Mase31683
Legend
Silver Level
I've been playing pretty much nothing but full ring lately, and I feel like it's time to go back to my 6max ways. I'm currently working with a buddy on teaching him basic NL hold'em as well, so to both revive my 6max thinking, and to give him a basic framework to start from, I went over all my notes and comprised this piece on 6max micro-limit strategy. I don't know if there's 100 things like this already on here, and it's nothing new or ground-brekaing, but I figured I'd share it anyway.
Preflop Strategy
The big concept here is raise or fold. We want the vpip and pfr very close, as maintaining an aggressive stance preflop makes for more profitable situations both pre and post-flop. There will be some specific instances where simply calling preflop is okay, but it shouldn't be something that occurs often, and we'll discuss these situations later.
This chart refers to instances in which the preflop action has folded to you. The following list comprises hands that should be raised in this situation grouped by position.
Preflop Open-Raising Chart
UTG
22+
AJo+
ATs+
TJs+
KQo
56s+ ~25% of the time (These are hands that people play too much. You can add them in if the table is tight, but even then only sometimes. If you habitually play them, your early position range will be weighted toward the suited connectors instead of the stronger hands. All we want is some deception, not turning our range into junk.)
Middle (Hijack)
22+
ATo+
A2s+
JTs+, KJs
QJo+, KJo
56s+ ~25% of the time
CO
22+
A8o+
A2s+
56s+, T8s+
Any 2 broadway cards (Ten or higher)
Button
22+
Ax
Kxs
54s+, 68s+, 7Ts+89o+
Blinds
SB
A lot of players raise too much here in my opinion. Yes you only have one player to beat, but that player's going to have position on you for the entire hand if he elects to play, which isn't great. Therefore I want to have a little something to back up my raise.
Use the Middle Position guideline, but expand the ATo+ to A8o+
BB
If it folds to you the hand's over, so here's what to raise when it folds to the cutoff who just completes.
22+
A9o+
A8s+
98s+, T8s+
Any 2 broadway
If there are multiple limpers, you generally just want to take a flop. But you should raise with:
99+
AQo+
KQs+
General Preflop Concepts
Position
It just makes things so much easier to play hands in position, I really can't state that enough. So we're playing a pretty tight range from all positions untill the CO and Button. Once we're in late position, we're opening up our range, but maintaining our aggressiveness, raising pots, isolating limpers, attacking the pots we play.
Limping
This is easy, don't limp. It makes things harder, since if you're limping weak hands, you'll also have to limp strong ones to balance your range. If you just always raise, there's no extra information available, you're playing your entire range every time. Secondly, limping cannot induce a mistake. If you raise, the big blind can fold hands better than yours, and can call with hands worse, but this cannot occur when you limp. Taking the initiative preflop also sets you up to take the pot on the flop with a cbet, so we definitely want to be raising when we come in.
Dealing with Limpers
Players will be limping, (not you though) and we will exploit this tendancy by isolating with a pretty sizeable range. Obviously if someone's a 8/1/3 this isn't someone to isolate as even his limping range is tight. We're looking for that 35/4/2 type that's limping with a big range. You want to know how they react to raises and cbets. If they limp/fold to a raise preflop, or limp/call but fold regularly to cbets, then you should isolate really wide (Any ace, 76s+, 22+, 2broadways). Players who limp/call but don't fold to cbets can't be isolated as wide. You don't want to be isolating these players with suited connectors, or weak aces. Since you won't be getting any FE (fold equity) at any point in the hand, these will probably end up being -EV situations for isolating.
Pocket Pairs V. Limpers
If the limper is full stacked, then you're definitely raising it up. You want to exploit their limp, possibly picking up dead money right away, building a pot to increase the likelyhood of stacking your opponnent when you hit your set, and keeping your deceptive quality of play. If you overlimp with small to medium pp's, cognizant players are going to pick up on that tendancy and adjust to it. If stacks are short, now we can limp. If your raise is going to be more than 10% of your opponnent's stack, don't make the raise, just limp along. If there are multiple limpers, the correct play (raise or limp) is determined by the stack size of the limper with the largest stack.
