I've said it many times.

Most players have the same basic preflop leaks:

1. Inflated opinion of their post flop edge
2. Overvalue immediate preflop odds.
3. Vastly undervalue preflop implied/reverse implied odds

Go ahead and ignore fold pre because you're good enough to overcome positional and card disadvantage. See how that works out for you in the long run.

Sadly, most of the posters are terrible players and will lose money with those hands, and the good players who always take their direct odds are belittled, insulted, and or labeled a troll.

But as to your question, stack sizes are important since you need to calculate your implied odds as well as direct odds and to find your direct odds, pull out an equity calculator and plug in standard ranges to find what odds you need to break even.

I.e., do your own homework

Note: I really don't think people should come to a serious poker strategy forum without having done exercises like this on their own.

If you don't know how to calculate your direct odds, you shouldn't take poker seriously. When there is a 6x raise and call with the sb folding, our direct odds are 2.3:1

Now all you need to know is the GTO opening range for the CO and the GTO calling range for button.

That is all you need to figure out what your GTO flatting range should look like

One more thing: there are very general rules of thumb regarding implied odds. I usually want to have 12x implied odds with pocket pairs and 18x implied odds with draws when oop

Hope that helps

Yes, focusing on direct odds preflop is not good. It's a thing, but pretty far down the list.

What rake structure are you using to come up with 2.3:1?

Hoping you're about to enlighten the poker world with the GTO 6x opening range at CO (100bb eff) and the GTO button calling range. I'll go get my popcorn started.

+1

GcluelessNLnoobG

GTO and llsnl are like oil and water

+1 to all of this

At typical LLSNL games where the stacks are relatively small and the raise sizes relatively large (coupled by multiple callers quickly producing a commitment decision on the flop), tight is right facing a raise.

GcluelessNLnoobG

+1, I know when I start to feel "tired" of folding preflop is usually around when I start to become good for the game

We should play poker with all 2-6 removed from the deck, so the worst possible starting hand would be Q7o. What do you guys think?

Next HH just post

"Now I know I should of folded pre, but now that I am here on the turn how should I play it?"

Yep it's like a broken record, but at LLSNL simply mucking marginal/trash hands immediately adds a non-insignificant amount to a player's bottom line.

I'm typically not a preflop cop all that much but the opening paragraph in the stickies contains a lot of truth....

I think part of the problem is that the forum is heterogeneous.

There are people just starting out on their road to winning poker play. For them, "fold pre" may be the best possible advice. The first step for many is simply to stop making obvious mistakes, rather than worrying about how to maximize EV in potentially tricky situations.

Then there are people who have moved beyond the beginner stage, who understand why "fold pre" is standard, but are looking to exploit LLSNL V tendencies rather than playing ABC. As they learn, those people are likely to make a lot of mistakes, but reverting to "fold pre" isn't the answer. Making mistakes as new skills are learned is unavoidable.

And then there are people that have mastered (or at least reached competency) with exploiting LLSNL V tendencies for whom "fold pre" is just bad advice.

So "fold pre" might be the best possible advice, more or less irrelevant, or terrible advice depending on where the poster is in his or her progression.

To put it another way, is "fold pre" good advice? Well, it depends.

There are a lot of situations where fold pre is superior regardless of the player. Part of what makes good players good is not getting themselves into -EV situations.

Opening marginal spots should yield marginal results; this should be obvious. If enough people say fold pre, it's probably pretty marginal. I guess you need to evaluate how important gaining this marginal EV is vs. finding other spots with bigger leaks and plugging them first. If you are an absolute crusher than you have the tools at your own disposal to do this I think.

If you aren't a crusher, then fold pre. There are probably spots where you are hemorrhaging money. For example, if you are calling from BB w/ KJ facing a raise and call...

Most of the people making posts itt are casuals/beginners. Fixing their pf leaks will be the most beneficial to their game. Not getting them in tough post flop decisions because of their poor pf decisions will be hugely beneficial to their game. Now, if they crush the game and want to start widening their range...sure! Have fun! This is not the demographic of the forum at large.

...and then there are those that have come full circle and play an exploitable strong narrow range OOP and an exploitable strong, slightly less narrow range IP...

That and implied odds are the only thing. If you follow your direct odds at all times you are ahead of 95% of the poker playing population and will win.

There is plenty of work being done on GTO opening ranges. You can google it and find a lot about it. Since I take poker seriously, I have already done a lot of research and my own work figuring out what is profitable to raise with at each position. There is a set of hands at each position where you should open 100% of the time in a cash game. Then there is a subset of hands you should open a certain% of the time.

This is the GTO part of the game that people should already know if they want to stay profitable. If you don't know or don't understand it, you are about 5-6 years behind the top players.

I haven't played 1/2 in several years, but when I did I worked out the optimum raise size. It's bigger than 4x just because you have to overcome the rake. 6x may in fact be standard for that game.

If that's the case, and we assign CO a standard raising range, the BTN a standard call range, then calling with A5s is standard. Even minus the rake you only need 33% equity to call. If you don't call when you have the direct odds, it is the same thing as losing money. You are making a -ev fold.

Quite simply, a lot of the fold pre advice is wrong and -ev, but if you lose less folding than calling due to your skill level, then the correct advice is to quit poker.

Therefore some of the fold pre advice should actually be call or quit poker.

Now, a more advanced approach to the game, and a much better question, is how often you should re-raise with those 3 hands. GTO tells us that we need to move some calling hands into our raising range to balance our ev equation. So we should be 3betting with hands we are priced in to call some % of the time.

I would think a poker forum dedicated to strategy would have a thread that breaks this math down, but everyone who listens to the advice given here has already folded and has no incentive to work that problem out.

Good luck all

wait, that's not true, I played 1/2 the other night because all the other tables were locked up and...

I 3bet a late pos raise on the button with AQo (standard) and the opener folded AKo face up???

Later I opened UTG with AKo (standard), same guy 3bets, bb calls, I shove (standard), two calls, get it in vs TT and JJ, win

Later I called from the SB in a 5way with KJs (standard), flop gives me a gutter to the nuts (need a queen) bet is small enough that I'm getting 6:1 direct and more than 10:1 implied so I call (standard), spike the queen and stack a flopped set (standard)

so really this business about GTO not working or not being relevant at low stakes is also completely wrong. You don't have to deviate from GTO until you get to 5/10

Lolz.

That would actually be pretty good advice... if the only poker hands we were ever dealt was us in the blinds facing an LP raise.

Gyourconclusionmakingskillzareawesome,imoG

You may want to consider where your equity is coming from and how much more it will cost you to hold that equity on the flop. You'll find a lot of it is coming from the nut FD possibilities. You'll need to factor in the cost of the flop bet in your calculations to see what odds you're really being offered.

+1

Gunlesswe'reassumingeveryoneflipsovertheirhandsont heflopandchecksitdownG

IMA- your "application" of GTO to anything other than the name of a car is obscene. Go back to studying buddy. You're more than 5-6 years behind the top players on that topic.