Poker Short Deck Strategy

1. What Is Short Deck Poker
2. Online Poker Strategy
3. Planning Poker Deck

Some starting hand tips for Short Deck Hold’em

Low connectors such as 7♣ 8♠ are going to have less value, as even if we flop a straight say on a 9♠ 10♠ J♣ board then someone could easily have Q♣ K♠ and we are going to be drawing almost dead.

Drawing hands on flush boards

Our Coach Hans Gusen plays & explains Short Deck (6+) Holdem Strategy on GGPoker, Asia's largest online poker room with global access. Join the Community: h. Run It Once pro Patrick Sekinger runs through the rules of Six-Plus (Short Deck) Hold'Em as well as some initial thoughts on effective strategies during his. Jan 05, 2021 Short Deck Hold’em – also known as Six Plus (6+) Hold’em – is No-Limit Hold’em played with a stripped-down deck. All of the deuces to fives are removed to make the total deck just 36 cards. That means some pretty big changes to the poker hand rankings, game dynamics and to standard Texas Holdem strategy. This is the game where flushes beat full houses, you flop loads of sets, and say goodbye to pocket 3’s. It’s Short Deck Poker. This format is a favorite of both recreational players and high rollers alike. Arguably the most exciting variant of poker available, it’s proven to be a hit amongst the players who love thrilling games of chance.

Will prove less lucrative than in Hold’em for example, we have 8♠ 8♣ and the flop comes down 8♥ 10♥ K♥ in regular hold’em we still have 35% equity on this board even if our opponent has been lucky enough to flop a flush, as we can win with the board pairing or the case 8 rolling off. In Short Deck where flushes out rank full houses our equity is reduced greatly to below 7% as we will need to hit the case 8♦ and making 4 of a kind to bag the win. With other hands such as Q♠ J♠ we have zero equity against a flopped flush, so it is a good idea to keep the pot small with these types of holdings as flushes are so strong players are likely to slow play these types of boards in the hopes of opponents like us hitting our straight draws and then putting in large bets on the river.

Don’t be fooled by big pocket pairs hand strength

Hands like K♠ K♣ are still the second highest ranking hand however the equities run so close in this game that even against a hand such as A♦ K♦we will only drag the pot 55% of the time, compared to the 66% equity we would have with a 52 card deck.
Another eye opener for a new Short Deck hold’em player will be how much equity J♣ 10♣ has even against the strongest of holdings, such as A♦ A♠ we will win this around 40% of the time, around double our chances of that in regular hold’em where we would have 21.5%

Weak Ace High hands have poor playability in Short Deck

In regular No limit Hold’em an offsuit Ace high hand such as A♠ 8♣ would make us a favorite over a suited hand such asQ♦ K♦ in Short Deck hold’em the opposite is true, holding the suited connector would make us a 57% favorite over the Ace high hand. In general, we want to be playing the low offsuit combinations of Ace high rarely and if at all not in bloated pots, as there is never really a great outcome for playing a hand such as A♠ 8♣
For example, if the flop comes A♣ 8♦ J♦this can be deceiving for a modest player as a good flop, we have two pair! Great, Right?! Hmm, not really, these are dicey waters in Short Deck poker, say at worst our opponent is going to continue with a hand like A♥ Q♥ even against this hand we only have a small edge with 53% in equity. The dangerous part about continuing with a board like this in Short Deck is that there aren’t many good turns or river cards for our hand, any next card makes straights or better two pairs possible, any diamond makes a flush possible, if the Jack on the board pairs we will have our two pair counterfeited.

Pick good bluff candidates

Middle and bottom pairs are great semi-bluffing hands in Short Deck Hold’em because these pairs have less showdown value and so you are less incentivized to try to check down with them. When called you are more likely to improve your hand as there are fewer cards in the deck.

Have a mixed limping strategy

Limping into pots with a balanced range of strong, medium and weak holdings can not only allow you to see cheap flops with hands that play well on certain boards like suited connectors and pocket pairs trying to connect, but you can also balance this strategy by including hands like A♠K♣, K♣ K♠ and Q♠ Q♣ in your limping range, along with weak holdings such as 6♣ 7♣ and hands of this nature will serve two purposes.

