Quote:
Originally Posted by Avaritia
Thamel, one of what will likely be several follow ups.
Hypothetically speaking, if you knew that a table's calling ranges were totally inelastic to a range of 3x-5x raises (thus beginning to fold more at 6x), and that they did not associate your raise size with hand strength, and their 3bet frequency remained the same...what would you open AA, AKo, and 55 at? (Assume 60bb-150bb even mix starting stacks)
Because for me personally, in this scenario, it would be $25, $30, $15.
I've thought a ton about this, more than any single poker concept. A ton.
A bit of history:
I started my poker career with "maxing out" my open sizes with my value hands. If I thought I could get away with a $30 open I would (and often did) ((did meaning I'd still get 2-3 callers)). I'd open limp small pps. This first 1000 hours was the highest win rate of my poker career. (Alot of other factors and variance in here to be sure, but still something to be noted)
My next 1000 hours, I began learning more. I started opening all of my range and doing it smaller, mostly 4x. In this time I met the best live player I've ever seen, who opened 3x. Even at table where standard open was $40. I never truly understood what he was doing but please trust I'm not taken in lightly but this kid was amazing to watch.
I started opening 3x more often and sort of saw some of the benefits. However, I'm not sure ignoring a tables inelastic calling range makes up for post flop maneuverability (biggest advantage I see to 3x). I mean if you can announce to the table you have aces, raise $25, and get 6 calls, shouldn't you?
I've also seen a fairly large downswing in this second 1000 hour period.
Thoughts?
Opening 3x requires knowing how to to play multiway flops well, and being a very good hand reader. I think there are a lot of spots in multiway flops that people consistently miss (some really good bluffing opportunities). People really mess up their bet sizing when flops go 6 way IMO. And they lose a ton of value later in the hand in various ways - slowplaying when it's a bad idea, fast playing/leading when an x/r would be better, going too big for value in some spots, going too small for value in other spots, bluff sizing too big, bluff sizing too small, etc.
I think that preflop is super important, but at a certain point getting really good at postflop - especially perfecting bet-sizing - will add much more value to your game.
I mean, if we play postflop well, then really most preflop decisions become somewhat marginal. If we open smaller or bigger or wider or narrower than we might otherwise, then yeah maybe we increase our EV by a few bucks here or lose a few bucks in EV there. But I think the EV differences are much more dramatic when we're deciding whether to bet $185 or $415 or whatever somewhere later in a hand.
From this perspective, it makes sense for better players to often decide to open smaller. While aces are "easier" to play heads up, it's definitely nice to have a bunch of villains throwing money in the pot when they're all beat. Still, I think it's a bad idea to stay constant at 3x or 4x or whatever (I used to do this for various preflop sizings). As my game has progressed, though, position matters the most for sizing; I tend to like smaller opens in early position and bigger opens in later position (especially after limpers).
Last edited by pocketzeroes; 05-28-2017 at 04:06 PM.