• Short Deck Starting Hand Rankings
• Short Deck Best Starting Hands
• Short Deck Hold'em Starting Hands
• Short Deck Best Starting Hands

Six Plus Hold’em (6+), also called Short Deck Poker, is a community card poker game based on Texas Hold’em. While most of the rules are the same, there are three main differences between the two. In 6+ Hold’em, the cards from deuces through fives are removed to make the total deck just 36 cards instead of the usual 52.

Another difference is that because there are fewer cards in the deck, the hand ranking change: a Flush beats a Full House, and in most variants of Short Deck, a Set (or Three-of-a-Kind) is ranked higher than a Straight. Aces are played as both high and low, they can be used as a five to make a low-end Straight A6789 or above a King to make a Straight of AKQJ10.

Sep 26, 2018 Short deck hold’em hand rankings Image credit: Triton Poker. Hand rankings are different in SDHE, with a flush beating a full house. Straights hit more frequently, and if you have open-ended straight draw on the flop, you have a 45.5 percent chance of hitting the straight on the turn or river, compared to 31.5 percent in traditional Hold’em.

This makes the game a lot more action-packed as the cards are higher, and there are more playable hands. Equities run very close to each other so the luck factor increases, and naturally this attracts a lot of recreational players.

• How to Install Deck-Stair Treads — This Mastered in a Minute video goes over the basics of deck-stair construction, including lumber options, spacing and overhang distances. Curved Deck Stairs — The trick to building a set of curved stairs is using a temporary form and laminated plywood stringers. It’s easier than you might think.
• With only 630 starting hands possible compared to the usual 1326, we can expect to see powerhouse starting hands much more frequently. For example, pocket aces will arrive in front of you every around once every 100 hands, instead of every 221 using a full deck. Ace-king is also seen twice as often.

Why You Should Learn Six Plus Hold’em

Over the past few months, the game has grown exponentially with both online and land-based operators offering this variant. It is available online on the iPoker Network which was one of the first international online poker networks to offer this variant. The network comprises of several rooms including bet365, William Hill, Titan Poker, Betfair, and several other rooms. Games are available at stakes starting from as low as 0.02/0.04 to all the way up to 0.50/1.

Americas Cardroom also recently added this game to its offering. In fact, it is the only site that is known to spread Short Deck online poker tournaments.

PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site, is soon expected to launch Six Plus Hold’em as well.

As far as strategy is concerned, not many resources are available, and the perfect strategy is still being developed.

In our last article, we talked about hand rankings and explained briefly why a Flush is ranked higher than a Full House and why Straights happen more frequently. We also talked about the odds and probabilities and compared the odds of some of the hands between Short Deck and traditional Hold’em.

In this article, we’ll be talking about what hands you should be playing and some of the tips about Six Plus Hold’em that you must know.

Selecting Your Starting Hands

Before we talk about the strategy, it is important to understand how the hand strengths of Six Plus Hold’em compare to regular Hold’em. Since the low cards are taken out, the likelihood of getting dealt premium hands increases not just for you but also for your opponents.

As mentioned in our previous article, the odds of getting dealt Aces is almost double in Six Plus Hold’em than it is in regular Hold’em. Also, hands like other pocket pairs and premium hands like AK will be dealt more often. Playing pocket pairs like Queens or Jacks can become a little tricky as you are more likely to run into Aces or Kings.

On the other hand, the value of pocket pairs increases a lot if you are playing on a site where sets are ranked higher than Straights. Unless the board is paired or there are three cards of the same suit, Sets are the nuts and they play very well as there is no way for your opponent to know if you have hit a Set, unlike a Straight which can be easily spotted on the board.

Suited hands are a lot stronger than non-suited hands as they are basically the nuts in this game, since Flushes beat Full Houses. In fact, any Ace-high suited hand is playable from most of the positions, as if you do hit a Flush, the majority of the times it will be the best hand. Hands like suited QJ, JT, T9 or even 87 do very well in this game. In fact, JT suited is a slight favorite versus AK offsuit and almost a coin flip versus suited AK.

