Wrong Post Count

If you like to show 6 posts on a page, I use query_posts('showposts=6');. But if one or more posts are "sticky", they get added to the other 6 posts. To show 6 posts actually, you have to know how many sticky posts you have.

The solution:

get_option('sticky_post') gives you an array back with sticky post ID, which we can count.

$sticky = count(get_option('sticky_posts'));
query_posts('showposts='. ( 6 - $sticky ));

Still showing sticky posts in chronological sort order

Pay attention to the CSS classes of the posts. The template tag post_class() gives the post the class. In the case of sticky post, it is also the class "sticky". If you think you can give the class sticky a red background and black border to have a nice teaser you will be disappointed. If you go to the next page to see previous posts, the sticky post will also be showed in the chronological order with a red background and black borders. Not really cool.

Kill the Sticky

If you don't want to have sticky posts, just write in your template:

update_option('sticky_posts', array());

With the empty array you overwrite the sticky options and no sticky posts are availably.