Profitability of full ring vs 6-max
Posted by ZenFish
Posted by
ZenFish
posted in
Mid Stakes
Profitability of full ring vs 6-max
Context:
Former midstakes PLO grinder, returning to poker after a hiatus. Switching to NLHE, currently working to build fundamentals (PioSOLVER and the whole shebang). The goal is to work my way up the NLHE stakes, and later try out live games, which necessitates some full ring competence. I'm interested in you guys' thoughts on full ring vs 6-max in general (but let's leave live play out of it, since that's a different thing altogether).
Now, back in the day when I was starting out (2005'ish) the consensus was that full ring was for nits, and that FR win rates were lower because of this "fact". It was as if people believed that playing nitty would somehow protect a mediocre opponent from losing to you. Now in 2016 we of course know that nittiness doesn't protect anyone from losing to good aggressive opponents, it's just that a nit by nature plays accidentally correct (or close to it) when he is seated early. Full ring is then the format that punishes him the least.
In play closer to the blinds the story is very different. Nittiness in the 6-max part of full ring (i.e. play involving play between the LJ to BB seats) should get you killed in a FR game where everybody else was playing well in all positions. But if everybody else is also too tight in late positions, our nit won't suffer (everybody would be swapping the same nit mistakes).
Fewer hands/hour lowers the hourly (although we can compensate, since FR is easier to multitable), but let's take the bb/100 as our metric.
The following seems obvious:
- Win rates in FR should by necessity be lower than 6-max, since we are adding three early seats with lower win rates than the four profitable 6-max seats.
- But the above statement only holds necessarily true when our opponents play all seats well (i.e. playing like good 6-max players in hands involving only the last 6 seats).
Now I (finally) have a some questions:
- Can it be said in 2016 that the average FR player is playing way too tight from the later positions? And that an experienced 6-max player should find plenty of exploitable opportunities in a FR game in play from LJ to BB?
- Can it be said that this could compensate for the bb/100 reduction we take (compared to 6-max) from having to play three additional early and not very profitable seats?
If so, a strong 6-max player should be able to do well in a nitty full ring game by doing things that would be unfamiliar to them. Opening extremely loose from BTN, defending the blinds much more correctly, and in general having greater experience playing wide ranges pre flop and post flop.
Am I on to something here? I have no experience from FR, it's been years since I played NLHE 6-max, and 6-max strategy has evolved rapidly since then. I kicked off my NLHE studies a few weeks back by watching Lefort's "6-max Concepts" video series, which must have been groundbreaking at the time, in that it demonstrated mathematically how loose correct play in and around the blinds likely should be. And these days we have solvers to work with as well. Now I am simply wondering if the FR population has paid attention.
Grateful for any thoughts you guys might have on the subject.
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You didn't mention what to me is by far the biggest strike against FR: fewer hands/hour.
Apart from that, I'd say it's like any poker game: differences between games are simply opportunities to adapt better than our opponents. Indeed, the disdain for FR in some parts of the poker community could translate to an opportunity for profit. Some FR strategies and opportunities are not well explored or widely known. I've seen good online HU PLO pros play terribly at high stakes live FR PLO.
I don't think the lower winrate in early positions implies a lower winrate overall. After all, it's a zero-sum game, so even though our winrate will be lower in those positions, we also benefit when our opponents are in the early positions.
It's also important to consider the quality of opponents the game attracts. To me FR games on Bovada seem much softer on average than 6-max and my observed winrate is substantially higher.
I actually think FR and 6max play quite similar on most smaller sites, (don't know about PS, haven't played there for some time). I often mix both formats, just looking for the softest tables and I see a lot of the same villains sitting at both 6max and FR. FR naturally has more nits, who are weak (don't steal/def enough, overfold to 3bets, etc.) but it's not like they'll have huge loss rates. I agree that my winrate seems to be higher at 6max, but not enough sample size on FR to be sure.
Also the really huge whales are usually found on 6max tables way more often, FR has more of the passive fit-or-fold type rec imo.
Lastly I think 6max is more fun because of playing more pots with wider ranges. FR has more multiway pots, so you end up playing more of a fit-or-fold game yourself in many spots imo.
Edit: May I ask why you switch from PLO to NLHE? Most people go the different route because NLHE is dead yadayada and PLO is supposed to be super soft live
The appearance of solvers on the stage has changed things. Working effectively with this new tool is a skill. The appearance of a new skill component in the game creates opportunities for those who learn it well. After orienting myself a little I came to the conclusion that there must still be good opportunities to be had in NLHE.
