Need some general advice

Hey guys,

S, I have been playing poker for about 3 months now (whoa, has it been that long? Dang!) and I am at a crossroad again. I'm contemplating on whether or not I should play 6-max.

I have been playing almost exclusively FR, and I think my poker adolescence was FR. But I started to wonder a lot about the multi-tabling guys and what the hell are they doing this for. I mean, why the hell would anyone play 20 tables at $2 NL?! I once spoke with a dude who was like 18 or 20 tabling and at the end of his session, so I ask him, "Why the hell don't you move up, dude?"
"-Because I don't want to lose my hard earned money." Whaaat? What money? At $2 NL you can barely be making any money, let alone being afraid of losing it.

So, my question is, should I play more 6-max? Doesn't one become a better and more skillful poker player playing 6-max? Because FR is full of nits who only play premiums and mostly act fit or fold. This isn't poker, this is grinding stones.
I also find that I'm playing a lot looser and more aggressive 6-max, 3 and 4-betting tons more. FR I usually start the session somewhere around 17/15, but quickly go down to 17/7. Pretty weak tight.

6-max, though, is a totally different story. I usually feel like playing poker a lot more than I do when I play FR, because, what is is there to think about when playing FR. When the nit 3-bets you, you fold or call with a small pp. Then when he misses the flop and checks to you you bet to collect his dead money. That's just robotic... it's not real poker.

Anyway, my rant becomes waay to long for the average cc'er to read, so I'm going to stop here and wait for your nice and polite responses.

6 max isn't better or worse, just different. You'll play more hands, get more hands heads up and probably experience more swings. It can be more profitable if you can beat it but it also tends to have more players who have a clue.

One thing I would ask is, when you described how to beat the 3 betting nit in FR and then said it wasn't real poker, why not? What's wrong with taking money from a fish using ABC poker? Is your goal to make sick bluffs and fancy plays or make the most money? Honestly, I don't know what levels you play but solid, boring poker works the best at 6 max as well as full ring at the microstakes IMO.

Good luck

Bill

I guess I didn't express myself correctly. I wasn't referring to my (the non-nit) play as not being real poker. I was referring to the nit's game. After all, you can't play more than 10 tables at once and still play poker. You're just... working, not playing

I really can't see the point of multi-tabling at the really small micro stakes (below NL $25). It's not like you're making any amount of money worth talking about, and kind of playing poker teaches you nothing about the game. I don't know, maybe $5 a day is a lot of money for some people, for me the knowledge and skill I'm going to acquire is worth much more.

Because, at least for now, money is not my goal, getting a better poker player is. Money is a function of making good decisions, and if I happen to make money while playing my best, then so be it.

So mass multi tablers aren't playing real poker? That must be news to Randy Lew and Cardschat's own Dusty Schmidt. who have both made millions and are pokerstars team pros. Anyways a bad multi tabler should be easy to exploit so I don't see why it would bother you but no matter if you play 6 max or full ring you are going to run into many multitablers.

Anyways it sounds like you would enjoy six max more so you should pursue the variant that you enjoy the most.

GL

hey ive played a lot of 6 table poker, i tend to like it because you can limp in with weaker second cards like Q6 or K6 and not have to worry about the kicker as much as in a 9 player table. 6 table has its own dynamics which you will encounter, its fun.

i meant to type 6 player poker and not 6 table poker, that was a typing error, sorry bout that.

nitulbhatia said:

hey ive played a lot of 6 table poker, i tend to like it because you can limp in with weaker second cards like Q6 or K6 and not have to worry about the kicker as much as in a 9 player table. 6 table has its own dynamics which you will encounter, its fun.

Click to expand...

Limping and playing weak kicker hands is terrible advice/play. I looked at your PTR and you have lost a ton of money doing that (at least on stars and tilt). Why in the world do you think its a good idea to play that way?

Again, I didn't express myself correctly- I have great respect for multitablers. I can't even begin to imagine the discipline and concentration needed to do that sort of thing. When I was saying I don't get it, I was talking about people mtt-ing the micro-micros and the loser multitablesrs. Also, It's just not my style, so there.

Also, I noticed a very strange thing, I tend to play a lot more tighter live than I do online. Maybe because I'm against tougher opponents, but still. Live I play like 10/10. Maybe even tighter. And yesterday I lost with KK vs AK for the second time in 2 days.

It sounds like you are still searching for your game. By all means go with some 6 max for awhile. I did it for a while and even enlisted a coach, but my reason for doing it was because I found myself consistently bubbling tourney's at final table and knew I needed major work on playing "short handed". It helped tremendously. Just like playing Omaha really helped me to decipher board textures faster and easier. In the end though, I had to go back to what I was seeing the best ROI on.

It is natural to play tighter live - it has more of a real money feel. Very easy to get online and feel like it's play money. Something to discipline yourself on. In my early days of playing online I'd always ask myself, "Would you do that if you were sitting at a table at Harrah's?" Many times the answer was, "Hell no!" This helped my online game a lot. Now I find myself playing live and asking, "Would you do that online?" - lol

Yeah, I definitely AM searching for my game. I recently started getting more into PLO, but it's such a complicated game I don't even think I can begin to to understand it with a weeks worth of playing and reading. The thing that confuses me the most is how equal most hand pre-flop are. But what I like about it is the post flop game. All the possible combos, nut outs, freerolling... it goes on and on. It's a really deep game and I like it. Reminds me of chess, lol.

As to why I play live, yeah, probably it is because the real money feel. But also I'm playing with guys who I know are very good at live poker, most are probably better than me.

Last night I even almost leveled myself. So, I get into this hand where I have TPTK on the river, but there are lots of straight possibilities on the board. And, see, everyone at the table knows I'm tight and I rarely bluff. Me and one other fella are left and up to this point the pot is somewhat big, but I'm nowhere near pot commited. So I check the river and he bets big. I then start contemplating... He knows I'm tight. But I know he knows it. At this level it means he has a big hand. But, then I start thinking even further, He knows that I know that he knows that I'm tight, so he might actually be bluffing. And here is where I started having trouble going deeper. But I doubt he was actually going this deep.

After all was said and done, I folded and he showed a straight. And that was, on one hand a very tough fold for me, because he has tried to bluff me many times, but this time it felt different.

Anyhow, last night's session was a real roller coaster, was up more than 8 buy-ins at one point, then went back down to 2 1/2, 1 1/2 of which was from playing heads up. Meh... At least I'm not losing