Art of the Min Raise (Part 13)

As you may have noticed from the hand histories I've been posting, I've recently been playing a lot of .25/.50 6-max. While it may be kind of lame to play that low when I play 1/2 full ring and am well-rolled enough to play higher than that, I am playing pretty much exclusively deep tables, so I'm in for 200 bbs pretty much all the time, variance in 6-max is greater, players, on average, are better - or at least more aggressive - in 6-max games, and I have less experience playing 6-max. So it seems to make sense to kind of start low and work my way up. As I've mentioned before, I like to play for stakes where I'm able to go with my reads and make what I think is the right play, and not worry about the amount of money I'm putting in or giving up.

Anyway, this leads me to one of the differences I've noticed between 6-max and full ring. In full ring, we have chronicled here many times the "donk method of playing AA and KK", which entails min 3-betting preflop and then stacking off on any flop. In 6-max, you'll often see donks min re-raising preflop with much more marginal hands. They will still stack off if they hit anything on the flop though. I think their idea is that they're repping AA or KK by min re-raising preflop (whereas full ring donks think that min re-raising is repping a weak hand since they're not putting in much more money), so they should get credit for an overpair after the flop. Here's an example:

Seat 1: CO ($50)
Seat 4: BB ($71.20)
Seat 5: bruechips (UTG) ($111.25)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bruechips [Qh Ah]
bruechips raises to $1.75
CO calls $1.75
BB raises to $3 (Note the out of position min re-raise in a multi-way pot. Kind of your first clue that a: this player is a moron, and b: this could be something other than AA or KK)
bruechips calls $1.25
CO calls $1.25

*** FLOP *** [Jd 4c Qd]
BB bets $9.25
bruechips calls $9.25 (BB makes the obbligatory pot-sized continuation bet. I have no reason to fold or raise here. If the CO raises, I will probably be giving it up no matter what the BB does.)
CO folds

*** TURN *** [Jd 4c Qd] [8c]
BB bets $58.95, and is all in (Now an overbet shove when the 8c hits. In a full ring game, I might give this more credit as "I have an overpair and the board is starting to look gross, but I know I'm not going to fold so I might as well just shove". But in a 6-max game, where players make wild bluffs much more often, there's much more of a chance not only that this guy has some legit big draws, like AcKc or AdKd, but also some dogshit hands like JT or 89. He could even have me beat with J8. But in a 6-max game, I think this is really a call, even when this deep.)
bruechips calls $58.95
BB shows [Qs 9h]

*** RIVER *** [Jd 4c Qd 8c] [8d]
bruechips wins the pot ($142.65) with two pair, Queens and Eights

-BRUECHIPS