Tag beginner

If you are a winning cash game player, your profits come from outplaying weaker opponents. If you are a barely winning player, it means you are barely better than recreationals, but worse than other winning players.

 If you are a regular with a good winrate it means you are better at winning more money from recreational players, while also probably not losing money to regs.

 If you are an elite Short Deck player with a 20+bbEV win rate it means you are winning the maximum from recreationals and even winning from weak regs, who, while being able to win at around 5-7bb win rate, probably play too obvious versus regs and are vulnerable to being exploited by better players.

The quickest way to improve your win rate is to become tough to play against versus regs, at least as much as they don’t target you, and to win the maximum from recreationals. 

To do that, the first thing you should learn is to classify recreationals in many, deeper categories. Not just ‘’fish’’ or at best ‘’aggro fish’’ and ‘’calling station’’. In this article I will attempt to show the categories you should use for recreationals and how to win the maximum money versus each group. 

Passive, station ABC recreational

As a Short Deck player, you want these guys at your table the most. These are players who play a lot of hands preflop and call ISO out of position a lot to try to flop something. They play very obvious postflop. They will call along if they flop something average and will raise and fast play their good hands, because they are scared of turns and rivers, without considering opponents ranges etc. 

An example of a typical play from this type of player would be limp / calling 8c9h preflop 100ante deep vs a 9a ISO and a call from another player. Then check / calling on KcTc6c versus a bet and a call, because a club gives them a flush and a 7 gives them a straight. Then check / calling 8x turn versus a bet and a call, because now his hand has improved to a pair + draws. 

In this player’s head, he hasn’t done anything wrong. He called preflop 89o because it is connected and can make straights. He called on the flop, because now he can make straights or flushes on the turn. He called on the turn because now he also has a pair. But an experienced player will recognize that this player made a mistake preflop, because 89o plays badly postflop, especially out of position

In postflop situations, you should avoid letting him control the action. Regs will often try to call all-in jams with marginal hands because they see that the player is aggressive, but once again, you have to consider their range and whether aggro fish is betting allin with weak hands. Often these guys will stab flop and turn very loose but will have a decent range when they decide to go allin. 

Avoid slowplaying too much because in 6+ equities can change very quickly. And don’t be afraid to make some resteals if you are playing against a player who stabs too loose. If you have this type of player, you want to target him. If possible, you want to get a position on him, so you can play in more hands against them. 

Versus this type of player you want to ISOlate preflop to try to get in a situation postflop, where you are heads up against him, with position and range advantage. Then on the flop, it will be easy to get value when you have a better handand it will be easy to get away from a hand when he shows aggression. 

It’s important to distinguish between a card chaser and a calling station. Card chasers will become a lot more passive once the river comes, while calling stations are happy to call all streets, even if the river bet is all-in and he is not that strong. So versus calling stations, you want to ISOlate and bet value, but versus these ABC recreational, high VPIP card chasers, you will do a lot of bluffing actually. That’s because they will be very honest when they are not strong and you can use this to steal pots. And since it’s 6+ holdem, all pots are big due to antes, so stealing pots is more profitable compared to regular hold’em. 

Below is an example where you should fire 3 bullets versus this type of player:

Preflop 100a deep: rec limps CO, you ISO BTN 9a, he calls CO, everyone else folds

Flop 679, he checks, you bet 9a, he calls

Turn K, he checks, you bet 21a, he calls

River 6 and he checks and you bet allin

If you have a type of player who fastplays his hands on the flop, because he is scared of draws, this is a great spot to bluff. Since he is check / raising his sets and straights on the flop he is very capped in this spot.

K on the turn and 6 on the river doesn’t help his range much, because he doesn’t have a lot of Kx on his flop check / calling range and he doesn’t have a lot of 6x in his preflop calling range. So he will mostly have hands like 78, 98, 1010 etc. These hands he will probably fold to a river bet because from his point of view, there is so much that beats his hand. Straights, full houses, AK etc. He will not consider that in your range you have almost no straights or fullhouses except KK. 

This might seem like a very specific example but I see these type of players a lot. The biggest mistake to make against these guys is to fire 2 bullets and stop, since he will be calling more flops and turns than the average player. You can also adjust by checking turns with a semi draw, and then see what he does on the river.

