It's very important to pay attention to PF ranges in 6-max. It's also important to remember the truism of NL poker that you can frequently bet very loosely but you can almost never call loosely. This is generally true both pre and post-flop. But, all else being equal, there will be far more spots in 6-max where it is totally incorrect to even bet or raise loosely than in HU.
Quote:
Originally Posted by absoludicrous
However, you really need to be aware of your preflop opening ranges in EP and MP. It's ok to 3-bet from the button very light, but don't get into the habit of opening 63s UTG (because you would OTB at HU).
I was just going to deposit on a U.S.-facing site and get into 6-max for the first time basically ever.
The bolded part to me is really interesting because there are clearly situations or tables where opening 63s would be profitable from UTG. The problem, of course, is that if you were doing that your opening range would be so comically wide that everyone at the table would immediately notice and you could expect to start getting three-bet a lot. Even if you were getting three bet just 5% more by one player, the window for 63s being opened UTG being profitable would likely close. In fact, almost all non-premium hands would quickly become -EV when 3-betting increased or blind steal equity decreased beyond a high level.
BUT, what's interesting about six-max is that every move that any one opponent might try to make to exploit your insanely wide range has severe limitations. The one player that should be able to effectively counter you every time is the BB, who can both 3-bet more and call. Will they though?
For example, if MP wanted to exploit our insane opening strategy, he would be putting
himself at risk of being counterexploited by
other players. Even if we were opening 50% UTG, there is little that MP could really do about it, beyond subtly tweaking his range.
This is probably one example of why 6-max has no equilibrium. Obviously, in this situation, if two or more players were colluding, even on just the PF decision, they could exploit us hard while not exploiting each other. But if they don't collude, MP and cutoff could do very little without opening themselves up to serious problems.
Translated into EV, it means their profitable range would only marginally increase if the players yet to act were known to adjust to wider openers.