Pocket Pairs V. Raises
As far as micro-stakes go, simply use the 5/10 rule. For those who don't know, this means call if the raise is 5-10% of your stack. Why 5-10%? You will flop a set about one in ten times. If you can stack your opponnent when you hit your set, then you have the necessary implied odds. You want to adjust the percentage of your stack you're willing to call off based on the opponnent. If they seem like a solid player, who isn't going to stack off light, you probably don't want more than 5% of your stack going in. Conversely, a loose player prone to going too far with meager holdings allows us to put up to the full 10% in gladly, knowing that the return on our investment is quite good. The final point to note is their PFR range. The tighter their range, the more profitably we can play pp's against them for set value. They will have big pp's often, which we want, as big pp's can get them into trouble. AA looks good on a board of 8 7 2, but when we're holding 22, we're getting paid well.
3-bets
I feel I need a lot of work on 3-betting. I'm way too tight about it. So here's what a better 3-better than me had to say about it.
Don't flat call a raise oop (out of position) ever! You're either folding or raising, and If they have a full stack, make the raise 3-4x their raise. Oop, go with 4x, and 3x in position, since you can let position plus your bet size work for you. When the pot has been raised, look at their PFR stat. As it increases, you can 3bet a wider and wider range. If someone's range is real tight, say 2%, then we're calling with pp's for set value, but folding hands like KQ since they're playing such a strong range. If their PFR=18%, you should be 3betting with KQ, or TT frequently, since you're ahead of their range. The nice thing about widening your 3bet range is at microstakes, people think that a 3bet = AA/KK, so cbets have an above average chance of winning the pot.
Cbetting Heads Up
I count cbets as the bluff aspect. I'm always betting when I hit my hand, I lead right out. It takes something like KQ on a KQQ flop for me to not bet out. Once you've taken the role of the aggressor, you want to use that advantage. HU you should be betting at least 60% of all flops. Something in the 60-75% area seem appropriate. If you cbet too often, people will play back at you, and not let you take down those pots you're trying to steal. Something to note, the worse a player is, the less you want to cbet with total air. If you have a HUD, it's as simple as checking the Fold v Cbet statistic. If they aren't the folding type, don't bet that AK at a J75 board, and turn their loose call with bottom pair into a great one.
I prefer cbets around 5/8 pot, just over 1/2. This amount seems to work quite well for me. As the board becomes wet (draw heavy) I increase my bet to the 2/3 -> 3/4 pot range. If your cbet doesn't end the hand, you're done with it. You lost this time but over the long run it's a very profitable bet. When you flop a good hand, the absolute best way to get money in the pot is betting it out, don't get cute and slowplay. All those cbets you've been making mask your true hand strength. At micro-tables a lot of your money comes from loose opponnents playing trouble hands and going too far with them, unable to release them if they catch a piece. Opponnents also tend to pay too much for draws, so value-bet them relentlessly.
Board Textures
K
7
2
= Dry This is a great board for cbetting, as not many hands have connected any way, and it's fairly void of draws.
K
J
T
= Wet You can't really cbet in hopes of getting FE here. So many hands have caught some piece of this and are sticking around. Only the worst hands that probably had slim chances of beating you anyway will go away.
K
3
Q
= Moderate (Damp) This is a board where you can cbet tighter opponnents. A 2/3 pot bet is +EV as long as villain folds just under 50% of the time, which you should achieve here.
J
5
5
These paired boards are also great for cbets, as only 5 cards in the deck just connected.
Cbetting Multiple Players (Usually 2)
Once you have 3 opponnents, you really just need a hand to bet, so for our purposes, multiple = 2. You're going to want to cbet less on moderate boards, as there's an increased likelyhood somebody caught enough to continue. Dry boards are still prime for cbets though.
Double Barrels
At micros, I chaulk this up to FPS (Fancy Play Syndrome). Remember, we make our money from taking down pots with cbets, and people who go too far with mediocre holdings. If we cbet and are called, it's okay to give up. We made the cbet because it was +EV to do so. When it failed, well this wasn't one of the times it worked, and that's fine. As previously stated, it can work slightly less than 50% of the time and still show a profit! We don't need to win every hand, so don't try to. Barring a miracle card, cut this loose and go on to the next hand. Don't start thinking, "What if he's floating me?" because he's not.
