I'm curious what pocket pairs you open in a live $1/$2 NLHE 9 handed cash game. I'm mainly talking from early position (UTG - LJ) as I'm wondering if it's okay to say, open 22 UTG. This is assuming you have no reads on anyone at the table.
Assuming you aren't opening or playing every pocket pair, what position do you begin opening 22 and what's the lowest PP you are opening from UTG?

This varies greatly for me. 1/2 or 1/3 table of unknowns UTG I open 77+. Once I know how table is the playing I might open smaller pairs and might even lol open limp cuz set mining still somewhat profitable vs many 1/2 1/3 players and u can get ok relative position seeing who comes in behind a raise etc.

In deeper games once I know how table is playing I might open all pps or as tight as the 77+.

2/5 I just start opening all my pps and adjust from there.

There are plenty of games on actually just dump baby pairs UTG with utg1. Mostly shorter stacked games with sticky players. I mostly avoid these games if possible though.

For the record I probably view straight set me not going in 2017 (esp oop) as less profitable than a lot of people in this forum.

With my style a med D.C. Or s1g frequently works better for me.




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I open with all of them from everywhere because YOLO. But really if the game is passive like most LLSNL games are, you can get away with opening them all. There is no shame in making it 10 from utg in a 1/3 game with 33 and getting 5 calls, only to check fold a J97 flop. I have occasionally folded 22-55 EP in bad games.

If your game has decent stack depths (say, 60 BB or more), raised pots go multiway frequently, and a 3-bet is pretty much just QQ+ with a sprinkling in of JJ/AK, then you should raise them all in EP in my opinion. It's basically a bread & butter situation for us to go multiway in a bloated pot with a PP, against typical live players.

If some of these things are untrue (mainly stack depth and multiway-ness of raised pots), pull back and maybe only open 66+ from UTG.

That's about what I thought as far as being able to open all PPs. The only thing I'm still unsure about is bet sizing. In a typical 1/2 or 1/3 game are we just opening to the standard 3x - 4x everytime? I suppose this allows us to "set mine" for relatively cheap in a multi way pot.

I agree that there is no problem in pots going 18 ways when we open pp and the dynamics of live play (high vpip, no 3bet) are great for pps.

Now my questions for you specifically:

1) do you open them 3x?
2) if so, do you open AA 3x? AKo 3x?
3) do you have an open limping game at all?

For the record iPhone auto correct effed my poast up. Tryn to say set mining in 2017 not what it was in 2007.


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1) Probably around 20-35% of the time at the absolute maximum. I typically open 4x in my theorized situation though. If I don't feel I should open 4x with a hand, I'll typically just muck it.

2) Not really, no.

3) As a basis, no. If I were to work in open limping, it would likely be heavily dependent upon what I think about the table, especially the 2-3 players on my left. The problem I face in my games is that the average PFR range of the table is probably a decent bit wider than {AQ+, TT+}, and raise sizes are generally pretty big, too. So I'm in a less than ideal situation if I'm forced to be one of the first to call a raise, and will have to limp/muck quite frequently.

Another thing that I've sort of seen from getting back in the game this month (and something I've thought about a lot) : Live recreational players, across the whole spectrum of play style, have a lot more experience in limped pots than me. The mistakes they make in them, as a player pool, seem a lot smaller/more subtle than they used to be. Might just be my imagination / confirmation bias, I have no idea. We're obv not going to make big mistakes in limped pots, but if our opponents aren't making as many, that makes having an open limp to set/nut mine type of strategy kind of meh to me.

Delete

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?

I dump the baby PP in first 3-4 seats 10-handed, and I don't feel like I'm missing much

Having just started playing live coming from purely online 6 max where I virtually never limp, I'm struggling to determine when I limp behind. It feels off isolating in the CO w/ 44 after 3 limpers knowing that the BU and the blinds will also call. So I'm just limping behind a lot, expecting no one to raise behind me. This has to be profitable, yes? Maybe raising is more profitable.

Read thread in stickies called crazy ramblings by Azula.... funny as **** but nails why we only ISO over limps with a strong range live.


