Part: Part Eleven - Short Tables

Hand values rise short-handed

Pre-flop
6-handed • Blinds 400 / 800Pot 1,200 (1.5 BB)COK♣8♦● 20,000 (25 BB)YOUfolded to youSB● 20,000 (25 BB)posts 400 (0.5 BB)BB● 20,000 (25 BB)posts 800 (1 BB)D

Six-handed now. It folds to you on the cutoff with K♣8♦.

Six-handed, folded to you on the cutoff with K♣8♦. Best?

WhyOnly three seats can wake up with a hand behind you, and the blinds swing past fast enough that folding K-8o bleeds you slowly. With fewer opponents to dominate your king, opening here shows a profit that the same hand wouldn't at a nine-handed table.
What happensThe blinds release and you take it down. Don't read the fold as proof it was right - the open earns over time from fold equity plus a live king when someone calls.
Fewer players means faster blinds and fewer hands that beat you, so ranges widen - the K-8o you'd fold nine-handed is a fine cutoff open five- or six-handed.

Hand values rise as the table shrinks - open wider short-handed than you would at a full table.