Part: Part Eleven - Short Tables

No early position four-handed

Pre-flop
4-handed • Blinds 400 / 800Pot 1,200 (1.5 BB)UTGA♦5♦● 20,000 (25 BB)YOUfirst to actBTN● 20,000 (25 BB)ButtonSB● 20,000 (25 BB)posts 400 (0.5 BB)BB● 20,000 (25 BB)posts 800 (1 BB)D

Four-handed. You're under the gun - the first to act - with A♦5♦.

Four-handed, first to act (under the gun) with A♦5♦. Best?

WhyUnder the gun sounds scary until you count the seats - four-handed it means only three players behind you, the same as sitting on the cutoff at a full table. A-5 suited flops the nut flush draw, wheel straights, and pairs of aces, so opening it is easy; there's no early-position tax to pay here.
What happensIt folds around and you scoop the blinds. The lesson isn't the win - it's that 'UTG' stops being a brake once the table is this small.
'Early position' really means 'many players left to act.' Short-handed that count is small, so even the first seat opens wide - stop applying full-ring caution to a four-handed table.

Positional caution scales with the number of players - strip most of them away and even the first seat opens wide.