Triple Barrels
Negative chief...that is all
Vs. Post-flop Aggression
As simple as I can put it, Big Hands = Big Pots / Small Hands = Small Pots
TPTK does NOT equal a big hand
There are two major player archetypes at micros, loose-passive and weak-tight. You'll see them time and again, over and over. They both share one trait; they're not aggressive without the nuts or close to it. They want real strength before firing bets at the pot. You will encounter maniacs, so note them and adjust accordingly. but they are the exception.
Example - $10nl Full stacks
You have A
K
UTG and raise to $0.40. 2 players fold and the button calls, both blinds fold.
Flop: K
3
8
($0.95) Hero bets $0.60, Button calls.
Turn: K
3
8
T
($2.15) Hero bets $1.00, Button raises to $2.65
You should not be happy about this spot (Pure baluga I believe, it's been awhile). This is not a bluff either. I see/hear players in this spot reason, "Villain = Bad, so this is KQ, KJ, some hand we crush, 99 or JJ for example," but that's a recipe for disaster. It's much more likely you're either drawing very slim or completely dead.
The other mistake I see people make in this spot is to flat this, hoping the villain will shut down on the river and they'll get to showdown, but that's no good either. If he's very strong, he's betting again on this river, and you already decided that you had showdown value, that is why you called the bet right? So you'll likely wind up paying off another small suckbet if he decides to make that while getting away from the hand if he fires out another serious shell. So now let's assume the villain has gone crazy and just decided to bluff us out of our shoes with 24. Well if that's the case he knows his only shot at this is firing another big volley on the river, just the type of bet you're going to be "smart" enough to get away from. Now this was a particular example, but basically, once the villains are getting aggro, it's time to assess just how good our hand really is.
Something a lot of players don't get is that you don't have to press every hand. This game's not about winning every pot you start to contest. Instead it's like the duel between a pitcher and a batter. The pitcher is trying to pick at the corners of the plate, not giving the batter anything he can really connect with. The batter's not really looking for those, sure he might be able to knock a single, but that's all. When the pitcher leaves one over the plate, or hangs a curve, now the batter takes aim at the fence.
One pair holdings are those pitches picking at the corners. You can work with it a bit, maybe knock a single, but that's it. Try and hit it out of the park and you'll just end up with no hit at all. Don't try and hit homeruns with these, it's not what they're for, and you don't have to force it. When you get those hanging curves (sets, straights, flushes) now you can pound them for all they're worth, these are the home run pitches.
Synopsis
Play a tight/aggressive preflop range outside the CO and Button, loose/aggressive in the CO and Button.
Position = Good
Limping = Bad
Limpers = Isolate
3bet or Fold
Cbet a lot
Avoid FPS
Don't overextend your hand's value
Preflop Strategy
The big concept here is raise or fold. We want the vpip and pfr very close, as maintaining an aggressive stance preflop makes for more profitable situations both pre and post-flop. There will be some specific instances where simply calling preflop is okay, but it shouldn't be something that occurs often, and we'll discuss these situations later.
This chart refers to instances in which the preflop action has folded to you. The following list comprises hands that should be raised in this situation grouped by position.
Preflop Open-Raising Chart
UTG
22+
AJo+
ATs+
TJs+
KQo
56s+ ~25% of the time (These are hands that people play too much. You can add them in if the table is tight, but even then only sometimes. If you habitually play them, your early position range will be weighted toward the suited connectors instead of the stronger hands. All we want is some deception, not turning our range into junk.)
Middle (Hijack)
22+
ATo+
A2s+
JTs+, KJs
QJo+, KJo
56s+ ~25% of the time
CO
22+
A8o+
A2s+
56s+, T8s+
Any 2 broadway cards (Ten or higher)
Button
22+
Ax
Kxs
54s+, 68s+, 7Ts+89o+
Blinds
SB
A lot of players raise too much here in my opinion. Yes you only have one player to beat, but that player's going to have position on you for the entire hand if he elects to play, which isn't great. Therefore I want to have a little something to back up my raise.
Use the Middle Position guideline, but expand the ATo+ to A8o+
BB
If it folds to you the hand's over, so here's what to raise when it folds to the cutoff who just completes.
