ll probably get laughed out of card room. However, the online version of our fair game is ideal for taking notes on players and the tendencies they exhibit at the table.

The ability to create notes on the players you encounter is an inbuilt feature on practically every online poker site, yet one could wager that the vast majority of online poker players today do not take advantage of it. Most poker players either rely on a good memory or don’t even change their play based on their opponents. In poker, one of the largest sources of our profits comes from taking advantage of other’s mistakes. By taking good notes you’ll be able to track opponents who have made mistakes in the past and you might even be fortunate enough to see when your opponents make those same mistakes again.

Tracking how your opponents play in certain situations is undeniably profitable in the long run. There are also additional benefits of getting into the habit of taking notes. Preventing boredom is a key reason. Proper note taking will keep you focused on the flow of the game. You may even feel more confident since the added information you gain on your opponents will result in better decisions. The activity of note taking may also reduce the chances of you going on tilt, since you’ll be more concerned with the quality of your decisions.

Proper Note Taking

Now that you know that taking notes is important, how should you go about it? Here are some of the things that you should try to keep in mind when taking notes.

Blind level, Stack Size and Position

Taking notes about the blinds levels is obviously not applicable to cash games, but it’s very important in tournament play. A player can change his play depending on how early the game is (blind level), how many chips he has (stack size) and what seat he is in (position). An example of a note might look like this; “25/50 (1500) CO” or “UTG 30BB 50-100”, whatever order or syntax works best for you.

Devil in the Details

Avoid being general with your note taking. Writing “raised with queens” isn’t very helpful. Along with the information suggested above, you should also record the sizes of a player’s bet. You will often find a pattern that can reveal the strength of your opponent’s hand just by the way he sizes his bets with certain hands and situations. A note might look like “75/150 (3200) UTG 3x = QQ”, which would mean that this player raised three times the big blind sitting under-the-gun with pocket queens. If later you get a note like “75/150 (3300) UTG 2x = KTs”, meaning he raised only two times the big blind with king-ten suited in a similar situation, you might be able to take advantage of this information at a later time with an appropriate move.

Color Codes and Icons

Many online sites have some sort of color or icon system that can allow you to easily mark a player. Take advantage of this feature if it’s available because it will give you a quick indication of how someone plays based or prior observations. When using colors it can be helpful to go with the “stoplight” system, using green on weak players, yellow on more accomplished ones and red to mark the serious grinders and solid poker players. You can use other colors or icons to notate other types of players as you see fit – whatever works best for you.

Condense Your Notes

If you play a lot, eventually you’ll have a sea of notes to go through on many of the regulars you encounter. After a while you can slim down your information. If you have plenty of notes on how a player sizes his bets, just make a short note to that fact. A simple note like “Pre-flop: 3x is strong, 2x is weak” can eliminate a bunch of clutter in your note box for that player.

Keep up with the Game

Never miss what is actually going on in the game, especially when it is your turn. If you spot something noteworthy but are facing a situation that requires your full attention, play the hand. The note taking can wait. Make use of the hand history feature provided by the poker room and go back and review any past hands that you might have missed. Using shorthand while taking notes can be very helpful and later in this lesson will provide some examples you can use.

Just the Facts, Ma’am

Just jotting down “FISH” or “%@&*!^# suck out artist that can’t fold!” isn’t going to help you very much when you see that player again. As much as that bad beat might have hurt be sure to get any information you can out of the hand and move on. That one note might help you avoid a similar fate in the future.

Post-flop and Showdowns

Note taking is for any situation. Pay close attention to how someone plays their draws, their nut hands and their top pairs. Did they trap? Did they check-raise? Did they make a value bet that was smaller than usual? Also be sure to watch out for any hands that have a showdown, even if you were not involved in the hand. Showdowns provide vital information and you’ll often be able to pick up a clue or two on how your opponents play. Take advantage!

