six max has destroyed my sanity

[EvanJC]

i'm a resonably solid shallow stack no limit and SnG player who has recently been attracted to the shiny 1/2 6 max tables on party. I saw how awful these players were and though i'd have no problem beating the game.

i was so wrong. i've dropped about 200bb in the last 800 or so hands. how on earth do you play at this limit? Here are just a couple examples of situations that i've had trouble with...

say you have AKo on the small blind and make the first raise. big blind calls, and the flop comes 5 Q J rainbow. now, the consensus that i've gleaned from this message board seems to say that coninuing to bet out untill you get raised. so i bet the flop and he quickly calls, i bet the turn and he calls. i KNOW he has a queen with a weak kicker, but i bet the river anyway, he calls, and shows me his queen. is continued aggression appropriate there?

what kinds of hands win these pots? from my experience, top pair is almost never good (okay, thats not true, but ALOT of the time). so, does one bet and continue to bet top pair assuming nobody plays back? if your top pair gets raised, what then? the fact that anybody in the pot could have any two really changes things.

anyhoo, this game is destroying my sanity and my bankroll. if any of you all can help me out with either of these two (vague) situations, that'd be great. of course i realize these things would be read dependent, but what is 'default' in these situations given no reads? thanks.

[Gazza]

Don't bet the river in these situations. You will usually only be called by better hands. Check call or check fold depending on pot size, reads etc.

Gazza

[Blarg]

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if your top pair gets raised, what then

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Let your kicker decide. If it's top pair with a good kicker, think about raising back. If a flop comes say T74 off suit and you raised preflop, many people will put you on any two big cards instead of a solid pair, and if they came in with T2 offsuit, many raise a preflop raiser thinking they already have you beat when a flop comes up rags or low cards. And they'll call that pair of tens with horrible kicker all the way to the river. But if you raised preflop with AT, your kicker puts you far ahead of many raisers here with this flop.

Not raising, though, could even get you more money sometimes, but of course is more dangerous if many people are in the pot. Miller writes about saving the raise for the turn if it has a better chance to kick people out of the pot.

Also, many people bet and raise with middle pair in these games, it seems. Raising with inside straights, even heads up when the pot is small, is not really uncommon either. You could be well ahead even if you get raised.

[lefty rosen]

Betting AK unimproved on the river against a calling station is a longterm losing play. Just check the river. Watch the play of your opponents if they play ultra-aggressive their plays back at you are nonsense usually, its the calling station weak tight player who slashes hard he has the nuts 99.999 percent of the time.....

[sfer]

If you know he has a pair and he's not folding, then betting the river seems pretty silly, no?

[NotReady]

The players at 1/2 6M on party are incredibly bad. I think they are mostly the same kind of players you find at the .5/1 full, only much more concentrated. Suckouts can be phenomenal at times. I've played about 380 hours, and after the first 300 I was over $6 per hour winner, am now at $3.

I think it is a very different 6 max game from most others and am beginning to think you should play it very similar to a loose full game, with some exceptions. And it would seem that bad beats and bad runs can last a very long time, much like a full game, because there are so many players in the pot. 3 and 4 to the flop is very common, and sometimes all 5 stay in, so you really are playing best hand wins almost all the time, and you have to beat multiple players. You just aren't going to run over the table very often. The profit here comes from maximizing good hands, and this game requires a great deal of patience as you will need a better hand on average than most 6 max games.


I feel confident this game will be very profitable in the long run, but I'm beginning to think in terms of 10,000 hand segments rather than 1000.

[naphand]

I agree. For the most part, beating Party $1/2 6-max involves a great deal of patience. It is a tedious, lengthy exercise in value-betting.

[Guy McSucker]

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I feel confident this game will be very profitable in the long run, but I'm beginning to think in terms of 10,000 hand segments rather than 1000.


[/ QUOTE ]

Err, well, yes. You could even go further!

Everybody will have lots of losing 1000 hand runs. If you play for long enough you'll have losing 10,000 hand runs too. kiddo and Schneids, two posters on this forum who have excellent win rates over the long term (> 150k hands), have reported mildly losing or breakeven periods of 10,000 hands.

The key to deciding if you can beat the game is not to look exclusively at your results, but to look at what your opponents are doing. If they are making mistakes, and if you know how to exploit those mistakes, and if you are not giving money away with mistakes of your own, you'll beat the game long term.

The key here is to be honest with yourself. Sometimes you will find yourself in a game where you have no idea who's bluffing you and who's value betting. Own up to that and get out.

Good luck,

Guy.

[Guy McSucker]

AK on a QJx board is a strong holding. If you're behind to one pair without an A or K kicker, you have ten outs.

You're not folding this hand before the river, so heads up it pays to bet it. You'll find that you get a lot of calls on the flop with nothing: people take off another card to try to hit. So you bet the turn, too, and call if raised, because of all your outs.

Against most players there's no mileage in betting the river, though. Any hand that beats you which has called this far will call again. Any hand that you beat is no-pair, and will fold. So you check.

If you have position, that's the end of it. Out of position, you have a decision when your opponent bets, because he might be bluffing with a hand you beat. Consider your opponent and the pot size and maybe call. Against straightforward players, usually fold.

In summary: you played it fine until the river. Playing that way will get the money in these games, eventually.

Guy.

[EvanJC]

thanks for the responses all. i wish i could jump straight to 5/10, but my bankroll won't allow that, so onst i toil. thanks again.

[tripdad]

the other day, i raised OTB after 2 limpers with 33(my usual line with any pair). Board was J88QK. i bet when checked to the entire hand. my opponent called my river bet, and my 33 was good. musta had dueces. fairly nice 7BB+ pot there.(this was $5/10SH game, though it plays really closely to $1/2SH)

anyway, the point is...the game is easily beatable, and as someone else said, this is an exercise in value betting. keep on plugging, and you will make it.

as the others said, no real point in betting the river w/AK unimproved against the calling station. often they will just check behind(sometimes you need to check/raise the river to make this happen more often) a better hand.

cheers!