Battle of Blinds

Obviously in a six handed game we are going to be in the blinds over 30% of the hands. Even more so in fact, as the players lose their chips and go out. I believe this to be a significant change from other forms of poker that most players regularly play. In the early levels I still employ a slow pace when I am in blinds, but I am not against playing more flops out of the small blind when folded around. I also consider raises to protect my big blind, particularly in later stages of the tournament. I believe in playing my blinds in a cautious but pro-active manner. The bottom line is we must make sure we are giving ourselves the chances to be successful when we are in the blinds. In a nine or ten handed game the blinds are often played more similar to our normal starting hands. In SIXPAKs I believe it is correct to play the blinds a bit more actively and creatively. Because you are in the blinds so much more often, we simply can not afford to give them up all the time (from level 2 or 3 on). If you are a strong post flop player you can limp a lot from the small blind. If you are not so strong post flop, folding or making a standard raise makes more sense. Of course our player notes come back into play here. Does the player to my left allow me to limp a lot? Or will he auto-raise versus a limper (in which case we can set him up nicely for a later trap-limp)? I believe if you concentrate on your blinds win ratio and rethink how often you’re in the blinds during short handed play it will benefit your game.

Win Expectations

For the professional poker player their ultimate goal is to win. The SIXPAK format is not going to be the best choice for everyone. I personally know several winning players that don't do well in this format. Like I said earlier, it is fast paced and when you multi table like I do, the action is nothing short of furious. There are a number of ways to track your play and I highly recommend that you do so. If you need help doing this, feel free to contact me via my webpage www.buzzerpoker.com and I will send you my excel sheet that I personally use to track my results. I believe a good goal to shoot for is +10%. If you are able to reach +10% after playing 1.000 SixPaks you are very likely to be a winning player. If you ever lose 50 units of your bankroll (hence 1.650 at 30+3) the alarm bells should be ringing, if you ever lose 100 units you have to face reality. If you are struggling at SixPaks after a significant sample size, perhaps this format is not suitable for you and you should rethink your overall strengths and weaknesses. You are not on an unlucky run; you simply are not a winning SIXPAK player. Tracking and looking at your results will give you the ability to make good financial decisions. Through tracking I’ve found out that for me 6-8 tabling works best. My ROI goes down slightly from 3-4 tabling but not as significantly as my turnover increases (including the bonuses from the great promotions Betfair Poker offer such as the Leaderboards). But don’t be scared, there are a lot of players making a healthy profit from 2-3 tabling. Start tracking your results today.

Fast Late

Wow Buzzer moved all in with 94 off!!!!! True I have done it many times. Actually at times I did it so often that a new verb was created. To “buzzer someone” means to move all-in on someone from the SB vs. the BB. As I stated earlier, slow early fast late is my preferred playing method. The fact of the matter is most of my moves late in a tournament are dictated by position, level AKA blinds, chip stacks and equity equations. Not by my cards. Or in other words “Who wants to call? Who can afford to call? Who has to call?” Three and four handed situations are very aggressive as typically the blinds are high and someone is scrambling for chips. At this stage we are going to make some very important decisions and the tight players are now at a disadvantage. We simply can't wait for a monster hand anymore and must loosen our starting hand requirements and eventually even to the "any 2 will do" phase. The mathematical background is that if you maybe can steal the BB twice at massive blinds and then the third time your 49o is “caught” by AK you may already be free-rolling with the chips from the two recent steals plus your 49o has a 33.15% chance to outdraw 66.84%. By the way, that is why some people think I am lucky, because in 33% of the cases my 49o will outdraw your AK.
Finally I must emphasise the importance of head to head play as the WINNER takes an additional 50% of the prize pool so the stakes are very high. I believe being an above average head to head player is critical to your success. Rethink your head to head strategies as the stakes are just too high to not pay attention to this critical skill. Of course often by the time we get to head to head the blinds are so high that even the very best head to head players have little advantage. Being prepared to be the best head to head player you can be goes along way in being successful at SIXPAKs.

Good luck at the tables, and I hope that my advice will help you become a profitable SIXPAK player.

Buzzer