***OFFICIAL Ryan Fee 6 Max NL Strategy Guide Study Group Thread***

[Jingleheimer]

I've seen a couple of threads talking about this group, but no threads. Let's collect our discussion here, if there's nowhere else.

Ryan Fee's study guide is available free from his website: http://www.ryanfee.com

The guide is for 6max NL with the following sub-headings:

• Table Selection
• Preflop
  • UTG
  • MP
  • CO
  • BTN
  • Blinds
  • Squeezing
• Flop Play
  • Donk Betting
  • C-Betting
  • Check Raising
  • Floating
  • Raising
  • Unraised Pots
• Turn Play
  • Double Barreling
  • Check Raising the Turn
  • Floating the Turn
  • Raising the Turn
• River Play
• Mentality
• Health
• Upswings
• Session Length
• Multitabling

Some of these topics are short, some are longer. Let's not adhere to a strict schedule but move on when the discussion seems to have petered out?

Let's start with Table Selection/PF UTG for the first topic group.

[Sean Fraley]

I'm down, but I think that we should start a seperate thread for each section because

1) It keeps the individual threads smaller and therefore easier to keep track of the flow of discussion

2) It allows people to come in later and add to the discussion of a particular topic without disrupting or hijacking the discussion of topics that come up later in the book

3) It also makes it easier to track things down when focusing on particular elements (i.e. you suddenly realize that you need to review concepts on turn play and such).

[dwf76]

Glad to see this finally going down

[Akolades]

Originally Posted by dwf76

Glad to see this finally going down

I second that

[Jingleheimer]

Fees recommends open raising all of the following, which is 13% of hands:

• 22+
• ATs+
• AJo+
• 98s+
• All KQ
• KJs

The adjustments for loose games are to add KJo or ATo because we worry less about domination when we get action.

For tight games we adjust by adding 65s+ and A5s. This is because if we hit with these hands, we will likely get good action because our tight opponents will have overpairs and therefore we get good implied odds.

Finally, there is mention of the effects of stack sizes on our raising range. Against shorties, we drop the implied odds hands from our range (small pairs, SCs) and add in TP hands like KJ, QJ, AT, etc.
______________________________________________


One aspect that I would have liked to see mentioned is not only the tightness or looseness of the table, but the level of aggression. At small stakes it's frequently possible to have multiple callers of a raise, even for an UTG raiser. If we have a small pair, SC, or suited ace and we know that we will get called in a couple of spots but won't get raised if we limp, wouldn't it be better to open limp those hands?

Similarly, what about the effects of game flow? This often happens to me: I've had a good run of cards and been raising quite a bit- then I raise 55 UTG and get a caller. I am OOP and invariably he will call or raise my flop cbet, floating me. Although the flop discussion isn't until later, if we expect people to start playing back at us light, should we make a preflop adjustment? Would we start limping our IO hands? Or does this scream so much weakness that it is a bad strategy? Folding 55 and hands like it seems a bit weak.

[RacersEdge]

Originally Posted by Jingleheimer

Fees recommends open raising all of the following, which is 13% of hands:

• 22+
• ATs+
• AJo+
• 98s+
• All KQ
• KJs

The adjustments for loose games are to add KJo or ATo because we worry less about domination when we get action.

For tight games we adjust by adding 65s+ and A5s. This is because if we hit with these hands, we will likely get good action because our tight opponents will have overpairs and therefore we get good implied odds.

Finally, there is mention of the effects of stack sizes on our raising range. Against shorties, we drop the implied odds hands from our range (small pairs, SCs) and add in TP hands like KJ, QJ, AT, etc.
______________________________________________


One aspect that I would have liked to see mentioned is not only the tightness or looseness of the table, but the level of aggression. At small stakes it's frequently possible to have multiple callers of a raise, even for an UTG raiser. If we have a small pair, SC, or suited ace and we know that we will get called in a couple of spots but won't get raised if we limp, wouldn't it be better to open limp those hands?

Similarly, what about the effects of game flow? This often happens to me: I've had a good run of cards and been raising quite a bit- then I raise 55 UTG and get a caller. I am OOP and invariably he will call or raise my flop cbet, floating me. Although the flop discussion isn't until later, if we expect people to start playing back at us light, should we make a preflop adjustment? Would we start limping our IO hands? Or does this scream so much weakness that it is a bad strategy? Folding 55 and hands like it seems a bit weak.

I think in 6max you just always have to consider the value in only having to go through 5 people from UTG to pick up the blinds that limping with weaker hands is not as profitable. As long as you have the implied odds you're good either way, but raising adds the extra benefit of picking up blinds and thinning the field more to be able to pick up the pot with a c-bet when our speculative hands miss the flop.

As a sidenote, I also am reading billyjex 6max ebook, and he recommends folding 22-55 UTG (but raising all pairs UTG+1), so it is at least a close decision.

[hmoreno]

Originally Posted by Jingleheimer

One aspect that I would have liked to see mentioned is not only the tightness or looseness of the table, but the level of aggression. At small stakes it's frequently possible to have multiple callers of a raise, even for an UTG raiser. If we have a small pair, SC, or suited ace and we know that we will get called in a couple of spots but won't get raised if we limp, wouldn't it be better to open limp those hands?

Similarly, what about the effects of game flow? This often happens to me: I've had a good run of cards and been raising quite a bit- then I raise 55 UTG and get a caller. I am OOP and invariably he will call or raise my flop cbet, floating me. Although the flop discussion isn't until later, if we expect people to start playing back at us light, should we make a preflop adjustment? Would we start limping our IO hands? Or does this scream so much weakness that it is a bad strategy? Folding 55 and hands like it seems a bit weak.

