Lost in 6-max (stat post)

[beaster]

I gotta tell you, I am feeling lost in 6 max. My progression through the full ring limits has been steadily upwards, with no real bumps. I feel like I am playing "ok" in 6 max...that is, I believe I am playing the right hands although I seem to be routinely beaten no matter what I play. These tables are loose and aggressive, and I am having problems adapting my game here.

Enough of the qualitative self-analysis. Below are my stats over a small sample size -- anything look out of sorts? Your frank comments are appreciated; I can take it.




My own observations:

-- 27% VPIP, PFR almost 17%. Seems ok? Maybe a bit loose?
-- Attempt to steal blinds, 40%. Again seems in line with others.
-- Won @ SD seems a touch low. Going too far with marginal hands?
-- Folded to river bet, 47%. Yeeesh, that cant be good.
-- Aggression factor. Too aggressive at the flop at turn?

[deepsquat]

Tighten up a bit pf until u get a feel for it. Dont get into the habito f thinking everyone is full of [censored] when they raise or c/r u. At 1/2 this generally means TP or better.
Also learn to use position in the CO or button to isolate bad players and be tight in the blinds with hands like KJ, QJ etc they can be tough to play oop.

[SinCityGuy]

[ QUOTE ]
-- Aggression factor. Too aggressive at the flop at turn?

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps, especially on the flop. Are you overplaying when you miss the flop? Also, it's perfectly OK to call down with some marginal hands against aggressive opponents instead of always betting, raising or folding. This was a big adjustment for me when I moved from full ring to shorthanded play.

[MoDOH]

Ok the transition from full ring to 6-max isn´t the easiest one, and you aren´t the first and certainly not the last that have experienced this.
The key to success in beating the SH ganes is controlling the aggression. Not just blindly betting and raising just because its the "TAG" thing to do. But recognizing the situations where there is profit to be made or not. While this holds true for Full ring games also it´s even more so in the SH games. In short, good postflop skills is more rewarded in SH since you are playing more pots.

Now looking at your stats it´s hard to exactly pinpoint the problem but since you are feeling lost as you say i would recommend that you tighten up a bit until you feel more comfortable.
And the way to cut down those VPIP numbers are by tightening up a bit on your blind stealing. avoid those marginal situations if you can.
Same goes for blind defence. tighten up a bit more there too, although your numbers look ok they don´t show the whole picture. Blind defense is a science of its own and there is no need to play marginal hands from the blinds until you fel comfortable with the whole situation.
Also tighten up from UTG and UTG+1 throw away QTo and QJo the same goes for any Aces with a lower kicker than T. Concentrate instead more on your Button and CO play...

So after tightening up preflop you need to seriously tone down your aggression postflop. Something you will come to learn is that although aggression is important one of the most profitable situations in SH play is to play passive. Simply put you need to learn how to call... looking at your aggression stats I see someone who bets too much with marginal hands and I guess that you are doing alot of bet-folding too... Too much aggression is easily exploitable by aware opponents. You need to see more SD with your marginal hands, and Check-Calling your way to the river can do just that...

Which leads us too...

Folded to river bets!! You are folding too many rivers!!!!

This is a major leak and implies that you are folding many winners. You need too see more rivers!!!

hope that helps...

[MoDOH]

Oh and one more thing. I will give you the best advice you´ll ever hear...

Practice game selection! And I don´t mean looking for the tables with the highest pot average or highest VPIP. No I´m talking about always making sure that you have 1-2 guys to your right that are "bad". And bad could mean everything from too LAG too passive or some combination...
One more thing about table selesction is that I also tries to avoid having a LAP directly to my left as that will make it harder for me to isolate the bad players and grabbing the button. This is so vital to my game that I often leave games when that happens...

This concept of table selection (not necessarily my preferences but the idea)is the singlest most important thing you will ever learn... without proper table selection you will never truly crush the games...

over and out...

[tmoore44]

[ QUOTE ]
And the way to cut down those VPIP numbers are by tightening up a bit on your blind stealing. avoid those marginal situations if you can.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm relatively new to 6 max too and had some of the same problems that you're having. Once I stopped trying to steal half the blinds I saw a significant rise in my winrate. You're not going to actually "steal" that many blinds at the 1/2 level and it keeps you out of a lot of tricky situations that can get you frustrated and not playing your best poker (at least that was my experience).

Tighten up a little bit while you're getting a feel for the 6 max game and I think it will be less frustrating and much more profitable.

[PokerBob]

i just glanced, but your aggression is absurdly high.

[beaster]

[ QUOTE ]

Perhaps, especially on the flop. Are you overplaying when you miss the flop? Also, it's perfectly OK to call down with some marginal hands against aggressive opponents instead of always betting, raising or folding. This was a big adjustment for me when I moved from full ring to shorthanded play.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe I am overplaying. In middle to late positions, I'll often bet a ragged flop with a hand like KQo or AKo, hoping my 1 or 2 opponents will fold. They don't and I get burned with something like middle pair.

I've begun to call instead of raise in some situations. While it's not noticable in my aggression numbers now, they were much higher at the ~3k hand mark.

[MicroBob]

the high flop-aggression can often serve as a double-whammy (I have learned and still AM learning the hard-way).


Nobody will respect your flop-bets...so trying to push out your opponents just ain't gonna happen.
When you do have the goods your opponents can still get out of the way in those frequent situations where they have zilcho.


There are nice streaks in there where they will constantly look you up when you have great hands....and get afraid of your bet when you have nothing.

But unfortunately it seems to work the other way around too much of the time when you are in non-stop 'pedal-to-the-metal' mode regardless of whether you hit the flop or not.


At 1/2 6-max I suspect you could win just by staying reasonably tight and betting your decently made hands.
Do this.

And then GRADUALLY learn to start picking your spots.
Instead of trying to FORCE your opponents out on so many instances when you have zilcho...wait for the situation where it looks appropriate to go ahead and take the pot.


I agree with the general sentiment regarding going into 'call-down' mode.
I've barely been learning how to do this in just the past few weeks.



Cartman's post where he analyzed the success-rate of over-cards (or AK or whatever it was) was pretty interesting and might be helpful to the OP. Link anyone?

[beaster]

Somewhere along the way I think I took the mantra of "play aggressively" too far. As you said, I bet trying to push people out and they only wind up calling and making a pair to beat my UI AQo. A-high does sometimes win a pot, but in 1/2 that seems to be the exception.

If I could use one adjective to describe my 6-max game right now, "pedal to the metal" is a definitely one way to put it. I am not giving people credit for their raises, not giving them credit for sticking around with something like ace-rag when there is an ace on the board.

I think the suggestion of playing tight makes alot of sense. I obviously haven't learned the game yet, and going all "wild west" isn't going to help things. I need to slow down.

6-max is a TOUGH game. However, even though I have been losing I feel like it has already helped my full-ring game. Last night I played some full ring again to soothe my bruised ego and I absolutely dominated. These were passive tables though, and my aggression really paid off.

Fantastic advice guys. Thanks.