Regulars

No one likes playing against good players, but as long as there are recreationals there will be regs. The good news is, regs are often easier to put on a range, since you know how they play. 

Especially on lower stakes, some regs might be as easy to play against as fish, since they play a very obvious exploitative strategy that works well versus fish, but they are losing money to regs by not being balanced. 

Some regulars, especially the ones who are taking a shot at higher stakes will try to avoid playing pots versus other regs or will decline taking those high variance spots that are more ev+, instead choosing to softplay other regs in hopes that they will do the same. But this is a mistake for 2 reasons. 

1. The elite regs will take these slightly more ev+ spots even if they are higher variance (like if checking down is +0.5bb but bluffing and jamming river is +1.5bb). So in the long term, you will be losing more money to them by avoiding these spots than by taking the highest ev+ option every time. 
   
2. If you find a reg who is avoiding playing pots versus you and who is avoiding these high variance spots when playing you, it means you can win even more from him if you do decide to play as tough as possible versus him. It means this other reg feels uncomfortable in these high variance spots and will probably overfold.

   That also works in multiway pots. Let’s say you are playing a 3 handed pot versus a weak reg and a fish. Reg makes a standard c-bet, fish calls and you have a hand where raising is slightly better than calling but obviously, a higher variance play. The added bonus is that if the weak reg is holding a hand where he is supposed to call your raise and then call down your turn and river bets due to amount of bluffs you have he might often choose to fold and sacrifice a little bit of EV, but avoid big pots versus a good reg and avoid these tough spots. Now, you are not only winning more EV from the reg but you have also successfully isolated the fish if he decides to call your raise, therefore winning even more EV.

   If you are playing chess and your opponent offers you a draw, 90% of the time it means he is doing worse. The same applies to your relationship on tables with other regs. If someone is avoiding playing pots with you it means he is scared, so you should increase your pressure on him, so he will avoid you as much as possible and you are left alone to outplay the fish. Another added bonus is that if a weaker reg gets bullied by you constantly he might end up avoiding sitting on a table with you by leaving and his seat then might be taken by a fish.

   If you want peace prepare for war, if you keep playing very tough against regs and keep pushing them around they are more likely to leave you alone

Aggressive Recreationals

For new players these are often the toughest ones to play against. When you have a player who is obviously doing mathematically wrong things like calling preflop all-ins versus 1 player with 109o or doing crazy bluffs, you instantly realize that this player is a losing player and you are supposed to win money from him, but it can sometimes be tough to play against these guys because unless they are openjamming every hand, even their mathematically bad decisions have some sort of login behind them. So again, you have to put them in deeper categories. 

Some guys are crazy preflop. They are willing to gamble and call all-ins loosely, but they might be more conservative postflop. You need proof of craziness postflop to start making loose calls postflop. Some guys you might classify as loose because they bet a lot of flops. But these guys might slow down once called or raised.

Often these players are emotional. They might start playing very loose after losing a big pot but then, after doubling up, they might lock down and play conservative until the next lost all-in. So an important thing here is to keep track of the player’s state of mind. If I am facing a 50/50 decision of calling or folding to a jam I think of how this aggressive player is doing emotionally. If he just lost a big hand I am leaning towards calling, if he just sucked out, I might lean towards folding. It doesn’t mean he will become a tight player just because he won a hand, but most recreationals like to enjoy their win for a hand or two before they jump back into being aggro donks.

But let’s assume you are playing an aggro fish and you have enough hands to make these reads:

• high VPIP (plays too many hands)
• sometimes limps but sometimes open raises preflop (all kinds of sizings, 3x, 5x and 9x)
• can bluff if they sense weakness
• Overplays average hands
• Realizes basic hand values and won’t just check / call all streets with 1 bad pair

So against this guy, you also want to isolate him, and here his preflop exploitativeness needs to be used against him. Smaller sizing preflop when open raising often means a weaker hand. So if I see this player raising 3x from utg1 I might 3bet to 12a from CO to either win this hand preflop or if he calls, I can outplay him postflop. If you just call these small raises preflop, you are losing money from situations when this player folds preflop and you pick up all the dead antes and you are risking a situation where BTN can reraise and you have to fold. Or, BTN can just call too and now you are squeezed between 2 players and not in position anymore. 