Originally Posted by RacersEdge

I think in 6max you just always have to consider the value in only having to go through 5 people from UTG to pick up the blinds that limping with weaker hands is not as profitable. As long as you have the implied odds you're good either way, but raising adds the extra benefit of picking up blinds and thinning the field more to be able to pick up the pot with a c-bet when our speculative hands miss the flop.

As a sidenote, I also am reading billyjex 6max ebook, and he recommends folding 22-55 UTG (but raising all pairs UTG+1), so it is at least a close decision.

I have just played 10k hands 6-max at micro micro limits, nl10 stars and nl25 everest.

At the very beggining I wasnt playing little pairs UTG, once I read Fee's recommendations and I started raising these pairs utg and I think I am doing it well.

The fact is that an utg raise is very respected and you pick up the blinds very often. If you got cold-caller(s) and the flop comes dry, a cbet is usually good enough to take the pot.
If villian starts to play back at you, floating or something like that, you have to know that most of the time you are actually behind, so folding is (usually) the right move. If you get a set, you will get a nice pot against floaters, specially if they have no idea about pot control, you can manipulate them to make huge mistakes.

It is also nice to know that other author recommends to fold the very little pairs utg, so I guess raising or folding depends highly on your opponent tendencies, how weak they are, how much money you get when you do hit your set (implied odds).

[RepulseMonkey]

emailed link to pdf not working, can anyone post a working link ?

[Melville]

English is not my native language, sorry for any linguistic desaters.

I play mostly 400nl (200nl if I feel not confident of my game). In these limits, open-raising with small pocket pairs UTG is -EV IMO if

1) there is a lot of agressive 3betting (and squeezing) because a) a 3bet kills your implied odds for your set (except we are very deep) and b) if you make the set loose 3bettors won't pay you off like they should anyway, because their range is very wide and they wont be willing to stack of with a lot of hands. If this is the case, I sometimes just limp them and then maybe overcall the raise, ie. if it gets smooth-called by BB.

2) effective stacks are not deep enough (like at 79 or 80BB), so Villain is not capable to pay you off even if he would love to. This is ie the case if there are several shortstackers at the table, because against their range we flip at best with 22-66/77 IMO (stacks should be at least 10 times bigger then the price you pay to see the flop).

EDIT: "Always try to make poker easy to play." This I think is very important. There is an article, I think of The Grunch, where he writes about problems we have on later streets because we didn't follow this advise earlier in the hand. Couldn't find it though.

[Disconnected]

If the games have enough aggressive 3betting that it makes you want to limp/possibly call your small PP's, I think I would tend to fold them more. The same guys that won't pay off your sets when they 3-bet probably won't pay them off too often when you limp/call, unless you're limping quite a bit UTG with other stuff, which also isn't profitable. I think if you're in those games, it's better to fold them than to limp them. I agree with the book's recommendation that we should not be open-limping.

[Melville]

Originally Posted by Disconnected

If the games have enough aggressive 3betting that it makes you want to limp/possibly call your small PP's, I think I would tend to fold them more.

I basically agree with you here. It's important to limp some stuff from time to time to balance my range: I sometimes limp Aces in aggressive games.

["SHRaKeN"]

What does 40/10, 23/20, 20/18 mean?

[diebitter]

It refers to VPIP/PFR stats.


If you don't know what these are, look at www.pokertracker.com for help.

[Jingleheimer]

In MP, fees keeps his range almost the same as UTG, adding only:
A9s, ATo, KJo, KJs, KTs

He does not say it explicitly here or elsewhere in the PF section, but I assume this is an open raising range. If we have a limper in front of us, do we limp any of this range (or even add some hands like Axs?), or are we just raise or fold this range?

He does discuss adjusting the range for the purposes of isolation, but absent a read that would prompt you to iso, what is your action? Raise the range as if UTG had folded?

He also mentions that for tight games we could add A8s and A5s to our opening range. I assume A5s but not A6s is because of the straight possibilities- is there really that much of a difference between these two hands?

3 betting
In MP we also have our first opportunity to 3bet. (UTG, if we are 3 betting, we have limped, which is not part of our strategy). If we 3bet, UTG must have raised, and that is a big show of strength, so we only 3 bet with the goods, basically AK and QQ+, adding AJs, AQ, KQs, TT, and JJ given reads.

We can also 3 bet light, but because we have players with position on us and UTG displayed strength, we don't do that very often, only 20% of the time we 3bet. These light 3 betting hands are mostly IO hands, 56s - QJs, Axs, 22-77 and two TP hands, KQo and AJo. We won't get into too much trouble with the IO hands because any pairs they make won't be that strong, whereas if we make straights or flushes we can win a big pot. Suited aces are ok for 3 betting because they decrease the chance UTG has AA or AK by card removal and so we won't get 4 bet as much.

He recommends calling with small pairs to the UTG open in general.

He has a discussion on stack sizes, and from the formatting, it appears that this is part of the 3 betting section (Maybe not- are we really 3 betting an open from UTG shortie with QJo?). Anyway, for 40BB stacks, we don't play IO anymore, we are going for TP hands and so we remove 22-66, 98s and replace them with KJo, QJo, A9s, ATo. It is noted that this applies to less competent shorties.

[RacersEdge]

He does not say it explicitly here or elsewhere in the PF section, but I assume this is an open raising range. If we have a limper in front of us, do we limp any of this range (or even add some hands like Axs?), or are we just raise or fold this range?
He does discuss adjusting the range for the purposes of isolation, but absent a read that would prompt you to iso, what is your action? Raise the range as if UTG had folded?

I would say you are raising or folding for sure. Like you said basically, an iso play. It kind of solves itself, because pretty much only passive loose players will be open limping UTG, so your goal is to play pots with them in position. You definitely would not want to invite a good player behind you to come over the top of 2 limpers.