Adjusting Your Hand Ranges For Six-Handed Games

Things you will learn:

• Why you should play more hands at a six-max table
• Why having a smaller number of opponents affects the game

Every single game has some kind of edge, however small, for the best players in it. It is simply a case of knowing how to adjust to different conditions and responding appropriately. One important aspect of this is adjusting your starting hand ranges. But to do that, we must start from a solid foundation.

So what are good opening ranges in six-max cash games?

• Firstly, all the players you are playing with will have full stacks
• Secondly, the table will be a mixture of LAGfish (players that utilise aggression with marginal hands too much), TAGfish (players that play far too tight with far too narrow a range), regular fish (players that are too tight passive/loose passive) and a couple of good players
• Another assumption is that you never open-limp, not even to complete the small blind, without good reason. These reasons might be that you are being three-bet a lot by a good player, that the presence of short-stacks at the table means you are getting jammed on a lot without the equity to call and a bunch of other plausible excuses

Keep in mind that as you move up through the levels your opponents will be able to narrow down your ranges pretty accurately, so you must always incorporate some marginal hands in all positions to keep your opponents guessing and ensure they are not able to completely own you post-flop.

UTG is the most vulnerable position for you to enter a pot from as you are out of position and have far less pot control. As you move up, position gets more and more important. As soon as you start playing $400NL you realise how exploitable you are when out of position against even half decent players.

You have far less options on every street which is pretty disastrous. As such you only really play your best hands here, plus the odd bluff to keep up appearances. A profitable range that is not too tight but is definitely profitable is:

• 7-7 and better (pairs)
• A-J suited and better
• K-Q suited and better
• 7-8 suited (occasionally drop these into the mix, or whatever is your favourite goofy hand, just to keep your range wide)

If you are at a tighter, ‘nittier’ table you can definitely open it up a bit more, including all pairs and K-Q, plus a few more suited connectors. The reason is that your hands will be fairly easy to play post-flop, as you are showing serious strength from raising UTG and have the initiative in the hand.

You won’t be involved in too many multi-way pots so can continuation bet a very high percentage of the time and as they are so tight, they will fold a lot. Obviously if you get any heat you fold and you must keep slowing down and speeding up to prevent being exploited by anyone noticing your adjustments.

If you are at a loose table (most $100 and $200 tables) you have to tighten up and get rid of the more disguised hands that won’t flop big enough, often enough in multi-way pots to be profitable. Stick to high card value, where you will make bigger pairs with better kickers which should enable you to extract money.

So probably lose the suited connectors and possibly even 7-7 / 8-8 and replace those hands with A-10 off-suit / K-Q off-suit. Basically, against fish you need to show up with strong top-pair good kicker hands which will enable you to extract chips.

Middle position is a little easier to play, but not by a lot. You still want to be playing the top end of your range here and not a lot more. If the table is playing to tight, there are players that tilt badly present or the stacks are more than 150 big blinds deep, open up your range significantly. You will have the initiative and deeper stacks allow you to have more manoeuvrability down later streets.

Almost everyone’s UTG raising ranges are tight and as such you should only really be 3-betting Q-Q and above, and A-K. The problem with J-J and A-Q is that we are not sure whether or not we are significantly ahead.

If your table is relatively lively you can re-raise Q-Q / J-J and even 10-10, for value. But versus a tight player, you cannot be sure if you are bluff-raising or value raising, which can be confusing down later streets. It is fine to flat call with these hands.

In the cutoff we can start to really open our range up significantly. The main point now is that you are very often going to have position on your opponents. Position is 9/10ths of the law. Now we can start isolating bad players that limp and re-raising middle position openers.

A standard 6M raising range in the cutoff is something like:

• All your MP range
• 2-2 and above
• A-2, A-3, A-5 suited. These hands are really powerful in position as you can put immense pressure on players on some boards and always have good equity.
• 5-6 suited
• J-10 off-suit

Depending on the table, how often you are being played back at from the blinds and what your image is you can add the following. Because being in position is so fantastic you can profitably raise the following in most games, unless you just sat down at a random table without doing your homework.

• Suited one-gappers: hands such as 7-9 suited 8-10 suited
• High suited two gappers: hands such as J-8 suited
• A-x suited (where x is any card)

The ability to flop a flush draw plus over is a huge advantage. You can put lots of pressure on players with a flush draw which frequently hits some kind of combo draw also.

You should note, however, that adding a bunch of hands in the cutoff is only useful if you are at a good table. If you are getting played back at a lot by the button/blinds then don’t raise them. If players are regularly limp/calling then calling your continuation bets then tighten up a bit, at least until your image is repaired.

Keep changing gears. Don’t just keep pressing the pot button in late position because then you will exploitable and you really don’t want people playing back at you. A decent image can be very useful at times, particularly at looser more aggressive tables.

To re-raise a mid-position raiser you usually need to maintain a high value raise to bluff raise ratio. Something like four value raises to every bluff raise will keep the pressure really on.

You don’t really want to be 3-betting the dominated junk broadway hands like K-J / Q-10 that can get you into trouble, but you can definitely add some more suited connectors. Your value betting range should now include 9-9 and above, A-J suited and K-Q suited as you will have the initiative and the all important position.

This is the most profitable seat at the table so you want to be playing a lot of hands. All you are really after is to nick the blinds and isolate any weak players limping, so you don’t need to think twice about raising something playable such as Q-8 suited or 3-5 suited on the button.

Stealing the blinds is so important that you should be willing to raise almost every unopened button until the blinds adjust. And when they start to, you just tone it down a little then hammer again once they have cooled off.

At tighter tables, you can probably open any two cards on the button. At looser tables, this simply gets you into a lot of spots where you feel compelled to double-barrel. If in doubt, tighten up. If you still get no respect, completely change your range and go back to playing solid ABC poker - it is the logical adjustment.

Generally this is where you bluff-raise the most and where you get the most out of line. Because you will be last to act on every street and you can play poker, you can be confident you are getting the best out of the situation a lot of the time. It is where you can really punish the table for mistakes and capitalise on cultivating an image if you need to.

At $1/$2 and $2/$4 occasionally squeezing a mid-position raiser and a cutoff call is very effective. It just looks so strong and until your opponents recognise what you are up to, you can get away with blue murder. Always be aware of your image and the table dynamic, but you can almost certainly get away with a three value re-raise to two bluff re-raise ratio.