Recently been playing a lot of 4/8. Very loose aggressive games have been the norm with guys raising preflop with everything. I've seen pots capped with guys playing terrible hands in all positions. So it's been having me rethink how I play from the blinds. I've been playing my big blinds with almost my whole range when faced with only a one bet raise. I've been realizing that this is not the best strategy been put into a couple tough spots with marginal suited kings and hands like that. So my question is should I loosen up in the blinds with money already committed? Or continue to play tight as I do in all other positions and wait to take advantage of the loose play from my opponents?

I put the opener on a range and I'll defend a slightly wider range than that which I think he is raising preflop.

it depends if this is a heads up situation, multiway situation, etc. your calling range should expand when there are more people already in the pot, since you will be getting a better price on your money.

with a raise, five callers, and you in the big blind, you should be calling most stuff, but still folding the junk like two offsuit low cards, offsuit big/little combos, etc (and still 3betting the big stuff)

with a raise, one or two callers, and you in the big blind, you should roughly be calling anything suited, any pair, any ace, and any two cards eight or higher.

with a raise, and everyone folds to you in the big blind, you won't be calling all that often. but, you'll be calling a lot more when the raise comes from late position/button than when it comes from early position/utg.

hope this helps, and feel free to follow up with specific examples. remember that just because you get into a tricky spot postflop doesn't mean you made a mistake preflop.

BabarIsRight. Need tee shirts of that variety.
You've seen once or twice or is this a standard hand in this game? In small stakes crazy games, you can see literally any hand played for any number of bets. The real questions are how often and can you predict that it is happening before you see it?
LAG games are going to put you in tough spots. That's why loose/passive games can be so profitable -- you're almost never in tough spots. In the loose and aggressive game, people can be making huge mistakes... you're just calling a lot of bets to realize your equity.
In a capped pot, you're still paying 3 out of 4 bets to see the flop, and your position is bad. So it depends on how many raises, how often your LAG game has back raises and other nutty play.

As others have said, it depends on ranges. It depends on how well you play post flop and how easy they are to play against.

With a raise and 5 callers you're getting 11:1.
Isn't that the price we need to call with literally ATC?

Thanks for all the informative replies. I recently moved from an area that these games were very easy to play in raises were only strong hands and people played very passive post flop. Where I'm at now nearly every hand is raised preflop and strong hands will be capped (at 4 bets) pre. I've been profitable but folded when I shouldn't have and gotten sucked out tons which I expected. This helps a ton for my preflop play which is the biggest adjustment I've needed to make in this game.

Actually 13:1 with 5 callers. EZ call with ATC.

there's stuff i always fold even at 11:1 or 13:1, yes

I've been playing some 4-8 and I'm seeing the opposite the last few sessions. These ppl limp big pairs and Ace-face. It's like navigating a mine field. To answer the question, tho, I call pretty wide but view 'ATC' as bad advice. Stick to hands w/ a reasonable chance of winning.

ATC? What's ATC?

Any two cards

+1

Reverse implied odds are really important here. Let's say you have J2o. Yes, you have enough hot-cold equity. But you are going to be out of position and are going to be forced to call a few bets (or even raise) when you hit your jack, and the chances of another player in a 6 way pot having a jack with a better kicker is very high.

I have an extremely hard time believing people actually make money with these sorts of calls, whatever pokerstove says.

Pokerstove only claims to "know" things all in preflop (or whichever street you enter). Any reading of the results for a 4 street game that doesn't involve deeper analysis is user error, not false claims by the tool.

This probably comes from my being old-school, but I always remember Mason and maybe Ray Zee talking about "good control of the table" or concepts like that when looking at spots. The idea being where you just have such a good idea of what your opponents are up to and them being very straightforward, you never really get that lost in a hand. Maybe the next step is being a world class talker where you can wheedle a bonus call or fold from a single villain? So let's say you're Babar or someone like him and have many millions of online hands and thousands of hours of live poker, and you're never losing extra vs the villains in a pot (they're transparent) and you're going to make the absolute max, as much as possible OOP. You have good control of the situation, maybe you can profit in these spots?

At some point, clearly the price is right. UTG opens, there are two posters with dead SBs, 7 people take 2 to the face, and you're getting 18:1, you probably can't turn down the overlay. We're only debating the price. If 18 isn't enough, put a $100 splash pot in an 8/16 and you have 12 bonus small bets in the middle. It isn't "hand X is never a VP$IP", it is just about whether or not the price is right.

It's true we are only debating the price, but as great as BBB is (and he is great), I think whatever you want to call your maximum RIO's scenario, it's gotta be calling a raise from the BB out of position with a complete dogcrap hand. And that's going to be true even if you are a great player. You are just going to be paying a lot of bets out over time with second best top pair hands. Heck, even your 2 pairs and trips are sometimes going to either get counterfeited or be a second best hand.

And as a result, I tend to think that absent special situations (like your splash pot promotion), I don't see how it's really going to be a mistake to fold the true trash in a raised pot even getting enormous immediate pot odds.

And of course, that goes even more so for us mere mortals who aren't as good as BBB.

By like 22:1 you have immediate odds to trip mine so at the discount we usually give to hit sets (5:1 immediate for a 8.5:1 shot) by 15:1 to 18:1 we should literally call everything and check-fold anything that isn't 2 pair plus.

I'm pretty nitty when out of position, and probably fold hands that people better than me play and consider easy calls. So agreeing with you guys. Guessing JL and OTR play with much lower prices offered.

You mean could fold anything that's two pair plus not should right?

He meant call anything -preflop- and fold anything not two pair or better -postflop-.

IIRC, Tommy Angelo said he'd fold his SB in a 2/3 structure even if everybody else limped and he was getting 25:1 or w/e it is for a single chip while admitting that, poker-wise, it is stupid not to call w/ ATC.

Somebody get him to post itt, tia.

Yes. What I meant is that we can call anything preflop and can fold 1 pair postflop and still be profitable.

And "trip mining" was not literal, I think it's 45;1 for trips and 45:1 for two pair.

I think he means we should call with any 2 plus two pair.

Equals four or five combos.

Sure, I got what he meant, but you're not actually folding flop or, most likely, the turn when you flop a pair if it's only one bet to you. The fact that we can trip/2 pair mine doesn't mean we're folding when only flop a pair or a one-card straight draw- those hands are going to be profitable to continue often.

I think having to continue with weak hands on the flop and even turn makes decent players feel like fish because it's the same as the fish would do, and so often you are "punished" by not improving so it feels crummy.

I know he knows this and I'm just mincing words.

Bear in mind that having to continue with weak draws in a big pot is a cost, not a benefit, of playing a hand. When you play suited connectors and flop some big draw that gives you 35 percent equity 6 ways, you are printing Sklansky dollars. But when you flop a draw that gives you 9 percent equity and you have to call because you are getting 14 to 1, you aren't- the call is correct, but from the standpoint of preflop, pricing you in to make that call is a cost, not a benefit of playing the hand.

So it isn't that it feels "crummy". It's that you have to consider the money you are committing to put in post-flop when determining whether to call. Similar to a no limit player who calls off 40 percent of her stack pre-flop and has to assume that the other 60 percent is also going in on a lot of flops.

I also agree. It can't possibly play well. It becomes closer though if there's even marginal straight possibility, in my book anyway, because you're not likely to flop the backward top pair, and flopping the draw, play is more straight-forward (pardon the pun). 74o > J2o in this spot.