Six-Handed vs. Ten-Handed Tables / By Matt Lessinger
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Log onto Titan Poker, and you will see many more active six-handed hold'em
tables than ten-handed ones. I think there are various reasons why they became
popular, but you need to consider whether they are right for you personally. I
would base my decision on three main guidelines:
- Are you a new player?
- How patient are you?
- How good are you at bluffing?
Are you a new player?
If you are, then anytime you're involved in a hand, your energy is usually
focused on your own cards. After a little while, you start to think ahead about
the actions you plan to take with them. It takes some time before you begin to
pay attention to your opponents. The thing is, your opponents probably have more
experience than you do, and just watching how they play is a great way to learn.
To improve your game the most, you really need a table at which you can spend
more time observing than playing.
The problem with six-handed tables is that, to have the best chance of winning, you usually need to play about half your hands. Since you're forced to play so often, you really don't have too much opportunity to just sit and watch your opponents. Plus, the lack of downtime is often overwhelming to many new players.
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That's why, whenever a newbie asks me for advice about where to get started, I
always direct them towards ten-handed tables. A tight pre-flop strategy will
have them playing only about one quarter of their hands, and that gives them
plenty of time to observe and learn, while still getting valuable playing
experience.
Noting stack size is extremely important in any tournament, but knowing people's
exact chip stacks, not only at your table but in the whole tournament, is
something you can do easily when playing online while it is usually impossible
in live play.
How patient are you?
"The cards even out over the long run." Poker players hear that all the time. But plenty of strange things can happen in the short run. You can get hit by the deck and win a week's salary in less than an hour. Or, you can go through fifty to a hundred hands without receiving anything playable.
I doubt that you have much trouble when you are getting incredible cards. The real question is how you deal with a long streak of bad ones. Do you continue to remain disciplined and fold, trusting that the cards will eventually even out? Or, do you force the action, getting involved with subpar hands?
If you have lots of patience and discipline, and can continue to fold bad hands without getting too frustrated, then you are much better off at ten-handed tables, where those traits are rewarded. Even if you go sixty hands without playing one, it is not disastrous. You will have sacrificed roughly nine small bets worth of blinds, and that can be recovered with one solid hand. It would be much worse to get impatient and begin playing questionable hands. With nine opponents waiting to pick you off, you would most likely make your bad run of cards even worse, and that would not be so easy to recover from.
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On the other hand, six-handed tables actually punish you if you are too patient!
Don't get me wrong; you still need to exercise some patience. But if you are too
patient, then unless you get a run of strong cards, you will probably bleed off
chips faster than you can accumulate them. It is crucial to get involved in more
hands than at a ten-handed table, for a few reasons:
1. The blinds come around almost twice as fast. If you don't loosen up your
starting hand requirements, the blinds will grind you down while you're waiting
for premium hands. You'll most likely start out in a hole, from which you may
never be able to climb out.
2. You have fewer opponents to beat. On average, you can expect to have the best
hand one time per orbit, so now you can expect to win one time in six rather
than one in ten. If you keep the same hand guidelines as those which are aimed
towards winning one hand in ten, you'll be at a distinct disadvantage.
3. With less opponents contributing to the pot, the pots are often smaller in six-handed games. Therefore it's necessary to win more of them.
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Does this mean you should go berzerk and play completely loose and wild? Definitely not. I advise my students to make a simple adjustment. Let's say they have starting hand requirements in a ten-handed game based on early, middle, and late position, which is fairly standard. Obviously the early position hands must be stronger than the middle ones, which must be stronger than the late ones.
When they move to a six-handed game, it's as if the early position, and half of
middle position, no longer exist. So when you are one or two seats past the BB
in a six-handed game, any hand that would be playable from middle-to-late
position in a ten-handed game should now be acceptable. And then, of course,
your starting hand requirements from the cutoff and button should be fairly
loose, just as they would be if you were playing ten-handed.
The question is, when you are playing ten-handed, how good are you at playing
tight from early position? Other than playing from the blinds, early position is
where players lose the most money, usually because they played something
marginal and got punished for it. If you are good at recognizing the importance
of position, and play a solid tight game from the early spots, then I think
ten-handed is for you.
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If instead, you usually lose because you got out of line in early position,
six-handed is definitely better for you. Early position is non-existent, so you
don't have to worry about playing super-tight at any point. You'll still pay the
price if you get too loose, but the cost will be much less. And if you have
opponents that are making the mistake of playing super-tight, you may even run
over the table and book a big win.
How good are you at bluffing?
Ah, now we are getting into my territory. I love to bluff. You may think that means I also love to play in six-handed games, but you'd be surprised. Even though I think bluffing is one of the strongest parts of my game, I still prefer ten-handed tables. You may find that counter-intuitive, but bluffing has its place in both types of games, and I'll discuss that topic in detail in my next article. I hope to see you then.
Matt Lessinger is a longtime professional poker player and writer, and is the author of The Book of Bluffs: How to Bluff and Win at Poker.
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