PP 6Max. vs. 10 handed NL $25 Which do you prefer

[jjb108]

Recently playing 6 max tables and the play seems looser than the 10 seaters...I had two of the biggest sessions I've had since playing. Was this a good streak or are the 6 max. looser.

Which do you prefer?

The first table I sat in 3 guys were seeing 50% of the flops...I figured I had to make money. I did.

[fimbulwinter]

Right now i'm taking a break from poker to finish up med school apps. i started at PP 25NL 10 handed and moved to 6 handed, then finally to Prima's 50NL 6 handed (which i like the best); here's why:

6max and 10max are two entirely different games which reward entirely different kinds of play. That said, i always prefer 6 max and find it (per hand or per table/hour) far more profitable than 10 handed. You seem like you might be the same way; here's a rundown of the differences in play and advantage 6max vs 10max.

1. 6max rewards agression, 10max awards patience. while playing 6max i generally play very very very lose in the two late positions (button&CO) and play tight in all others (uber-tight out of SB). by being agressive pre and postflop, i can bully enough $ out of uncontested pots to subsidize my looseness in LP, where i play almost any implied odds hands and stack anyone who gets attached to tptk or 2 pair, especially since i've been bluffing so much until then that they never believe i have it. in 10max there's no way to push someone off an overpair or a set, so these kinds of hands go to war fairly often, so you must wait for such hands to break people. in 6max you can break someone with two pair if they don't believe you.

2. nut-peddling doesnt work 6 handed. if i were to play 10 handed again, i'd just play 4 tables, super tight and play agressive, ABC poker. this doesnt work 6 handed as the blinds come around too fast to wait for premium hands and often there's only one premium hand dealt, which means people won't call your 6xBB PFR with AA if you havent been raising every other hand too. i love having a rock at my table because it's so easy to stack them when they finally do hit that hand they've been waiting for, especially if i've been bullying them off TPBK all night.

3. 6 handed has a much more steep gradient of earnings. what does this mean? well, say you're at a 10 handed table with 6 loose-passives, 3 rocks and 1 TAG who's really mustard. yes, the TAG will make more than the rocks, but not a whole lot more as the loosies will pay off the rocks almost as much as the TAG, as they don't care about previous hands when they're playing. Conversely, at a 6 handed table with 3 loose players, 2 rocks and a slightly-mainiacal TAG, only the TAG makes any money. true the rocks get paid off, but the TAG nickel and dimes the rocks out of marginal pots and then busts them with some silly offsuit rags when they get the TPTK hand where they decide to make a stand. this means that if you're the best at the table, you stand to make a lot of money.

4. 6 handed forces many, many more marginal decisions and so hands that are never profitable 10 handed (96o for example) can be profitable 6 handed in the right position (late). this means you must be able to play such hands as well to maximize your profit, which gives a further advantage to experienced players.

5. Bluffing, especially semi-bluffing, is much much more important, not so much as a +EV thing (which it still is) but as insurance that your monsters will get paid off. the huge UTG raises that i advocate from EP with AA/KK (which i often catch flack for) work only because i bet and raise so much. such plays (and other, more +EV plays) don't work if you're overly tight.

6. The understanding of the supreme importance of position, and an intimite knowledge of when and where to play certain hands is much more powerful 6 handed because you will have more button time and more UTG time with less "somewhere in MP" time. for example, take Axs. if i'm in CO and everyone folds around to me i must raise or fold. limping here is not an option as i could let in a better A behind me (and not know it) and i will be UTG for all subsequent rounds, so i won't be able to determine my odds or effectively semi-bluff with a flush draw. conversely, if all have limped to me, raising is suicide as i will only limit the number of players in a hand where i want everyone to play with me (as my draw is to the nuts and i can bust a better ace with two pair.)

7. the game is "bigger" but other people don't realize it. since the blinds come around faster, you play more hands, and if you're a -EV player, your stack wears down faster and people bust out and are replaced faster. i read a post here that said the "size" of a game is the stakes divided by the number of people, so technically 6 handed 25NL is 10/6ths as big as 10 handed 25NL.