NLHE strategy is still miles away from the ceiling. Here's a fun story for context:
In 2008 a HU LHE bot ("Polaris") beat a team of elite online players (the nosebleed end boss Matt "Hoss_TBF" Hawrilenko was among them).
This was at a time where 1 BB/100 would be a stellar win rate in a tough 6-max game. Now the fun part: The bot beat the elite human team, but it was still exploitable for 12 BB/100! Just to show that the best humans at that time were nowhere near the ceiling.
The team that built Polaris (an academic AI research group at the University of Alberta) later solved HU LHE (as in, computed a strategy that was for all practical purposes unexploitable) and they created a bot ("Cepheus") that you could test yourself against online.
Now imagine how far from the ceiling we are in NLHE, which is extremely much more complex than LHE. I believe the solvers will create a gap between those who can use them well (with a stress on well) and those who don't have them or don't know how to use them. Nick Howard has written a lot about learning and improving in his blog thread and I recommend that to anyone who hasn't read it yet.
Being a sucker for software, I'm interested in exploring this opportunity. And I enjoy learning new things. :-)
@Zen regarding the LHE analogy.
Here's some context for you.
I doubt Polaris would have beaten Hoss at HULHE over a large sample, but he was the only HULHE specialist in that group. So it was a competition of the AI vs some good poker thinking opponents but not really the best at HULHE.
Compare this to the recent brains vs. AI match between Doug Polk et. al. and the Carnegie Melon HUNLHE AI. While human team won some bets the match was considered a draw from a statistical stand point. In this case the the team of human players was comprised of only HUNLHE specialists.
I read about it. I think this mostly illustrates how difficult HUNLHE is to solve (besides, the CM bot was not playing a fixed GTO-approximation strategy, it was trying to to adapt to and exploit its opponents). I don't think there is any doubt that a NLHE HU bot with a strong GTO approximation would decimate any human opponent. If memory serves me right, Sauce expressed that opinion in a thread some time ago, and I'll take his word for it.
It is possible to compute how exploitable a poker AI is (Michael Johanson from the poker AI group at Alberta posted about the algorithm at 2+2 a few years ago), but from what I remember from the discussion, that would be a very hard computation for a NLHE AI (but maybe it isn't now). I did not see any such number for the Carnegie Mellon AI, but I suspect it was quite exploitable.
At any rate, having solvers for computing equilibriums for HU scenarios in NLHE won't do us much good if we try to play like them, because the exact equilibrium solutions are impossible to implement in play. Using the solvers for approximating unexploitable pre flop ranges in HU spots (if you have PioSOLVER Edge and a very powerful computer or using cloud computing) and strong counter strategies against leaky opponents seems the way to go.
Very interesting reply! I remember looking into some UoA game theory/ poker papers ~3 years ago, when I was still in university and had access to their research. Was quite interesting how many research papers on poker/ gambling in general have been published. Have to admit that the stuff these guys were doing was just waaaay above my head. So I can totally see your point on how far from solved the current state of NLHE actually is. :)
I kinda fear that online games could be killed completely by botters tho, if they get even more sophisticated and sites don't manage to come up with appropriate counter measures. Gravitating towards live games seems to be a reasonable long-term plan.
That's the flip side of it. We can't trust the sites to care all that much either, since bots generate just as much rake as humans. If it it develops into a costly (for the sites) arms race between Stars and bot-developers, I don't expect Stars to deliver their best effort, to put it like that.
So adding live games at some point in the future seems increasingly attractive right now. I think we can count on them always being there, and always being beatable.
Recently started to play holdem 8 players Live... I think there are many opportunities there and for instance players where I go play either too tight or too loose. Sense for details, math, good foundations, (mental and physical) endurance, discipline puts you in advantage already. I noticed people play postflop poorly, but its not general...
For me online holdem is just boring, live holdem is another story.... I play some cash league and I ll try to top leaderboard till EOY. There is lot about mental strength and picking up hands vs predictable players than anything else imo.. My rule nr one is to play for the stacks when I initiate that and not vice versa. Before that is to be fresh and in shape. Sports, good food , joy and mindset....
good luck zen
Zenfish, out of curiosity why are you so confident live poker will always be lucrative?
Because people don't change.
Amen.
Live is where the people who say things like "online poker is rigged" end up playing
What is full ring?
Are we talking about Nit Ring?
Absolutely if you dont go crazy first ;D
Nice to have you back Mr. Zenfish
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