Allows us to limp, 3bet for value VS any aggressive players that are raising hands such as A♣ J♠ and pairs such as 10♠ 10♣ profitably and play bigger pots with a strong range advantage or just pick up the pot pre-flop with even more dead money after the raise and any calls that followed.

The second part of this strategy that can be very lucrative for us, is playing a Pot with a deceptively strong hand after the flop, for example if we include Q♠ Q♣ into our limping range and the flop comes A♠ Q♦ 8♦ and our opponent has a hand like A♠ 8♣ then we are well disguised and set to win some bets from our opponent.

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Six-plus hold 'em (also known as short-deck hold 'em) is a community card poker game variant of Texas hold 'em, where the 2 through 5 cards are removed from the deck. Each player is dealt two cards face down and seeks to make the best five card poker hand from any combination of the seven cards (five community cards and their own two hole cards).^[1]

Rules[edit]

The rules in terms of betting structures, play of the hand, and showdown are the same as in Texas hold 'em. However before play begins all cards 2 through 5 are removed (16 cards), thus the total number of cards in the deck is 36. Aces are high, but same as in Texas hold 'em, can make both low and high end of straights. For example the lowest straight would be (9x-8x-7x-6x-Ax) and the highest (Ax-Kx-Qx-Jx-10x). This changes the probability of hands and alters hand rankings.^[2]

Modified hand rankings[edit]

What Is Short Deck Poker

^†Flush ranks higher than full house. In theory, three-of-a-kind ranks higher than a straight as the probability of achieving three-of-a-kind is lower than a straight in short-deck, however recent games have been ranking straight higher than three-of-a-kind which has become standard.^[3] Some variations of six-plus hold 'em plays with standard Texas hold 'em hand rankings. When calculating for 5 card six-plus hold 'em where each player gets only 5 cards, straights rank higher than three-of-a-kind.

The 2018 Triton Poker tournament series hosted the first televised six-plus hold 'em tournaments. The first Triton Super High Roller HK$250,000 short deck ante-only event was won by Phil Ivey, earning him US$617,396.^[4] The 2018 Triton tournaments ranked straights higher than three-of-a-kind.^[5]

History[edit]

The game originated in 2014 and is popular among high stakes gamblers in Asia due to its high variance.^{[clarification needed]} In 2015, Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan promoted the game in an online video showing this variant of Texas hold 'em which is frequently played in Macau, Hong Kong and Manila.^[6][7]

Online Poker Strategy

Notes[edit]

1. ^'Six Plus Hold'em'. PokerVIP. 13 June 2015. Retrieved 2017-08-28.
2. ^Gheorghe, Florain (14 March 2016). 'The New Six Plus Holdem'. PokerTube. Retrieved 2017-08-28.
3. ^DellaFave, Robert (2016-02-25). 'Six Plus Holdem Launches - How Will It Impact iPoker Liquidity?'. Online Poker Report. Retrieved 2017-08-28.
4. ^Fast, Erik (2018-05-14). 'Phil Ivey Wins Triton Poker Montenegro $250,000 HKD Short Deck Event'. cardplayer.com. Retrieved 2018-05-17.
5. ^CardsChat Tournament News (2018-05-14). 'Phil Ivey Wins 'Short Deck' Poker Tournament in Montenegro for $605K'. Cardschat. Retrieved 2018-05-17.
6. ^Rettmuller, Charles (10 June 2015). ''Six Plus Hold'em' Promoted by Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey'. PokerTube. Retrieved 2017-08-28.
7. ^Weldon, Alex (2015-06-11). 'What the Heck is Six-Plus Hold'em?'. Part Time Poker. Retrieved 2017-08-28.

External links[edit]

• Six Plus Hold'em on PokerNews
• Beginners Tips on Sixplusholdem.com

Planning Poker Deck