6 Handed Table Position and Starting Hand Guide

While playing at a short-handed or 6 max table you are sure to find many reasons why it is better than a full ring game. You can play more hands; open with a wider range of cards, and you can just be a more aggressive player overall.

While this is great for seasoned veterans of the game who adapt with little trouble, it can be quite difficult for a player new to poker or with very little experience playing at full ring games.

6 max poker can be difficult because the blinds come around much more often then they do in a 9 handed game and post flop play is almost unavoidable. An inexperienced player may try to over adjust by playing way too big of a starting hand range and then get into trouble on the flop with middle or bottom pair and not having an exit strategy in place. They just simply get themselves into trouble more often.

However, once a player gets a little bit of experience playing at 6-handed games, they have developed many of the skills necessary to become a very strong and aggressive player in full ring games. A couple of these necessary skills include knowing the proper starting hands that you should play in a 6 max game as well as knowing what poker table position is and how it relates to your starting cards.

To give you a head start on your 6 max poker education, we have written what you need to know about starting hand requirements and poker table position below.

6 Max Poker Starting Hands

Since the blinds come around more often it absolutely necessary to have a wider range of hands to play to keep from being blinded out. However, quite a few players tend to have too big starting hand range when sitting down at a 6 max poker game especially when coming from a 9 handed table.

The result of this is a player not knowing where they stand after the flop while holding a small pair or even top pair with a weak kicker. Even though all the cards increase in value, weak holdings can still be beaten and if overvalued, you can find yourself paying someone off. We would like to provide you with some starting hand guidelines to use at your next 6 max poker game.

Starting Hand Requirements

EP+1/EP+2  - Pocket Pairs AA-99, AK-A9 suited/off suit

MP+1/MP+2 - Pocket Pairs AA-55, AK-A5 suited/off suit, suited connectors down to 9-10

LP+1/LP+2 - Pocket Pairs AA-22, AK-A2 suited/off suit, suited connectors down to 5-6

It is important to note that this may be a bit tighter than you would like to play. But the whole idea of the guidelines is too keep you out of trouble and to make your decisions on the flop or later streets easier.

You will also want to keep in mind that these hands are what you would open the pot with, not call a raise that has been made in front of you. You would want to have a tighter calling range if someone was to make a raise in front of you. This is known as the Gap Concept.

Now that you know what good starting hands are, it is now time to realize where you would utilize these best. This is known as poker table position.

Poker Table Position

Poker table position is one of the most important strategies in poker. It is used in every decision you make from what you bet, to what hands you play with. Poker table position can also be used to your advantage to put pressure on weaker opponents forcing them to give up a hand that may have had you beat. So what is table position?

Table position refers to where you are sitting in relation to the dealer button. By looking at our picture below, you will see that the table is split into three sections. You have early position, middle position, or late position, or EP, MP, and LP. After knowing this, you can then count the number of seats from you to the dealer button to know exactly where you are sitting.

For example, if you were sitting 3 seats away from the dealer button in a 6-handed game, you would be sitting in MP+3. Please look at our picture below for a better understanding of poker table position.

Using the knowledge of poker table position, you would then combine this with our starting hand guidelines above to know what hands you can open the pot up with depending on where you are sitting.

As we mentioned above, poker table position is crucial for a poker player to learn. It is mostly important because poker is a game of information. So if you are sitting in the first seat, you will not get as much information on the rest of the table as opposed to you sitting in the last seat, or the button. By having this information from sitting in Late Position you can make a more educated decision based on what your opponent has done and the cards you are holding.

Poker Starting Hands and 6 Max Table Position

As a poker player, you are constantly learning new strategies everyday in hopes that you will be able to find an edge on your opponents. But everyone has to start at the beginning and starting hand requirements and poker table position are definitely the first lessons you should learn. By educating yourself on basic strategies such as these, you open the doors to bigger and better strategies that will allow you to make big plays for big pots.