For my 1000th post, I figured I should post something a little more substantial than "fold preflop," or "stick it in her pooper." I'll leave it up to you guys to decide if this is actually worth reading, but it's at least longer.
I've been thinking quite a bit about 6 max play lately. Mostly this is because I've been playing it that much. I found Absolute's 6 max games are much softer than it's full ring play, and I can never seem to run out of bonus there. I also found myself helping another 2+2er make his first foray into 6 max play, and every other day or so we seem to get a post here about people feeling lost at 1/2 6 max. While I'm a perpetual student of 6 max, and poker in general, I have managed to learn a few things and compile a pretty good deal of information from the forums here, specifically about taking those first few baby steps.
About a month ago, someone posted a poll in both HUSH and small stakes (sorry, lost the link) asking if people thought learning full ring or short handed play was more difficult. The overwhelming response from both forums was, to the surprise of virtually no one, that people thought learning 6 max play was more difficult. One poster chimed in, though, with a comment that rang very true: every full ring player encounters situations resembling 6 max play every single time they play, but a 6 max player will never see many situations from full ring. A similar thesis was also discussed by Ed Miller in his
April 2005 article on preflop play in short handed situations. He argued that the commonly stated idea, "In shorthanded games you pay the blinds more often, so you have to play more hands to compensate," was incorrect. Instead, he stated, "Playing in a shorthanded game is theoretically no different from playing in a full game where some players have folded. Being under the gun in a four-handed game is the same situation as being one off the button in a ten-handed game where everyone has folded to you."
When people talk about short-handed situations, they are frequently talking in the same breath about all the adjustments you need to make: how you need to be more aggressive, how you need to defend your blinds, how you need to find value in marginal hands, how A high has showdown value, how you should never open-limp, how all these maniacs will 3-bet with anything, etc. All these things are true, for the most part, but there are two major undertones here that are incorrect: one, that 6 max play is significantly different from full ring play, and two, that these are things you shouldn't be doing in full ring play.
Those two thoughts, I believe, are the two biggest issues that people have when they start out in 6 max play, myself included. Short-handed play gets filed in their heads as a completely different game, and people walk into it looking to make radical adjustments in their play. Sensible, winning 2+2ers will do things like try to steal against loose blinds with J2o, call down with Q high, defend their big blind from a tight player with 93s, and 3-bet a turn check/raise from a passive player after a scare card drops when holding second pair. Most 2+2ers wouldn't dream of doing these things in a full ring game, and yet it happens all the time when you put a good player at his first 6 max table.
Six max play is still poker. Repeat that. Six max play is still poker - the same game we know and love, and know how to beat. Pot odds still apply. Bottom pair is is not the nuts. Turn check/raises on paired boards from passive players still tend to mean sad things for AA.
Sets can still get cracked. Sometimes, yes, the other guy does have the flush. Never forget the things you learned from SSH and from the thousands of hands of full ring you've played up to this point. The same fundamentals still apply. Any experienced 2+2er should be able to sit down at a 6 max table and make
NO adjustments from their full ring play and still be successful. All he or she needs to do is play every hand as if it was folded to MP2.
That's the real trick, though, and that's the reason why people talk about all the adjustments you need to make. People are making adjustments to 6 max play
because they are lacking in important concepts from full ring play. That is also why most veterans say playing 1/2 6 max is crucial before moving up to 2/4 and beyond. If you're lacking in one of the "adjustments" you need to make, you are an incomplete poker player, even strictly in terms of full ring play.
Therein lies the beauty of 6 max play. It brings to the fore concepts that you can ignore in full ring play and still be a winning player. For example, in full ring play, you check a garbage hand in the BB after the CO open-limps, the button limps, and the SB folds. On the flop, you hit second pair on a ragged flop. The natural inclination of many full ring players is to just check/fold and not give the hand a second thought. You don't have to when playing full ring. You'll get paid off well enough when you make it to the river holding the nut flush and the pot is still five handed to make up for the very slim EV in the previous hand. When you're playing short-handed, however, there is no way you can possibly get paid off as well as full ring when you hit something good. Therefore, you had better start finding value elsewhere, or else those blinds are going to eat you alive.
Many more concepts come out to play like this.
Preflop strategy changes because open limping is a no-no, just like it is for
later positions in full ring (check out Ollie's hand in the second thread, too - not only his good play, but his last sentence). Reads,
real reads, become more important, because you'll find yourself heads-up with the same people more often.
Hand reading becomes more important because you have to know when your bottom pair has some value.
Unimproved overcard and
underpair (and
more underpair) play become more important because you'd better be extracting some value here as well. It's a big part of your win rate. When you find yourself playing in the blinds 66% more often, you'd darn well better find a good way to
minimize your losses, given that everyone loses money from the blinds. The thing is, these situations come up in full ring as well, but people are too used to taking the easy route and folding. As NPA said in one of the articles I linked above, "...you guys are hesitant to play marginal hands in spots that are profitable but uncomfortable. Yes, you aren't thrilled that you have unimproved ace-king in a big pot, but that's what you got, and you have to make the best play with it. It seems that some of you don't want to make the correct play because it MIGHT (note caps) leave you with a "tough" river decision." Playing 6 max forces you to make the tough decisions and play correctly in the uncomfortable spots that you may have been avoiding because of how much of your winnings comes from the sum of all the marginal situations you encounter. The best part, though, is that the ability to play in these marginal situations in 6 max play will do nothing but improve your full ring play as well. Just remember, though, that there's still a difference between a marginal hand and a truly awful one.
I guess as long as I'm citing everything under the sun, here are a
couple more good threads with links to other good threads.
Once I finally realized that I was playing the same game at a 6 max table as I
was and should have been at a full ring table, it was pretty easy to tell that I had become a better poker player. I was going to play my same good, solid poker game no matter how many people were sitting at the table. I knew I had gone from toddling and falling on my ass to being able to take a few good steps. Next up: jogging, running, strutting, and dancing.