If this same player opens 9x next hand, I might fold AJo preflop because even though his VPIP is too high, his 9x opening range dominates my range.

In postflop situations, you should avoid letting him control the action. Regs will often try to call all-in jams with marginal hands because they see that the player is aggressive, but once again, you have to consider their range and whether aggro fish is betting all-in with weak hands. Often these guys will stab flop and turn very loose, but will have a decent range when they decide to go all-in. 

Avoid slowplaying too much because in 6+ equities can change very quickly. And don’t be afraid to make some resteals if you are playing against a player who stabs too loose. 

For example, in a 3-way pot, aggro fish bets on a flop of A67, extra player folds and you are holding 97 on the button. If you know he c-bets too much and will bet a lot of turns, the best option is to make a small raise from his 4a c-bet to 12 or so. Even aggro fish will probably fold KQ or JJ here, and even if you are wrong and he has AK, you still have a good equity with a pair and a gutshot and now you are controlling the tempo, especially if you are in position. Use hands with pairs + blockers for this move.

Remember to view each player individually and understand in which spots he is aggressive, and don’t get too emotional playing them. It’s easy to get tilted playing these guys and start calling them down too much and not notice that they are no longer jamming loose. Don’t take it personally if they win some all-ins against you. Remember that keeping your cool will make you more money in the long term.

The mental game is everything, once you are at a certain skill-level.

I will cover two specific reasons why the mental game is important if you want to be an elite poker player:

Reason #1: Play more A-game. 

You can learn how to play your A-game more often, reduce B- and C-game and thus dramatically improve your win rate

Reason #2: Improve your overall life.

When you improve your mental game you will also be better at mastering your life away from the tables. 

Let’s explore the two reasons separately. 

Play more A-game

We all have different levels of how well we play. 

We can call these levels A, B, and C.

When we play our A-game we might win 20 ante per 100 hands.

When we play our B-game we might win 10 ante per 100 hands.

When we play our C-game we might lose 5 ante per 100 hands.

When you move your performance away from your worst game and towards your best game it can have dramatic effects on your win rate.

Simply doubling the time you play your A-game and reducing the time you play your C-game by 66 % could make you 60 % more EV over 100.000 hands. 

These results are simple to achieve with the right knowledge, models, and practice.

Improve your overall life

I see over and over again that highly skilled poker players find it difficult to manage their private life. 

Structure, goals, feelings, motivation, fulfillment, gratitude, and consistency are keywords that can be tough to master.

If you do not master these elements, you will likely burn out. 

You will likely become stressed. 

You will probably stay in your comfort zone. 

You won’t achieve your potential.

You won’t feel fulfilled, even though you crush the tables in periods.

The flipside?

Master your life outside the tables.

This will make you go full circle; you will become a highly skilled and mentally strong player.

You will feel better on a day to day basis.

You will have true passion and a burning drive to play great and to play more.

You will become more focused and concentrated.

You will be a better partner, father, son, friend, and family member. Your relationships will skyrocket.

You will become more healthy. 

My endnote is this…

Your biggest opponent is not on the tables. Your biggest opponent is you.

When you decide to work with your mind, everything will change.

Feel free to ask me any question on discord. There’s also a mental strategy thread at the 6+ discord forum + an ongoing meditation challenge where we help each other to stay consistent.

Peter Rasmussen

Poker Mindset Coach

Those are the most common obstacles I hear from mid-high stakes poker players.

They know what to do, and how to do it.

But they still don’t do it.

Why’s that?

It’s simple.

Their subconscious autopilot is programmed in a way that’s holding them back. 

— 

We are creatures of habit.

When we make the same decisions over and over it becomes a subconscious pattern. 

Those subconscious patterns control everything we do, without us realising it.

Now we are programmed to repeat the same patterns on autopilot.

But how is this autopilot created?

— 

Much of our subconscious autopilot has been programmed during our childhood.

We are highly susceptible in our younger years.

We don’t have much critical thinking.

We experience events and make meaning of them. 

Our mind and body saves automatic responses (pain or pleasure) to avoid or seek more of the same in the future.