Shorthand / Abbreviations for Note Taking

When taking notes it’s best to try and use simple abbreviations. A quick two- or three-letter acronym is quick and easy to translate. Let’s start by looking at abbreviations for position:

Positional Notes

• BB = Big Blind
• SB = Small Blind
• B or BU = Button
• CO or B-1 or 1o = The cutoff or one seat off the button
• HJ or B-2 or 2o = Hijack or two seats off the button
• B-3 or 3o, etc = Notes how far off the button
• UTG = Under the gun, or first to act pre-flop.

Note: If the table isn’t full then be careful when using UTG. While it is important to know when the player was first to act, noting his relative position in regards to a short-handed table is key as well, especially for SNG players. You might use “UTG 3o” or “UTG 6H” to tell you that this was at a six-handed table.

Pre-flop Notes

Please be aware that many of the pre-flop abbreviations that follow are tailored to SNG and tournaments rather than cash games.

• #x = The size of the raise in relation to the big blind. “3x” would be three-times the big blind.
• HBL = High Blind Limp, which is used by Colin Moshman in his SNG books. This is when a player limps when they have less than 25 big blinds in their stack.
• LBL = Low Blind Limp. When a player limps in when they have more than 25 big blinds in their stack.
• OL = Over Limp. This player limped behind others. This can also be written as HBOL (High Blind Over Limp) or LBOL (Low Blind Over Limp) as well.
• HBMR = High Blind Min-Raise. Like HBL, but the player elected to use a min-raise instead. This can be used as a substitute for 2x since it may stand out more in your notes.
• LBMR = Low Blind Min-Raise. Like LBL, but the player elected to use a min-raise instead.
• FE = Fold Equity. This can be used for tournament notes to indicate a situation where you determine that fold equity was a contributing factor.
• AI = All In. Use this anytime a player bets all of his remaining chips. You could also use a short term like “push” or “shove”.
• AIPF = All-in Pre-flop. This is the same as AI except the action was taken pre-flop.
• PM = Pot Mash. This is when a player bets the pot, usually hitting a button in the software instead of typing out a numbered bet. This can be a bet-sizing tell for some situations.
• FSS or CSS = Flat (Call) Shorty Shove. When a short stack goes all-in and a player called rather than raised over him.
• SSS = Shoved over Shorty Shove. A player elected to go all-in as opposed to just calling a short stack’s all in move.
• RSS = Raised over Shorty Shove. Like SSS except the player made a raise that was less than all-in.
• MRSS = Min-Raised over Shorty Shove. This is the same as RSS but the player specifically made a min-raise over the short all-in.
• r### = raised to an exact number of chips, “r333” would mean this player made a raise of 333 chips.

Post-Flop Notes

Here are some abbreviations that you can use in your notes for many post-flop situations, in both cash games and tournament play.

• b### = Bet an exact number of chips.
• CB = Continuation Bet. This can be followed by a number or a fraction of the pot.
• BRR = Bets aRe Real. This means that when he bets he has a hand and is not bluffing.
• RRR = Raises aRe Real. This means the player always raises with his good hands, not as a bluff or semi-bluff.
• POB = Post Oak Bluff. This term was originally used by Doyle Bronson. It is often referred to as a “donk bet”, and “probe bet” is also used. This is used to note a weak lead or min-bet from out of position into a pre-flop raiser. It can be a bet-sizing tell that usually means the player is weak or trying to see a draw cheaply.
• TES = Top End Shover. This player only goes all-in when he has the goods.
• TEC = Top End Caller. This is a player with a tight calling range.
• CFC = Can’t Fold a Chair. This is a calling station or someone who just doesn’t fold in situations that most players should.
• BAM = Bad At Math. This is used when a player is seen folding despite getting very favorable odds to call.

Other Abbreviations for Your Notes

The following abbreviations are probably obvious to you already, but we’ll include them just in case they’re not.

• ## = a pocket pair, (e.g. 33 would be pocket threes).
• TT = a pocket pair of tens.
• AA, KK , QQ, JJ = pocket Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks.
• KTs = King-Ten suited.
• QJo = Queen-Jack offsuit.
• A7s = Ace-Seven suited.
• 76o = Seven-Six offsuit.
• SC = Suited Connector.
• AX = any hand with an Ace in it.