22+
A9o+
A8s+
98s+, T8s+
Any 2 broadway
If there are multiple limpers, you generally just want to take a flop. But you should raise with:
99+
AQo+
KQs+
General Preflop Concepts
Position
It just makes things so much easier to play hands in position, I really can't state that enough. So we're playing a pretty tight range from all positions untill the CO and Button. Once we're in late position, we're opening up our range, but maintaining our aggressiveness, raising pots, isolating limpers, attacking the pots we play.
Limping
This is easy, don't limp. It makes things harder, since if you're limping weak hands, you'll also have to limp strong ones to balance your range. If you just always raise, there's no extra information available, you're playing your entire range every time. Secondly, limping cannot induce a mistake. If you raise, the big blind can fold hands better than yours, and can call with hands worse, but this cannot occur when you limp. Taking the initiative preflop also sets you up to take the pot on the flop with a cbet, so we definitely want to be raising when we come in.
Dealing with Limpers
Players will be limping, (not you though) and we will exploit this tendancy by isolating with a pretty sizeable range. Obviously if someone's a 8/1/3 this isn't someone to isolate as even his limping range is tight. We're looking for that 35/4/2 type that's limping with a big range. You want to know how they react to raises and cbets. If they limp/fold to a raise preflop, or limp/call but fold regularly to cbets, then you should isolate really wide (Any ace, 76s+, 22+, 2broadways). Players who limp/call but don't fold to cbets can't be isolated as wide. You don't want to be isolating these players with suited connectors, or weak aces. Since you won't be getting any FE (fold equity) at any point in the hand, these will probably end up being -EV situations for isolating.
Pocket Pairs V. Limpers
If the limper is full stacked, then you're definitely raising it up. You want to exploit their limp, possibly picking up dead money right away, building a pot to increase the likelyhood of stacking your opponnent when you hit your set, and keeping your deceptive quality of play. If you overlimp with small to medium pp's, cognizant players are going to pick up on that tendancy and adjust to it. If stacks are short, now we can limp. If your raise is going to be more than 10% of your opponnent's stack, don't make the raise, just limp along. If there are multiple limpers, the correct play (raise or limp) is determined by the stack size of the limper with the largest stack.
Pocket Pairs V. Raises
As far as micro-stakes go, simply use the 5/10 rule. For those who don't know, this means call if the raise is 5-10% of your stack. Why 5-10%? You will flop a set about one in ten times. If you can stack your opponnent when you hit your set, then you have the necessary implied odds. You want to adjust the percentage of your stack you're willing to call off based on the opponnent. If they seem like a solid player, who isn't going to stack off light, you probably don't want more than 5% of your stack going in. Conversely, a loose player prone to going too far with meager holdings allows us to put up to the full 10% in gladly, knowing that the return on our investment is quite good. The final point to note is their PFR range. The tighter their range, the more profitably we can play pp's against them for set value. They will have big pp's often, which we want, as big pp's can get them into trouble. AA looks good on a board of 8 7 2, but when we're holding 22, we're getting paid well.
3-bets
I feel I need a lot of work on 3-betting. I'm way too tight about it. So here's what a better 3-better than me had to say about it.
Don't flat call a raise oop (out of position) ever! You're either folding or raising, and If they have a full stack, make the raise 3-4x their raise. Oop, go with 4x, and 3x in position, since you can let position plus your bet size work for you. When the pot has been raised, look at their PFR stat. As it increases, you can 3bet a wider and wider range. If someone's range is real tight, say 2%, then we're calling with pp's for set value, but folding hands like KQ since they're playing such a strong range. If their PFR=18%, you should be 3betting with KQ, or TT frequently, since you're ahead of their range. The nice thing about widening your 3bet range is at microstakes, people think that a 3bet = AA/KK, so cbets have an above average chance of winning the pot.
Cbetting Heads Up
I count cbets as the bluff aspect. I'm always betting when I hit my hand, I lead right out. It takes something like KQ on a KQQ flop for me to not bet out. Once you've taken the role of the aggressor, you want to use that advantage. HU you should be betting at least 60% of all flops. Something in the 60-75% area seem appropriate. If you cbet too often, people will play back at you, and not let you take down those pots you're trying to steal. Something to note, the worse a player is, the less you want to cbet with total air. If you have a HUD, it's as simple as checking the Fold v Cbet statistic. If they aren't the folding type, don't bet that AK at a J75 board, and turn their loose call with bottom pair into a great one.
