In the first part of the article we looked at Six plus Hand Rankings, where it became clear that the 16 cards missing from the deck in this variant leads to a slight, but important, changes in how strong the starting hands are which we will receive.
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Poker is one of the easiest gambling card games to learn. The whole game is about matching up different combinations of cards to beat other players hands. As poker is played with one 52-card deck, there are a limited number of variations you can have. It's easy to learn the different types of hands.
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List Of Best Poker Hands
Pocket Aces
If we look at traditional Texas Hold’em starting hands, we would expect to get our beloved AA about once every 221 hands, so what about in our new version of the game?
Well, without troubling you with the maths (I CAN do it, honestly!) the answer is you’ll get your pocket rockets once every 105 hands, which is more than twice as often as in Texas Hold’em!
Naturally, what goes for aces also goes for the other pairs – you’ll have a pocket pair more than twice as regularly in Six plus Hold’em (as will your opponent! Don’t forget this important consideration).
Are there any other changes we need to know about regarding starting hands?
Let's Say We have JJ
A naturally tricky starting hand in Texas Hold’em, but one we would probably open-raise with pre-flop. How does it fare in Six Plus?
We need to realize that instead of beating nine other pairs pre-flop, now it is only a favorite against 5, and still a dog to QQ, KK and AA. So it is not as strong in this respect.
However, because 3 of a kind now beats a straight in Six Plus, flopping a set becomes very strong against many hands – flushesare harder to come by, as we saw previously, because there are only nine cards of any single suit available in the deck.
So, how often will our smaller pairs flop a set? In Texas Hold’em it’s about 11.8% or roughly one time in eight. In Six Plus, we will do the maths quickly (just to prove I can!)
There are 36 cards in the pack, we have – let’s say again – JJ in our hand. So there are two jacks left in the 34 remaining cards.
What About the Hated 72 Offsuit?
In traditional Texas Hold’em this is the worst starting hand, and almost completely unplayable. Well, as you can probably work out yourself quite easily, in Six Plus the equivalent hand is J 6 offsuit, which, let’s be honest, would rarely be played even in our normal game!
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Playing AK Becomes an 'Interesting' Problem
Well, first off, we will be dealt AK about 2.5% of our hands – which is quite a lot of the time, maybe once every five or six rounds at a full ring table, so it’s important enough to learn its worth in Six Plus Hold’em.
If we accept that suited versions become a lot more valuable - flushes beat full houses in our new version - then it can also make sense to play AKs slower than usual. Mixing our game up with AKs hides our play better, while AKo is still a very strong hand which we can 3-bet and even consider stacking off with.
Small Pairs
Of course 66 now becomes the smallest pocket pair. In Texas Hold’em we could consider calling pre-flop raises with this hand if the price was right – flopping a set and cracking a higher pair is our main goal – but now we have to consider that we are essentially playing 22 in a game where set-over-set sees our 6’s screwed, although on the plus side they do now beat straights!
Relative Hand Values
We need to be aware that these change a fair bit from Texas Hold’em, since stronger hands in general are being played across the board. Top pair, top kicker is nowhere near as strong – in fact it is very unlikely to win on its own as a best hand at showdown in 6-max or full-ring when we play Six Plus Hold’em.
There is also the ‘alternative river version’ of the game to consider, when receiving an extra hole card means that hand strengths can become stronger still.
So, in general two pair would be a median winning hand at full-ring – a useful thing to know when planning your hand strategy!
We will look at the change in Pot Odds in part 3, but a casual glance at things like ‘drawing hands’ shows that we are more likely to his many of them, as we have fewer cards left containing the same number of outs. For example, a gutshot – where any of four cards hits for us – now gives us 4/31 chances to hit after the flop, as opposed to 4/47 in Texas Hold’em – a significant difference indeed!
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Over the course of five entries in this series, we've gone over a number of relevant concepts applied to short deck hold'em. We've covered the basic rules, the odds, and delved into strategies applicable to preflop and postflop play.
With the groundwork for an understanding of short deck laid out, it's time to look over some hands wherein players are putting these concepts into practice.
To start off with, we'll look over a hand from the recent Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju HK$1,000,000 (~$128,000) Short Deck Ante Only.
