I caved.

I hadn't played MTTs in a while, and after opening up PS last night, an $11 6-max MTT was staring me right in the face, and I couldn't resist.

I rarely if ever play 6-max tourneys, probably just through habit of playing regular MTTs more than anything, but it was actually very fun. The pace is expectedly much faster as you have a smaller M value. M is no longer [your stack]/[starting pot], but is now the proportional M to how many players are left (ie [your stack]/[starting pot] * [number of players left]/10). Essentially, you have to play much more aggressively to maintain a healthy stack with the blinds hitting you every 6 hands rather than every 9 or 10.

This became a little bit of a problem for me since I had the great fortune of being put on the maniac table and didn't get any premium hands with which to double up. I was constantly being bullied, having my KQ steals pushed around, but I maintained a semi-healthy stack long enough to survive until I got moved to another table.

The first hand at the next table, I'm in the BB and to my delight I'm looking at two kings. CO raises, button calls, and I push with my somewhat smallish stack. I double through as the CO calls with TT, and I'm healthy again. I keep making small steals with the occasional big resteal, and build my stack little by little. I pick up a pretty big pot again when the short stack at the table pushes into another KK of mine, and I double through again, this time by way of villain's 88.

I get moved again, and really start stealing and putting on the pressure. One of the more interesting hands was here.

I'm still maintaining a somewhat TAG image at this point (with respect to 6-max), and decide to make a move on a player who's been getting very aggressive. He raises 3BBs utg, probably with a range of any broadway, any pair and some suited connectors, and I push with my TT, sticking his remaining 16BB stack in. He goes into the tank, and I'm almost sure he's going to fold, but he ends up calling with AQ. Flop comes xxA, turn Q, river is a brick. Queue sad face.

Thanks to my earlier aggressive play, I'd built up a healthy enough stack to still have about 15BBs at this point, but blinds were going to go up again very soon.

I play shortstack poker for a while, maintaining a ~10BB stack by stealing from the weaker players. I finally get a double-up hand, JJ, and get a raise from utg who's the big stack, and who has open-raised the last 4 hands straight. I push without much fold equity, the dreaded AQ shows it's head as big stack calls, and he busts me on the bubble after hitting an ace.

While I was somewhat happy with my play, I don't think I would have made it as far had I not picked up the kings earlier on. The tables were just too aggressive and with my reluctancy to stick in most of my chips with KQ and AJ hands early on, I had dwindled down quite fast.

I'm sure I'll play another 6-max tourney soon though; the fast pace was a lot of fun.