Note Taking Examples

Suppose you’re playing in a tournament and you saw a player limp in with pocket fours from the button. He had 2,400 chips and the blinds were 30/60:

Shorthand Poker Hands Emoji

Here are two notes you could make about to describe this play:

Let’s suppose you saw a player raises four times the big blind at 50/100 from the hijack seat with a 1600-chip stack. The showdown revealed he did this with Queen-Jack suited:

Either of the following notes could be made to describe this play:

Let’s look at one more situation. In this example the small blind started a hand with 2,250 and shoved all-in pre-flop with Ace-King offsuit when the blinds were at 75/150, with an ante of 10 chips:

The following two notes could be made to describe this play:

Conclusion

Having as much information on as many of your opponents as possible will definitely benefit you as an online poker player. While you might not want to take a spiral notebook to the casino with you, there is no reason why you shouldn’t take advantage of the note taking features included in the software by the online poker rooms. Knowledge is power, so make sure you are the one that possesses this power and start taking notes today!

By Rick 'RyckyRych' Perlini

Rick has been playing poker since 2007 and is a low-stakes online SNG specialist. He has been a highly active and well-respected member of the Pokerology community for several years.

What’s Short-Deck Poker?

Poker has a problem.
Short-Deck is the answer.
Also known as, Triton Hold’em, Short-Deck has its roots in Asia, where successful businessmen, and poker lovers, Paul Phua and Richard Yong, experimented by removing a few cards from the standard 52-card deck, increasing the likelihood of strong pre-flop hands.
Out went the 2s.
Then the 3s.
Then the 4s.
Finally, the 5s.
The net result, was a 36-card deck – a Short-Deck – and the outcome was incredible.
One of the problems that amateurs have when playing superior players, especially professionals, is they play with a broad range of starting hands because their primary focus in the game is to enjoy themselves, and you can’t do that if you fold. The better player begins with a narrower range of hands, and this disparity means the amateur ends up with the worst of it more often than the pro.
Folding isn’t fun.
Neither is losing all the time.
Paul and Richard found that by removing the lower half of the cards, they increased the likelihood that an amateur would receive two very playable starting hands.
As the former World Series of Poker (WSOP), Player of the Year, Ben Lamb, mentions during his first experience of Short-Deck during a 2018 Triton Poker Series in Jeju, South Korea.

Shorthand Poker Hands Games

“The first thing you notice when you sit down to play Short-Deck is the equities run much closer than No-Limit Hold’em.”

And the closer you get, the more often a weaker player wins, and the more likely he or she is to remain in the game. At a time when poker’s ecosystem is under pressure from advancements in technology and available poker resources, with players getting improving at a rate never before witnessed, Short-Deck is fixing a leak that is in danger of drowning the game.

The Rules of Short-Deck Poker

The variant featured in Triton Poker Series events is called Short-Deck, Ante-Only. There is no small or big blind, and instead everyone has to post an ante that increases each level in the same way blinds do in a standard game of No-Limit Hold’em. The player on the button posts a double ante.
Each player begins with three bullets.
Stack sizes can vary, but in the early events at Montenegro and Jeju in South Korea, each bullet was worth 100,000 in chips. And loading these three bullets into the chamber is important, as Ben Lamb explains.

“You have to put your stack in more often than the other games. That’s why they give you three bullets, that’s smart.”

Like No-Limit Hold’em, the player to the left of the button begins the action by calling the size of the double ante, raising or folding. The action continues in sequence as per No-Limit Hold’em rules. Post flops actions plays the same.
Here’s Ben Lamb again to give you a few tips.

“You need to see a lot of flops. There are more passive ways to play the game, like limping, but this an action game. Stay away from dominated hands. Recognise the difference between shallow and deep-stacked play.”