At this point in the tournament, 16 players remained from a field of 81, so it was getting close to the money. Antes were 12,000 with a 24,000 ante on the button. Justin Bonomo started with about 950,000 on the button, with Gabe Patgorski covering and playing 1.5 million in the cutoff. Bonomo had recently been caught bluffing for double the size of the pot.
The Action
'Jungleman' Dan Cates opened action by calling in the hijack with , Patgorski called in the cutoff with and Bonomo checked his option on the double ante with .
The flop came and Cates checked. Patgorski bet 50,000 and Bonomo called, with Cates folding to leave them heads up.
The turn brought the and Patgorski slowed down with a check. Bonomo bet 100,000 and Patgorski called. On the river, Patgorski checked again and Bonomo stuck in all but the last few crumbs of his 789,000. Patgorski took some thinking time, but eventually conceded the pot.
Concept and Analysis
First off, we see in action a concept from Part 3 of this series. Isaac Haxton pointed out that players who aren't on the button are getting a great price to put in one more ante to try to see the flop and Cates does just this by limping in with a mediocre .
Patgorski just calls as well despite holding a decent suited ace. Remember, suited cards help you far less in short deck compared to regular no-limit, but this is still a hand many players will raise in this spot.
Bonomo opts to check and it goes three ways to a highly coordinated flop. Everyone has a little something here as Patgorski had top pair and a straight draw while the others each have a blocker to the current nuts. Patgorski bets about half of the pot, and given that he likely has the best hand here — Bonomo checked and could have any two, while Cates limped from late position — that seems sound enough.
Short Deck Poker Book
Bonomo perhaps senses an opportunity. First off, if a ten comes out, he'll have a straight. While gutshots are an object of some derision when it comes to hold'em, we know from Part 2 of this series that in short deck they come in about a quarter of the time, which isn't insignificant.
Furthermore, he already has a blocker to the nuts and if a diamond hits, he has both a flush draw and another blocker to a strong hand. Plus, they're deep-stacked with a stack-to-pot ratio of more than four still. He has room to maneuver and opts to float.
On the turn, Bonomo not only still has a blocker to a straight, but he picks up the nut diamond blocker as the falls. Now, Patgorski checks and Bonomo has a pretty good bluffing opportunity. The fact that Patgorski bet the flop and the top card paired is a bit concerning, but it's not a given that he has trips. Furthermore, because this is short deck, even if he's already full — which isn't that likely because he'd have had to have limped a big hand — Bonomo is still drawing live in the worst-case scenario.
When Patgorski calls his bet, it seems most likely he has trip aces, with a straight also a possibility. He certainly could also have a low flush himself though, having limped in for the minimum in late position.
On the river, Bonomo picks up some showdown value that's almost certainly worthless. He probably needs to bluff to win the hand and he has the nut flush blocker, but what sizing should he choose? If he thinks Patgorski has at least trip aces, a small bet may not do it. Shoving for over the size of the pot likely gives him the best chance to induce a fold, and he does so.
Now, it's on Patgorski and the situation is tough. He has a straight and he has an ace in his hand to block some full houses that beat him, but Bonomo is most likely shoving this big for value with flushes.
Bonomo just checked preflop, so he could certainly have any two suited cards. What makes it especially hard for him to be bluffing, though, is his flop action. Heads up, it might be a little more plausible to think Bonomo might show up with some bluffs, but he called on the flop with a third player behind him.
Some of the plausible bluffs, as the commentators pointed out, would be hands that make a straight where Bonomo is turning his hand into a bluff. Especially plausible would be something with one diamond in it. Patgorski has to consider that a possibility, and in those cases he'd only be calling to chop.
Finally, there's a meta factor with Bonomo having recently been caught bluffing for over the pot. Does that make it more or less likely he's bluffing?
Who knows, but as Bobby Baldwin once said, the second bluff against a good player is the good one. And Bonomo got the second one through here.
Tags
tournament strategybet sizingbluffingblockersJustin BonomoGabe PatgorskiDan Catesshort deck hold’emsix-plus hold’empostflop strategyboard texturerangesrange readingTriton Super High Roller SeriesRelated Room
Full TiltRelated Players
Justin BonomoDan CatesGabe Patgorski