A common 6max situation

[Bmxicle]

***** Hand History for Game 2101340018 *****
$200 NL Hold'em - Tuesday, May 24, 23:28:51 EDT 2005
Table Table 49001 (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 4: bigbob987 ( $487.2 )
Seat 5: jtk406 ( $767.95 )
Seat 6: bmxigan ( $467.3 )
Seat 3: AEKDBet ( $184 )
Seat 2: Narglatch ( $171 )
bigbob987 posts small blind [$1].
jtk406 posts big blind [$2].

Because of the aggression in 6max you will often see several big stacks at a table. This thread applies to normal ring games too, but it happens most shorthanded. How do you play when you are in a deep stack game? How do you play with your deepstacks against other deepstacks?

I start bluffing more, and play more suited crap, but am a bit more tentative with big hands like AK AA, KK, QQ. Should i tighten up a bit more, or loosen up to take advantage of the great implied odds?

[dalecooper]

loosen up to take advantage of the great implied odds

^ that one. Play more suited connectors and gappers, look for opportunities to take down your fellow big stacks. Call any moderate pre-flop raise with speculative hands and play for straights and flushes.

[SmackinYaUp]

Id say that bluffing more is a good idea - not to slowly build your stack but to get the other big stacks think your full of shit and hopefully pay you off huge just once.

Usually I notice in a deep stack game that when you hit a huge hand against a big stack they might not necessarily go allin with you but they will give you some huge pots. Do that once and hopefully it will throw their game off and they can hand the rest of it on over.

Raise with some suited connectors, mid pp's, suited one gappers to mix it up if you can get away with it and if you cant buy the pot, then every once in awhile you can hit something very surprising and take home a nice pot.

Just be very tight when calling or going allin against a huge stack. It can really suck to give 2+ buyins to someone in one hand. I know that may sound weaktight or something, but it works for me so far.

[dalecooper]

Not weak tight, it's just smart play. Big stacks usually get to where they are through good play. Not always, but usually. So unless you have a read to the contrary you don't try to get cute with a big stack. You want to surprise them - hitting their TPTK or top two pair with a straight or a set, things like that. Getting overly aggressive with a random big stack is a good way to lose yours... save that for the smaller stacks.

[SmackinYaUp]

Hey BMX, I was just wondering how the 200NL 6max games are going for you lately? Apparently, not too bad.

Hopefully I'll be moving up in the next couple months and I'd like to hear about your experiences up there.

Also, where is a good place to play? Where I'm at right now, they don't offer shorthanded games above 100.

[Bmxicle]

I've only got about 3k 200nl 6max hands under my belt, but its going well. The players really aren't that great. I started playing cause the ring tables were tight as hell during the day on party poker. I've only played on poker stars and party poker. The party poker tables are a mix of bad and good players, but the tables don't seem too tough or anything. As for poker stars, everyone is loose passive there. I've been check called down by AA on there. So although playing there can be frustrating at times the players are weak. So i'd say you should give party poker a try, because alot of the players on pokerstars are "2am calling stations".

[SmackinYaUp]

A bunch of 2am calling stations...that makes me shudder. What a scary thought. Ill be going to partypoker.