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Ava, I will be the first to say that my PF game is not nearly as exploitative as it should be / I want it to be. It's honestly a waste, given that my player pool is basically 2 tables, 0 pros at my home turf.

If my table was truly inelastic between 3-5x pre, I'd prob open AA/AK/55/T9s to 25 / 25 / 15 / 15. I definitely think there's a lot of value in being able to see a flop, even when the pot is bloated & multiway, since our opponents can make such huge mistakes postflop and have hilarious bet sizing tells/don't track the pot size. I just feel I have such a good thumb on my opponents' postflop play, board textures, that I could care less if the whole table calls me.

Soon, I need to go into a few of my 2/5 sessions with just a "maximum exploit" preflop mindset, and take notes of how that goes.

I open 22-44 in most games I play (2/5), but realistically I think these are probably better folded. The problem is you will rarely win the hand unless you make a set, but for the times you make a set, much of the time you don't win nearly what you want to in IO, and a very non-insignificant amount of the time you end up losing the hand. And of course, there are games with frequent 3betting pre.

What about in a typical 1/2 or 1/3 game where there's rarely any 3b pre and a lot of limps? Is it worth open limping these hands (even from EP) if you think you can see a flop for cheap? Or would it still be better to open 3x knowing you'll get a couple callers and rarely ever get 3b?

Depends on stack sizes... If you're playing with a bunch of shorties, probably want to be open raising less. 80-100BBs seems ideal as I think you can felt a lot of people with top pair/good kickers (given that you're opening 3-4x and not getting 3bet). If you get up to 160-200BBs+, you start getting into situations where, when all the money goes in, you're often losing. Or you get into ugly spots where, for example, the flush card comes on the river and you're OOP and a little lost in the hand. You just have to be a lot more disciplined and a good hand reader playing deep, and know how to occasionally fold a set.

Ava, the key is to be adaptable. Basically every question in this thread can be answered with "it depends."

OP, you can open 22 utg. You shouldn't always, but you definitely can. You should also never have "no reads." Even if I've traveled out of country, am playing in a place where I don't speak the native language I have reads before I play a hand.

I understand this. It's really hard to convey my thoughts in posts here but let me just say I think this is the single most important area of study regarding live poker and most gloss over it. I tried to give a toy game with dependent criteria. In a game where you can open $40 and get called by half the table with stacks ranging from $200-$600, what do you open AA/AKo/55.

And would you adopt a limping strategy.

And, why is the best player I've ever seen play poker opening $15 in this game.

Fair enough. What about Axs and SC type hands? Are you opening these EP in a typical 1/2 or 1/3 FR cash game?

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).

Pocketzeros, do you typically size down your cbets multiway?

For example heads up I'm cbetting 80%-90% sizing in a $30 pot.

However 6 ways in a $120 pot i don't want to bet $100 on like a J27r flop. Or a 567hh flop for that matter. (With an overpair for example)

PFR sizes ought to be sized so as to get the hands HU. 3-5x typically wont do that. I personally do not asjust by sizing whatsoever based on my hand, not because i want to disguise my hand, but because my goal is the same irrespective of hand (to get the pot HU).

People think low PPs play great multiway, i guess they do, but you know where else they play great? HU. Instead of set mining, you can just cbet and take it down. 6 ways if you raise, people will put you on a monster. HU, you bet, they raise, you ship, they figure maybe you got a draw and might call you with a pair.

Yeah I definitely size down my cbets multiway. In a 6way $120 pot, I could bet as small as 1/3 pot (but there are hands that I'll bomb too).

But I tend to bet flops a lot smaller than most people in general. And I've been criticized on here many times for it.

I think this is wrong. I mean, yeah you can play a very profitable TAG style this way - basically raising pre to get heads up and taking down pots on the flop - but I don't think it's the most profitable way to play. There is something innately good about investing only $20 and getting $100 more in the pot, as opposed to investing say $45 and getting only one other caller for $45. But when pots go 6-way, there is definitely some finesse involved to winning more than your equity.