8. its just more damn fun. i hate folding hands i want to play, and so do other 6 maxers, so the games are more fun and often a bit easier because looseness isn't such a big sin, where poor postflop play is much worse than in 10 handed (as you are playing more marginal hands).

basically, for me, 6 handed has no equal. i feel it is a fuller game in that you get more of everything, not just a ton of preflop folding accentuated by the occasional big pot. it requires a broader range of skills (but interestingly does not require you to play your monsters quite as well as there are often not any good enough 2nd best hands to pay you off) and a healthier does of agression. if this sounds like you, go for it

fim

[Snoogins47]

I will tend to agree.

The nut-peddlers can make some bank at the full tables.

They get owned at the 6 max, especially with the shorter stacks at Party.

The variance can get to you, but I think the six maxes are much more profitable. People know instinctively they should be more aggressive in a shorthanded situation, but hardly anybody does it well.

[AncientPC]

I played 2 table shorthanded Party 25 NL for all of August, but now into September I play 6 full tables 25 NL for Paradise and Full Tilt.

1) Shorthanded forces you to get better reads on players, thus making multitabling more difficult as more postflop decisions are required (because of playing looser).

2) Shorthanded causes higher variance, partially because of looser / more aggressive play, more difficult decisions, and less tables.

3) I've played 8000 hands worth of Party SH NL 25 in August with 6.44 BB/100. However I've been doing much better at Paradise NL 25 with 4000 hands at 18.73 BB/100.

I don't think I have the stomach for shorthanded NL as the variance is too high for me. It's probably is a weakness in my game, but I have a difference of $100 - $300 between my daily high and lows.

My daily net was positive only half the time. For example here's my last week of Party SH NL 25 net:
+163
-211
-075
+330
-095
+154
-109

If this is a sign that my game has serious flaws please tell me, or if this is otherwise normal for shorthanded play. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[fimbulwinter]

it's just a taste thing. you're obviously a skilled full game player, and since you can play more full games than shorthanded, its much more +EV for you.
my PP 6max 25NL was never that swingy, and the prima 6 max 50NL tables are even less. in general a day was between -80 bucks and +250 for the prima 6max 50NL, two or three tabling for 1-3 hours.

fim

ps- if you want true uber-high earnings and can handle gigantic swings, check out interpoker's 100NL 6 max. i simply can't describe the play. was clearing a bonus today, got AA on the button. UTG minraises, UTG+1 insta-shoves for 90 bucks, i call. his hand: 2[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], no joke.

[Cannes]

I don't really understand why people seem to have swings at party $25 NL 6-max. I find the play there to be extremely loose/weak. Incredibly easy to play against. I'm averaging $50 an hour 4 tabling them, I've since moved up to the $50 tables and found that the competition is not much stronger there.

[AncientPC]

I think it might be because of how aggressive I play, I'm very easy to trap.

I usually play very tight until my stack is about 2x buyin, and then I start to muscle people out of the pot when I've hit any piece of the flop or have a strong draw. This works until someone slow plays their set or hits their draws and takes down a big pot against me.

That and Party has a lot of people who go all in against me. The pot on turn is usually at least half the buyin if they've been calling my bets and push all in, giving me a hard decision to stay with my TPTK or not. More often than not my bad decisions to call a lot of all ins cost me, but other times they've been completely bluffing and I've taken it down.

On full tables, someone is bound to call my 8xBB preflop raise and they're much more tight / passive on Paradise.

[DClausen]

Great thoughts on 6hand NL. I play mostly prima .50/1 NL ($100 max buyin) and find the play to be so terrible that I can own the table at least 4/5 times I play. People there are very easy to read and easy to dominate if you are suffiently agressive. I had averaged 18.15 bb/100 through 15k hands (at various limits) and found that the play at .50/1 to be even worse than at .25/.50 (seems people love to gamble/bluff big at the higher limit.)

[Skjonne]

Great great post Fimbul. I only play 10-handed (and doing well), but your post makes me feel like trying SH. Are you in the advertising business by any chance [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[SuitedSixes]

I have been pretty successful, so far, playing NL 6-max. Is there a widely accepted thought on getting profits off the table at a certain amount? There are obvious advantages to having a larger stack than anyone sitting down, but at what point are you risking too much for this advantage?