6max v. full ring v. live 1-2 / 2-5

[JDWKY]

Donkament player here trying to make the transition to NL cash. Played a lot of limit back before the boom, but virtually no NL.

So I've read a lot of the stickys (which are VERY helpful), got pokertracker, rakeback account, deposited on FT and am playing some .10/.25 to try and learn my way up.

Ultimate goal is to be able to play 2/5 live profitably. I figure that playing full ring online is a good way to learn full ring live. But 6-max seems to be what most people on here play. Why is that? I've been pretty LAGgy so far (35/17/1.25 through 1K hands) which is probably better suited for 6-max. And that 35 is probably way too high, although I have tightened up over the last 500 hands.

Do most people on here play only 6-max or full ring? How does playing 6-max translate to full ring live play? You make more in rakeback from 6-max, right?

Sorry for the noob questions -- if these issues are addressed in a sticky, please just linky-linky me and I'll check it out.

Thanks in advance.

[Reef]

35/17/1.25 for full ring??? you won't win $ like that. tight and aggressive

[catalyst]

People play 6-max because you play more hands, more hands = more decisions. If you are making better decisions than your opponents, then you are making more money. Plus it is more fun than FR, which is like watching paint dry IMO. And 35/17 is very laggy for a FR game.

To be honest, I think the most comparable game to live 2/5 is probably FR NL50/NL25 or so online. 6-max games do not relate very well to live FR games, the aggression in the 6-maxgames blows away anything you will see in most 2/5 live games. Regardless, in both games, thin value bets are very important, since opponents are relatively weak and call down light.

You will gain more experience and be accustomed to many more situations by playing 6-max, and gain a better hold of post-flop play than you would playing FR. That said, you will have to make adjustments when switching to a live game either way - but it shouldn't be that hard once you get accustomed to the new games.

As a blanket statement, online games = aggressive and live games = passive, in my experience atleast

[deehi]

If you are trying to transition from online to live, play the 25NL to get a feel of what if would be like at the 1/2 Live. Assuming you will play there before you move directly into the 2/5 games. And if you are looking to play and beat 2/5 profitable, you should get some time in at the 50NL or the 100NL tables. I will say, that I have not played the 2/5 NL game as of yet, but a respected friend gave me this advice.

I have begun to play alot of live poker at the B&M casinos and the 1/2 games are horrible. Many of the donks, and yes, I mean donks with a capital D, will call and bet with no regard to odds,implied odds or whatever.

[br.bm]

at FR I basically sit down and wait to flop a set vs AA or KK. I see about 15% of the flops. Tight agressive is the key.

Shorthand is much more fun. Position, table image and hand reading is more important because you are more often in a hand with the same guys.

LAG style sucks at most FR games I think.
Live FR can be very frustrating if you have a bad run of cards. You sit hours and hours and fold fold fold. Then you finally get Aces and go broke with em. Because as soon as you pick em up you get those dollar signs in your eyes.

If you play shorthand online try to get a shorthand table live. If you want to play FR live go and play FR online.

[corsakh]

I don't think you will be able to move to live 2/4 once you tryed online.. Too slow, too little action, too boring.

[JDWKY]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I have definately tightened up since I started compiling stats.

As a donkament player reading SSNL strategy and BBV hands for the past few months, I think I figured that winning players were just huge LAGs. I guess they are more so at 6-max but a better FR strategy is to TAG it up.

I will experiment with both and see what happens. and if I run into any of you on FT and play bad, just shoot me a PM and berate away!

Thanks again.

[corsakh]

No hasty conclusions yet /images/graemlins/smile.gif

A laggy player can not be winning by definition. Neither can a tight player be. If you sway to either of the sides too much, you will be read, measured and abused. Thats the problem you see with most regulars online, they stick to one type of play and never change. You have to learn to change gears. And you need to master both sets of skill.

Now playing exclusively LAG at micro I suppose is possible, but you need to be either of too to achieve that:

1) Be a genious postflop. Many people I see, read a couple of books and posted on 2+2. They think that automatically makes them good players and they can play any two cards they like. Not really. I would not advice this unless you have at least 50k winning hands under your belt.

2) Run ridicously hot. Well, this is what most LAG players do in my opinion.

Now, if you look at some of the best online players, this may look as if they play laggy. Mostly, thats an illussion. They play smart agressive positional poker, not LAG poker. Most of them are tighter from the blinds and UTG than most player would ever suspect. With this LAG play they induce a certain crazy-fish image on their opponents that pays off later when they switch to a tighter gear. As you can guess, image is next to nothing in micro games.

Most important skill, besides maybe patterns, you can learn in poker is discipline. This is what you should focus on at the beginning. Play tight and straightforward. No need to be tricky, laggy or whatever. Once you move up to 100 or 200NL, you can start thinking about tweaking you play a little bit, expand your ranges from LP.

Good luck /images/graemlins/smile.gif