Aggression is key in six limit Texas hold’em
Aggression is key in any form of poker and it is difficult to be successful in any form of poker without being aggressive at some stage. In no limit Texas Hold em then you can be very successful in full ring games only winning a very tiny percentage of pots. However in six max games in limit hold’em then life is a whole lot different and also more demanding. You simply need to fight for pots in this form of poker more so than most others as the demand for you to win pots is much higher.
In limit hold’em and especially six handed then if you do not fight for the pots that you play then you will basically stand no chance. Let us look at an example here to show you what I mean. It has been raised by the hijack seat and you have Q-10 on the button. Now if you fold this hand and stay out of trouble then you cannot come to any harm in the hand. You could easily be three betting the best hand anyway and so folding lowers variance and is not a terrible play.
However if you are folding because you know with firm evidence that you are losing to your opponents range then you have made a sound play. However folding just because you do not want to play a Q-10 is a different matter as this indicates the wrong mindset for this form of poker. If your opponent has opened with an A-9 and you three bet with Q-10 then you may not stand that badly. If your opponent plays weak-tight then you may be able to get them from the hand with aggressive post flop action.
Also if you three bet then you may be able to create dead money in the pot when other players fold. If you are playing say $2-$4 and the hijack raised to $4 and you three bet to $6 then if both blinds fold then you may find that you get $3 of dead money in the pot from the blinds. The flop comes J-J-4 and your opponent checks and you bet and they call. Many players check-call flops but then give up on the turn. So if a card comes on the turn that is neither a nine nor an ace then a follow up turn bet will probably take the pot down as you are facing your opponent with having to call two big bets with basically nothing.
But in six handed limit hold’em then the average pot size may only be six big bets and so would be $24 in this $2-$4 game. So if you only win one pot per orbit then your total win may be only $24. Now it would be fair to say that no more than $12 of this would be your money. This would be countered by you losing a possible $3 in blind money and also money that you lose in other pots. So it could be possible that a player who only wins one pot in every six may not be beating the rake. So if you are doing worse than this and are only winning one pot in every eight or nine hands then you have a major problem. You are simply not playing aggressively enough and aggression needs to be injected into your game. You must accept variance in poker to hold your own and reap the rewards and so in a way you should embrace it.