We also form many of our beliefs in our childhood. 

For instance…

I am lazy. I don’t like to study. I am not intelligent. I don’t deserve to be wealthy. I am a quitter. I have to create extraordinary results to be loved. If I fail, then I am not good enough.

These beliefs create our self-image. 

And self image is one of the most underrated performance hacks.

Because people rarely rise above their opinion of themselves. 

— 

So why do we procrastinate and self sabotage?

Because of our subconscious autopilot that’s controlling 95 % of what we do without us being aware.

And if your autopilot is programmed to avoid failure, to avoid pain at all cost, and to seek short term pleasure – then procrastination and self sabotage is certain.

Your subconscious autopilot will always steer you back to the old patterns.

That’s why more skills are rarely the solution.

You can point your conscious, goal-driven, mind in whatever direction you want.

But 95 % of the time, you are not doing that.

As soon as your willpower drifts off, your subconscious starts to take over.

Hello, procrastination. Hello self sabotage.

— 

Here’s an example:

A client wants to study more.

A normal coach would teach him time management skills. 

Teach him how to structure his day and create time slots for study.

That can definitely work.

But so often time management skills are not the best solution.

Working with the deeper root cause is the best solution.

It could be fear of structure. 

It could be a subconscious belief that “I am not good at studying”. 

When we start to address our subconscious patterns, and reprogram ourselves consciously, that’s when we learn the most amazing capability. 

Self mastery.

Before you spend money on GTO, time-management strategies, and other “hard skills”…

Work on yourself.

Self mastery is THE most important skill for mid-high stakes poker players.

When we have self mastery we become the best version of ourselves. 

And then we start to create amazing results + feel way better about everything.

I made a quick guide on how to deal with your subconscious autopilot so you can avoid procrastination and self sabotage + create more self mastery.

Join our discord and DM @Peter Rasmussen | Mindset Coach

If you’re a gamer, you probably know what Discord is.

The group chat service, however, has now blown up well beyond its original purpose in the gaming world. Perhaps you’ve heard of Discord, though, and are still not quite sure what it is or what it’s for.

Look no further, Sixplusholdem.com will break down Discord for you right here.

What is Discord?

At its core, Discord is a web-based communication app. If you’re familiar with chat services like Slack, which many users are familiar with due to its widespread use in the business world, Discord is in the same category.

However, when Discord was first released by Jason Citron and ​​Stanislav Vishnevskiy in 2015, the app quickly became popular with gamers. Both co-founders worked within the video game industry and were looking to build a better communication tool. So, Discord finding a home amongst the type of users they had in mind made sense.

On Discord, users can participate in voice and video chats, send private text-based messages, and take part in communities, which are called „servers“ on the platform.

Did you know that we run a Short Deck server? You can find the link to join below this article.

Over the years, Discord has grown in popularity and has evolved from being a tool for gamers into a full-fledged service for anyone looking to chat or join online communities. Users can even start their own communities, aka servers, and invite users to join. Inside each server, users can set up channels dedicated to specific topics so that users on each server can congregate with others about the issues they’d like to discuss.

How much does Discord cost?

Discord is completely free to join. Yes, other chat services like Slack have free tiers with messaging limits.

Discord does not have any such limits. It’s completely free to use with complete access to your messages, history, communities, etc. And, furthermore, it’s free to start your own server too.

However, there are paid subscriptions for bonuses and perks.

For $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year, users can sign up for Discord Nitro. This subscription gives users access to free games in Discord’s store and provides platform extras such as animated avatars, custom sitewide emojis, larger file upload sizes and more.

For $4.99 users can subscribe to a cheaper version of the paid service, Discord Nitro Classic, which provides all the platform bonuses except the free games.

Perks, such as extra custom emojis or higher quality audio chats, can also be purchased for a specific server via a server boost. Each server boost costs $4.99. Two server boosts are included with a Discord Nitro subscription.

The two server boost included with the Discord Nitro sub are enough to grant your server access to the first tier. There are three total tiers with each bringing additional paid perks like more slots for custom emojis or even brand new bonuses like a vanity URL for your server.

Where can I access Discord?

Users can access Discord at discord.com and chat on their servers right within their web browser upon signing into their account.