During the early action, you can be forgiven for thinking you have walked into a game of deuces wild. All-in and calls are common, the action is crazy fast, and there is a lot of laughing and joking around the tables. But once the game gets deep, you need to switch gears, and this is why the game suits both skilled and weaker players alike.
And the best thing about Short-Deck is it’s a new game. It’s perfect for local home games where you can experiment with the rules and formats, while keeping an eye on the Triton Livestream to see how the Godfathers of the game continue to evolve.

Short-Deck Poker Hand Ranking (Best to Worst)

Royal flush
Straight flush
Four of a kind
Flush
Full house
Straight
Three of a kind
Two pair
One pair
High card
It’s important to remember that a flush beats a full house. That’s the only hand ranking difference when compared to No-Limit Hold’em.
One of the features of Short-Deck, is unlike Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) where players have to learn to use four hole cards, Short-Deck is more suitable for people who have grown up playing the more familiar No-Limit Hold’em.
A few things to note:
Pocket aces come along 1 in 105 hands, not one in 220, but they are cracked way more often.
Straight draws arrive on the flop 48% of the time, not 31%.
The odds of flopping a set are 18%, and not 12%.
The other change to be aware of is the role of the ace. As in No-Limit Hold’em the ace plays both low and high when creating straights, meaning it becomes a five when 6,7,8,9 is on the board.

Triton Poker Series Spearheads Short-Deck Poker Trend

After playing Short-Deck in their local home game, and seeing the improvements in sociability and joy firsthand, both Paul and Richard decided to test the new variant at a professional level.
The Triton Poker Series was born.
Taking place in some of the most salubrious destinations around the world, the Triton Poker Series is a high stakes series that pits some of the wealthiest amateurs against the very best professionals in the game.
In 2018, at the Triton Poker Series at the Maestral Resort & Casino in Montenegro, Paul and Richard hosted a HKD 250,000 (USD 32,000) and a HKD 1,000,000 (USD 127,000) buy-in Short-Deck, Ante-Only event, put the word out, and hoped they would come.
Come they did.
The most feared and respected poker player in the modern game, Phil Ivey, beat 61 entrants to win the HKD 4,749,200 (USD 604,992) first prize in the HKD 250,000 (USD 32,000) version, and Jason Koon defeated 103 entrants to bank the HKD 28,102,000 (USD 3,579,836) in the HKD 1,000,000 (USD 127,000) version, in only his second ever Short-Deck event.
Not only did the amateurs love the game, so did the pros, and so did the poker community, who tuned in to watch the livestream in their droves. There had not been this much buzz over a format of poker since the Texas Road Gamblers decided to add the words ‘All-In’ to the game of Limit Hold’em.
Paul Phua and Richard Yong had achieved the remarkable.
Short Deck became the antidote to a game that was in danger of turning into a robotic, emotionless, and dull experience.
“People who fold too much are going to get eaten up, you have to be prepared to gamble,” Ben Lamb.
But how do you play this game?

The Future of Short-Deck Poker

The Triton Poker Series Livestream numbers show that this is a variant of the game that the poker community adores. It turns quite a boring spectator sport into one of the most illuminating.
All sports and games have their magic moments.
The goal.
The punch.
The all-in and call.
There are more swings than a kid’s playground, and for this reason, Short-Deck poker is going to be here to stay, but where does it take it’s seat in poker’s landscape.
Back to Ben Lamb.
“It will grow, especially in America. I am going to try and help that happen by running games at ARIA and my local game in LA,” says Lamb, who played the variant in Jeju, for the first time, and fell in love with it. “It fits a niche. Amateurs want to enjoy themselves. Pot Limit Omaha cash games tend to be more fun for amateur players, but Short-Deck takes it to another level. More gambling. More fun. The edges are smaller, and that’s a great thing for the long term ecosystem of poker. Just because your a pro it doesn’t mean you don’t like to gamble. I love to flip and gamble.”
Poker’s purpose is to enthrall, enlighten and entertain.
Somewhere along the way we forgot that.
Short-Deck won’t let us make the same mistake twice.
Suddenly, it feels like poker has no problem at all.