However, hands like AQ, AJ, AT offsuit, which are considered strong in regular Hold’em, are not so strong in this game.

So basically the type of hands you would want to play are premium pocket pairs and those which can make Sets, Full Houses or Flushes.

Tips for Beginners

Now that you know what hands to play, here are a few basic tips that you must remember while playing 6+ Hold’em:

Know the rules

Needless to say, if you’re switching to 6+ from Texas Hold’em, you must know the hand rankings. Unlike Texas Hold’em, where Full Houses beat Flushes, in 6+ Hold’em Flushes are almost the nuts (unless your opponent hits Four-of-a-Kind or better). Also, in many Short Deck variants that are offered online, Trips (a.k.a Three-of-a-Kind) beat Straights.

Also, you must remember that Aces can also play as fives when making a low-end Straight. Lots of players playing Short Deck for the first time make a mistake by folding a Straight because they do not realize that they have hit a Straight.

Straights are very common

The reason why Straights are ranked lower than Trips is because Straights are easier to make. And the reason why Straights are easier to make is that there are fewer cards in the deck, which increases the probability of hitting a Straight.

In 6+ hold’em, the probability of hitting an open-ended Straight by the River is close to 48% (almost a 16% higher probability than in Texas Hold’em).

However, you must remember that if you are playing on a site where Sets beat Straights, then you are basically drawing dead if your opponent has a Set or Trips. If there are more players in the hand, folding a Straight is not a bad play as there is a good chance that at least one of your opponents may have hit a Set. So Straights need to be carefully played.

Play pocket pairs aggressively

Since a Set is stronger than a Straight in this variant, you should play pocket pairs more aggressively and not be afraid to call 3-bets with any pocket pair. The probability of hitting a set once a Flop is dealt is 18% compared to 12% in regular Hold’em. Once you hit a Set, try to maximize your profit by overbetting since your opponents won’t know that you have hit a Set. You need to only worry about paired boards (that can give your opponent a higher Full House or Quads) and suited boards (which can give your opponent a Flush). Even keeping this in mind, Sets will often get you paid off most of the time.

However, you must also keep in mind that your opponent has a higher chance of hitting Sets too, so try to avoid Set over a Set.

Short Deck Starting Hand Rankings

Flushes are hard to hit

Flushes might rank higher than Full Houses but that is because they are harder to hit. Unlike Texas hold’em, where you still have 9 outs to hit a Flush, in Six Plus Hold’em you only have 5 outs (which is close to 32% by the River).

However, that does not mean you should not be playing suited cards at all. In fact, the value of suited cards in Short Deck Hold’em is a lot higher. Any suited Ace is playable from most positions and once you hit a Flush, you are likely to get paid as you almost always have the nuts.

Short Deck Best Starting Hands

Don’t overplay big pairs

Although we advocated for playing big pairs aggressively preflop, in Six Plus Hold’em, top pair (or even an overpair) with top kicker does not have the same value as it has in regular Hold’em. Even if you are ahead on the Flop, it is very likely your opponent may improve his/her hand by the River. Hence it is advisable to not overplay one pair hands after the Flop. Going all-in on the Flop with a pocket pair should be avoided as should betting for value on the River with most one pair hands.

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.

• Lowest Rake 6+ Games Online
  
• Mobile & Desktop Six Plus Action
• PLO & NLHE Variants

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!

• Lowest Rake 6+ Games Online
  
• Mobile & Desktop Six Plus Action
• PLO & NLHE Variants

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!

• Lowest Rake 6+ Games Online
  
• Mobile & Desktop Six Plus Action
• PLO & NLHE Variants

Short Deck Hold'em Starting Hands

Short Deck Best Starting Hands

More Top Rated Content

Articles

• Six Plus Hold'em Hand Rankings
  
• Six Plus Hold'em Rules & Strategy
  
• How to Get in the Zone and Play Your Best Poker
  

Coaching Videos

• Optimizing Sleep for Poker Success
  
• Hypnotherapy in Poker