6-max starting hand considerations? LO8 1/2

[T50_Omaha8]

So I recently started playing 6-max LO8 1/2 instead of FR and was wondering how to adjust my starting hand requirements. For the first couple thousand hands I was between 15%-20% of flops when not in the blinds--resulting in about a 40%-45% overall precentage. But I soon realized that if I wasn't happening to hit flops fairly often my stack would get blinded away very quickly. I would pretty much only play hands like A2xx, A3wx, AAxxss or special ones like A44Kds, QJT9ds, KK23ss when I wasn't in the blinds.

Lately I have opened up and played hands like 2357ss, 223x, QQ25ss, KQ23ds etc, and brought my off-blind percentage up to around 25%-30% (around 50% overall). I have had favorable results after maybe 500 hands, but with a lot of variance. Of course I adjust based on the player notes of others (ie "Cold calls on button with QdQs4c7s").

What should my flop% goals be in 6-max? What kinds of hands should I play if I do play more?

[wiseheart]

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Lately I have opened up and played hands like 2357ss, 223x, QQ25ss, KQ23ds etc, and brought my off-blind percentage up to around 25%-30% (around 50% overall). I have had favorable results after maybe 500 hands, but with a lot of variance. Of course I adjust based on the player notes of others (ie "Cold calls on button with QdQs4c7s").


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6max is more opponent dependent than FR. I started
out with good results with 45% VPIP, and then things
came crashing down fairly quickly. When the table only
plays 3-5 handed, variance catches you quite quickly.
If your opponents are tight, 45% is good, but if they
are loose aggressive and donkish, then I found that
actually lowering it down to 35-38% is a lot better,
especially as you progress in limits.

If you move up, you have to become more and more aggro.

Good luck.

[dcasper70]

you can do pretty well at the 1/2 - 3/6 levels floating around a 30% vpip. But equally (if not more) important is table selection.

There are a very good number of mediocre to poor players down here that have a vpip% of 60+. Get a few of them on your table and just punish with your better hands. If you don't have a good DB of fish yet, get yourself PTO and start getting those stats.
Avoid tables with avg vpip under 40 and you should have little trouble.

I'm certainly not as skilled as most of the posters you'll find here, but a 29% vpip and good table selection in the low limits has done me very well.

What room are you playing?

[T50_Omaha8]

Thanks guys....

I'm playing stars.

I have a number of fish I look for and have noted. I also note starting hand tendancies (mainly, does this person raise any A2? any AA? either? neither? autobets? etc.) for many players. There are also players to avoid--TAGs who rarely step off base--a couple of them on a table will cut into a session bad.

As far as table reads I look for a number of things. Avg flop% is big, and anything over 70% is pretty good, under 50% is to be avoided. For some reason I find complete morons who bet every street fairly often--even more than the .02/.04 LHE games I stated in! For that reason, avg pot size is maybe the biggest factor--and if a table is above $18 or so I start watching closely to see who is bloating the pots. If it's absurd, then I'll step in, play tight preflop, and wait for a big edge to win a monster. I also look at player stacks--I prefer tables where the avg stack is around $20-$30 (at least $10 less than the suggested buy in). Since most people buy in with $40, this generally means someone just robbed the table and left, and usually the game is pretty LPV. Also donks often buy in full stacked, lose it, then throw another $20 on the table. I avoid games where everyone has more than $60 or so because I interpert it as a sharktank.

The variance is pretty huge no matter what I do though. I've probably lost the whole buy in 4 times so far and doubled the buy in at least that many times. I play 2 tables, and somtetimes after an hour into it I'll have doubled up one table and lost it all on the other. I guess that's just how it is in LO8.