There are also desktop applications for Windows and Mac computers, as well as mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.

How can I use discord for Poker?

There’s no better tool for building a poker community than Discord. You will find many poker servers for all sorts of games and sites, including our server with over 1k members and a decent amount of activity for a niche game like Short Deck is. 

Discord is a great tool to meet like-minded people and in terms of poker it’s ideal to learn strategy, share (poker) news or just have some small talk with fellow grinders. 

On our Short Deck Bootcamp Server, as we call it, we also run frequent promotions and giveaways as well as a very useful hand-discussion channel, where anybody from small to high-stakes can share any hand history and get very valuable feedback from other, more experienced members. 

What are you waiting for? Let’s grow the community and help each other become more successful poker players. 

Join the Shortdeck Bootcamp

When I was done with my coaching certification… 

I was terrified of asking people to pay for my coaching.

Why?

I had skills. I had knowledge. I had my certification. I had good reviews. I had experience. 

I had coached roughly 50 sessions for free.

But there was something holding me back from the next level.

And that something is the key to everything.

How many times have you tried to change?

How many times have you sat down to study…  

… only to find yourself opening social media, checking your phone, or realising that it’s better to clean the house?

How many times have you told yourself to focus on poker when you’re playing… 

… only to find yourself opening up youtube, discord, or other social media?

How many times have you told yourself that you want to exercise and eat more healthy…

… only to find yourself skip today’s workout and eat exactly what you did last week?

You consciously want to be better…

But your behavior is not aligned.

It comes down to one problem…

Your subconscious.

How your subconscious is keeping you stuck

Neuroscience has shown that we have two parts of our brains.

The conscious and the subconscious.

The conscious is the rational, logical, mind. 

The one you set goals with.

The subconscious is the ancient, emotional, habitual mind. 

This is what’s driving a lot of your behavior, without you really thinking about it.

Various research shows that roughly 95 % of our brain’s activity is subconscious.

It is created through patterns. 

Repeated thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that you have conditioned into your mind a lot of times.

This is now your identity.

Who you are.

Only problem?

We are not really aware of how we have ‘programmed’ this part of our mind.

Meaning you are likely to have limiting beliefs, emotional blockages, and disempowering behavioral habits, that you’re not really thinking about.

You’re just living it.

And let me tell you this.

It’s very difficult to get lasting results when your subconscious mind is programmed in a way that’s not aligned with your conscious goals…

Because then you start to…

• Procrastinate…
• Self sabotage…
• Stay in your comfort zone…
• Come up with excuses for why you don’t want to change anyway…

Sounds familiar?

The secret to it all

This is what most coaches fail to tell you.

They only focus on the surface level stuff… 

Like I did in the beginning.

Because I didn’t know better.

And that can be good…

But most often, it’s not really moving the needle.

What really moves the needle is to work with both the conscious and subconscious mind.

The conscious mind is easy. That’s the surface level.

So let me tell you how to rewire your subconscious mind.

How to rewire your subconscious mind

I use three techniques to work with the subconscious mind

1. Meditation
2. Visualization
3. Coaching

Meditation

Research has shown that people who practice mindfulness meditation are better at seeing their subconscious patterns.

To meditate means to “become familiar with”. 

Subconscious means “below awareness”. 

Pretty good match, right?

It is an active training of your mind to become more aware of what’s going on inside of it.

When you train your brain to not just follow what pops up… 

But take a step back and observe it first… 

Then you have increased your ability to make a conscious decision.

Visualization

Visualization is one of my favorite tools.

Brain scans have shown how the mind can physically change simply by imagining something.

The effect is not as powerful as doing it in real life.

But it is a great short cut to condition your subconscious mind into new thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Remember, the more you do something, the more it gets ingrained into your subconscious. 

It is much easier to start to visualize your dreams … to visualize how you overcome obstacles … than actually jumping out of bed and doing it straight away.

Coaching

Coaching is a wide term. 

For me it means to help you get from point A to point B AND teach you how to do it yourself.

For me, asking questions is the heart and soul of coaching.

Coaching is more of a “conscious mind tool” but it can still make an impact on your subconscious.

Because coaching is great for clarity, perspective-shifts, and awareness.

Clarity and awareness is all about figuring out “who am I, and who do I want to be?”

This can lead to a shift in your perspective.

An aha-moment.

Aha-moments have the potential to instantly rewire the way you think.

What should you do now?

I want you to reach out to me if this post resonated with you.

I’ll help you get started with one of the three tools.

Join our discord and talk with Peter Rasmussen in one of our Poker Mindset channels or book a private coaching session.

In poker, there’s so much falling under the “mindset” umbrella.

• Emotional management
• Reframing / Perspective management
• Focus
• Motivation
• Structure
• Productivity
• Goal management

… and so much more.

Take a good look at your poker mindset right now, and answer this question:

How well are you managing your poker mindset from 1-10?

When you are a winning poker player, you have to be professional.

You have to treat your mindset like a professional.

Where to start?

The good news is that there’s a very specific place for you to start to improve your poker mindset.

Working on this one thing is going to influence everything under that “Mindset Umbrella”.

And it is…

Drumroll…

Your thoughts.

Let me tell you a quick story.

I worked with a highly skilled coach for a period.

95 % of the time we solved my thoughts.

We uncovered limitations in my thinking. 

We found the holes that were creating negative results.

We explored new thoughts.I practiced thinking new thoughts on purpose.

That’s it peeps.

Behavior is a by-product of thoughts + feelings.

So when you commit to higher quality thoughts, you create higher quality feelings and then higher quality behavior follows.

So all of that…

• Tilt
• Lack of motivation
• Feeling blue after a losing session
• Being unfocused and distracted
• Procrastination

… decreases all of a sudden.

Now don’t get me wrong. These elements will probably always be in your life to some extent. 

But when you learn how to manage your thoughts you create the ability to change everything in your life to the better.

One of the best exercises to start managing your thoughts

I learned this exercise from another coach. It’s called a thought download.

It’s really simple…

But really powerful.

Thought Download (do this for seven days in a row):

1. Grab a piece of paper and leave it on your desk next to your keyboard
2. After/during each session I want you to write down all the negative thoughts that appear in your mind. For instance:

• Why am I so unlucky all the time?

• I just can’t win a hand!

• That guy is so lucky…

1. After seven days you go through your negative thoughts. Identify the most limiting ones.
2. Create two empowering reframes for each limiting thought you identified.
3. Keep your reframes in front of you in each session. Practice thinking about them on demand.
4. After a while your empowering reframes will be your new default and voila, massive sustainable change is achieved.

That’s it.

This is where you start to improve your poker mindset.

Doing this work is really simple. It doesn’t take a lot of time and energy. 

And it has the potential to change your life completely.

If you want feedback on your thought download, you can join the SixPlus Discord Community and write to me. I am happy to help!

Bonus exercise to help you getting started with your poker mindset

As per this date there’s a meditation challenge running in the SixPlus Discord channel. 

We motivate and help each other to meditate every day.  The challenge runs until April 1 2022. 

But new challenges will emerge after this one. So head into the SixPlus Discord Community and find the meditation challenge thread. Hope to see you there!

“Peter, I never tilt, it’s not a problem.”

If you say you never tilt, you’re probably lying (or very unaware).

Yes, I said that. Calling you a liar.

Tilt isn’t just “raging, shouting and beating your fist into the wall” after a bad beat.

Tilt is when you get affected by emotions and play worse than before.

Sure, frustration and anger are the usual suspects when we tilt.

But what about feeling bored? Feeling injustice? Feeling bullied? Feeling sad? Feeling lonely?

There’s a variety of feelings that can impact your winrate (often without you knowing it).

If you read this article, I’m sure that you will experience less tilt in the future and be able to win more money consistently.

Your tilt won’t disappear magically, but I can help you become aware about what tilt you experience and help you take control over your mind to reduce it.

How most players try to deal with tilt

“I normally try to realize when I tilt and tell myself to stop it”.

These are the words of one of my clients.

He’s a good NL200-500 reg and has a strong mindset.

But every time he tried to tell himself “do not tilt” it didn’t work.

Why?

Because it does not treat the root cause and it doesn’t offer him a better perspective.

And that leads me to the two most effective ways to stop tilt in poker.

Strategy #1: Create a tilt profile

It sounds boring to create a tilt profile. I get it.

And what is it anyway?

Well, a tilt profile is all about understanding your tilt and where it comes from.

“Peter, I know my tilt. I just get fucking angry and start playing bad”.

That’s not good enough.

I want you to expand your awareness. I want you to know why your tilt comes and the deeper roots behind it.

To make your tilt profile answer these questions now:

• What are the trigger/s that make me tilt?
• What emotions do I feel?
• What situations in my life may be adding to the limiting state of this feeling?

Here’s an example:

1. Triggers: Playing vs the aggressive reg who seemed to own me
2. Emotions: I felt bullied. I felt weak. I felt like I was a bad player.
3. Bigger picture: I guess this could have something to do with me being bullied in school. I experienced XYZ … and I now understand how experiencing something ‘similar’ on the poker table creates such an intense feeling in me.

Now these are golden nuggets. This is awareness on a new level.

Awareness is essential to start treating the root cause and not just put band aid on the symptoms.

Strategy #2: Choose your perspective

What creates tilt?

Your perspective.

Nothing else.

It’s not you being unlucky. It’s not you losing money.

It’s how you put your perspective on being unlucky or losing money.

Get it?

Let me give you an example.

What perspective do you think creates the most tilt?

“That guy is so fucking lucky all the time against me”

or

“Okay, he got lucky there. But if I keep playing my A-game I will eventually win over this guy. These situations are what allows me to make a living out of the game.”

The perspectives are on the exact same situation. You got unlucky, and villain won the pot.

It’s so important to realize that you can choose a perspective that helps you feel better.

It seems so simple, right?

But we often lose control over our thoughts in the heat of the moment.

That’s when we go down the rabbit hole of creating limiting thoughts.

Thoughts that lead to tilt.

Right now I want you to:

1. Identify three thoughts that often occurs when you are tilting
2. Write three reframes that helps you feel better

Ready, set, go.

Don’t skip it!

I get it. Reading about the work is much easier than doing it.

So now, I want you to make a conscious decision.

Decide to do the two steps now.

Don’t think about it. Grab a piece of paper or open Google Docs and write.

It has the potential to make your winrate explode and help you in more areas of life than poker.

I know that doing mindset work on your own can be tough!

Do you want help with emotional management, mindset and effective ways to deal with tilt (and much more)?

Reach out to me. You can learn more about me and my coaching at www.pokerlifecoach.com

I only have a couple spots left for clients, so no promises.

Join one of the best free communities for poker mindset work

Join the SixPlusHoldem Discord server today to learn more about the mental game of poker. We have a mindset channel where we discuss tilt, meditation, and other mindset strategies for being a better poker player. Take your game to the next level today.

See you there.

Your Mindset Coach
Peter Rasmussen

When you flop two pair in no limit hold’em, usually the biggest problem you will face is how to get the most chips in the middle. Unfortunately in 6+, not only is your opponent more likely to flop sets and straights against you, but with equities running much closer, even if you have the best hand, your opponent will have more outs to catch on turns and rivers. 

Let’s have a more in-depth look at some spots, that occur frequently:

Scenario 1: 6-handed, everyone has 100a 

Hand 9♠7♠ 

UTG fold, UTG+1 folds, MP limps, Hero limps HJ, CO limps, BTN checks, 4 people to the flop 

Flop : J♣9♦7♥ 

MP bets half pot, Hero ? 

We got two pair on a rainbow flop and the MPs sizing isn’t too big. Someone who just switched from no limit hold’em to 6+ might be happy to call here or even raise before we see any scary turns like 8,10, Q etc.

The truth is, especially with two players behind us left to act, it’s an easy fold. Not only is MP showing strength by leading into three opponents, but since CO and BTN were in late position, they can have almost any two cards when they limp in, so they have all the straights and better two pair combinations. If Hero was on the BTN and everyone folds to us we should be calling (especially since MP usually won’t have T8o), but even against his range with all T8o removed, we don’t look that great.

As we can see, even if we remove all T8o hands and add some loose c-bets with hands like AA, KK, KJ, which would often check and be careful on this board, we only have 50.42% equity. We do have position, so we should call here, but be prepared that we might have to turn our hand into a bluff on certain runouts. 

So does that mean that we should usually be folding two pair on the flop? No, just that we need to be careful and consider our opponent’s ranges. Let’s look at a scenario where we are in better shape.

Scenario 2: 6-handed, UTG (100a) limps, UTG+1 (100a) limps, everyone folds to Hero on the BTN with 50 ante stack. We check with 8♥9♦. 

Flop is 6♦8♣9♠ rainbow. 

UTG leads for half pot, UTG+1 calls, Hero ? 

This looks like a similar spot. Two pair with a possible straight out there, but if we look more closely, this is a much better spot for us for two reasons – our stack size and our range advantage. UTG position has the lowest VPIP, so we can safely remove A7o and T7o. Same goes for UTG+1. Of course, a recreational player might always play T7o, perhaps that’s his lucky hand. Generally though, UTG and UTG+1 won’t have many straights here, especially after UTG+1 just calls. Our hand is also blocking sets, so their range is going to be pocket pairs, JT, T9 etc.

So what’s our play here when we have 50 antes? It’s an easy allin. UTG might fold hands that do ok against our hand (TT, JT, JJ,77 etc), because while he might be okay with getting it in against us, he has to be a little careful considering UTG+1 might also call. So in this scenario we will often take down a 15 ante pot when both opponents fold (a 30% increase to our stack without being allin), and if we do get called, we will rarely be dominated.

Summary:

1. Play cautiously with bottom two pair, especially on a very draw heavy board where our opponent could have a better made hand e.g. straight or a strong draw that is doing very well against us.
2. There are situations where you should fold bottom two pair on the flop to a single bet, if you have players behind you, who could dominate your two pair or flopped a straight.
3. Pay attention to the stacksize and board structure. You can much more likely stack off with 50 ante on a board that doesn’t hit villain’s range and also puts other players with deeper stack sizes at risk, such as multiway spots with more players involved on the flop.

In this article we will have a deeper look into low to mid pocket pairs and how they perform in the great game of Six Plus Holdem.

Hands from pocket 6s to pocket 10s are the ones in question and many people tend to overplay those, mostly by calling a large isolation raise out of position. Other common mistakes are raising those first in or against limpers. Unlike in regular NLHE, we barely ever flop an overpair and even if we do so, we are not a big equity favorite against the majority of villains calling range. This being said, pocket pairs are played to flop a set which is going to happen roughly 17% of the time, compared to 12% in no-limit hold’em.

Let’s look at some hand examples to get a better understanding:

Hand ex. 1:

Hero: 88

Flop: 8-9-T rainbow

Villains get it in range: 99, TT, QJ, TJ

If we give villain a tight GII range we would only be having 49% equity, if we add hands such as KJ & AJ, we are a 59% favorite. This example shows you that a low set on a lockdown board is fairly vulnerable and is oftentimes running into bigger hands.

We can still set mine in many spots, but we should consider folding our low pocket in scenarios where we are out of position against a decent regular, or when we are heads up, unless you are facing a weaker opponent. The reason is obvious, a good regular will unlikely stack off with top pair, so even if we hit our set, we are not getting the right implied odds to set mine profitably. On aggressive tables we could even fold pocket 6s and 7s from early position, first in.

How do we perform with mid pockets in all-in scenarios?

Here’s another example to illustrate that we are rarely ever in great shape if we would be getting it in with a mid pocket pair against a somewhat standard shoving range, if we face an open shove or a limp/shove after we decide to ISO raise with a mid pocket pair:

Keep Note: This doesn’t mean that we would not be shoving with a hand like pocket tens ourselves, especially if we had around 50-75 antes. If you are interested in how to adjust your preflop ranges with more shallow stacks, you should check out our 50 ante Vol. 1 & 2. It gives good insights on how to play first in and against limpers, with a stacksize of 50-75 antes.

Below is the first-in Hi-Jack position from our volume 1 50 ante SHC first-in:

You can see that a hand like TT is +EV to open jam, while 99 or 88 should be a limp/call multiway. If we are facing only one raise and we would end up heads up, they should go into the muck, unless we are facing a small ISO raise and/or our opponent is a weaker player.