I prefer cbets around 5/8 pot, just over 1/2. This amount seems to work quite well for me. As the board becomes wet (draw heavy) I increase my bet to the 2/3 -> 3/4 pot range. If your cbet doesn't end the hand, you're done with it. You lost this time but over the long run it's a very profitable bet. When you flop a good hand, the absolute best way to get money in the pot is betting it out, don't get cute and slowplay. All those cbets you've been making mask your true hand strength. At micro-tables a lot of your money comes from loose opponnents playing trouble hands and going too far with them, unable to release them if they catch a piece. Opponnents also tend to pay too much for draws, so value-bet them relentlessly.
Board Textures
K
K
K
J
Cbetting Multiple Players (Usually 2)
Once you have 3 opponnents, you really just need a hand to bet, so for our purposes, multiple = 2. You're going to want to cbet less on moderate boards, as there's an increased likelyhood somebody caught enough to continue. Dry boards are still prime for cbets though.
Double Barrels
At micros, I chaulk this up to FPS (Fancy Play Syndrome). Remember, we make our money from taking down pots with cbets, and people who go too far with mediocre holdings. If we cbet and are called, it's okay to give up. We made the cbet because it was +EV to do so. When it failed, well this wasn't one of the times it worked, and that's fine. As previously stated, it can work slightly less than 50% of the time and still show a profit! We don't need to win every hand, so don't try to. Barring a miracle card, cut this loose and go on to the next hand. Don't start thinking, "What if he's floating me?" because he's not.
Triple Barrels
Negative chief...that is all
Vs. Post-flop Aggression
As simple as I can put it, Big Hands = Big Pots / Small Hands = Small Pots
TPTK does NOT equal a big hand
There are two major player archetypes at micros, loose-passive and weak-tight. You'll see them time and again, over and over. They both share one trait; they're not aggressive without the nuts or close to it. They want real strength before firing bets at the pot. You will encounter maniacs, so note them and adjust accordingly. but they are the exception.
Example - $10nl Full stacks
You have A
Flop: K
Turn: K
You should not be happy about this spot (Pure baluga I believe, it's been awhile). This is not a bluff either. I see/hear players in this spot reason, "Villain = Bad, so this is KQ, KJ, some hand we crush, 99 or JJ for example," but that's a recipe for disaster. It's much more likely you're either drawing very slim or completely dead.
The other mistake I see people make in this spot is to flat this, hoping the villain will shut down on the river and they'll get to showdown, but that's no good either. If he's very strong, he's betting again on this river, and you already decided that you had showdown value, that is why you called the bet right? So you'll likely wind up paying off another small suckbet if he decides to make that while getting away from the hand if he fires out another serious shell. So now let's assume the villain has gone crazy and just decided to bluff us out of our shoes with 24. Well if that's the case he knows his only shot at this is firing another big volley on the river, just the type of bet you're going to be "smart" enough to get away from. Now this was a particular example, but basically, once the villains are getting aggro, it's time to assess just how good our hand really is.
Something a lot of players don't get is that you don't have to press every hand. This game's not about winning every pot you start to contest. Instead it's like the duel between a pitcher and a batter. The pitcher is trying to pick at the corners of the plate, not giving the batter anything he can really connect with. The batter's not really looking for those, sure he might be able to knock a single, but that's all. When the pitcher leaves one over the plate, or hangs a curve, now the batter takes aim at the fence.
One pair holdings are those pitches picking at the corners. You can work with it a bit, maybe knock a single, but that's it. Try and hit it out of the park and you'll just end up with no hit at all. Don't try and hit homeruns with these, it's not what they're for, and you don't have to force it. When you get those hanging curves (sets, straights, flushes) now you can pound them for all they're worth, these are the home run pitches.
Synopsis
Play a tight/aggressive preflop range outside the CO and Button, loose/aggressive in the CO and Button.
Position = Good
Limping = Bad
Limpers = Isolate
3bet or Fold
Cbet a lot
Avoid FPS
Don't overextend your hand's value
Last edited:
