I don't really want to speak for Sol Reader but this seems a matter of reading comprehension so I'll chime in. How you read the below and got "A5s 100% open in EP" is beyond me. He gives FIVE qualifiers regarding opening A5s in this post alone.

Also curious WHY you disagree, as to WHETHER you disagree, which is not very informative.

sol dropping some serious gold itt

Really dude?

Lol

No, he really isn't.

Unless you think positional awareness has no place in high raked live full ring settings.

Timmay's been at this for years. Love his "opening sc's in EP" thread from back in the day:

I guess now you can tell us how your buddy went busto..or you went busto. Or both?

ILCD with a rare moment of brilliance.

Good stuff.

DGIHarris went busto opening small one-gappers from EP so I might take what he says with a grain of salt.

Hey look,it's a winning poker player! FWIW, he claims to be a tight player. Haven't verified.

Interesting.

This statement just means you aren't playing enough hands from late position.

Wat?

Epic troll


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There is a big difference between A5s-A2s and 76s-87s, especially in live full ring.

Really

Confirmation bias much?

It seems from this quote you don't really care if playing suited connectors OOP is profitable. You just want to "win the argument". Good luck with that.

I'm actually gonna throw you guys a bone.

Axs I might be wrong about after just confering with a high stakes crusher (whom himself is mostly TAG). Sometimes even the 67s haha

This is assuming we're deeper than like 120 bbs eff or so. Below that still a fold.

Admittedly I'm a relative novice to truly deepstacked play where I think you guys' argument starts to hold water.

To quote rocky balboa, "everybody can change"

My casino just introduced a "match the deepest stack" rule. Table max buy in is 200bb so after a few hours someone has trebled up and all the rich players buy more chips to match them so by mid evening we frequently have 5+ players sitting with £1,000+ in a 1/2 game.

In addition the general standard of play is wildly loose, passive and incompetent. It is kind of hard to imagine what hands are unplayable with 500bb stacks and 5% rake capped at 5bb.

I still nit it up in EP but that's because I'm short rolled and not over confident of my edge OOP.

The regs I see winning big week after week are opening anywhere between 5% and 20% of hands from EP. The difference seems to be dependent on their postflop hand reading skills.

The loosest and best hand readers are opening 22 AT KJ QJ 54s 64s A2s K2s Q2s. I never see them pay off big with dominated broadway or AX, small 2pairs, idiot end of straights or baby flushes. I see them get to show down regularly in smaller pots with their mid strength pairs. I see them catch some big bluffs. They bluff when people obviously can't take the heat. They make big folds when they have to and they push max value when their opponents can call worse.

If I were comfortable throwing 500bb around I'd love to play like they do. I just need £20,000 and three times my current hand reading ability.

I think stacks affect your opening ranges, but it's not always as clear as deeper = more SCs. In some cases, depth actually is bad for hands like 67s because you flop non nut draws, and whereas 50-150bbs generally when you flop a oesd + fd you can happily get it in, deeper you're actually not going to want to play your hand like that, and you also get much less value when you hit.

Case in point, do MTT players who play at 30-80bbs most of the time stop opening 67s? No they do not, though of course antes and more exploitative dyanamic does make for some wider openings, at times (also tighter sometimes.

Yes, well, I make 2 points.

1: I pretty much DO open A5s 100% in any live NLHE game.

2: I can see how that might not be true in a truly balanced, tough FR game, especially online, so THEORETICALLY, A5s might not be an open.


BUT these two points are both largely irrelevant TO THIS THREAD because my point is that A5s is MORE of an open than hands like KJo A9o, and I dispute the OP's contention that suitedness is overrated.


Finally, this comes up again and again. People say players opening A5s and 67s are opening way too loose. The reality is that it's possible to open Axs and 67s+ and still be quite tight, possibly tighter than players who don't open those hands, because THERE ARE FEWER SUITED COMBOS THAN OFFSUIT ONES.

For instance, a range of 22+, QTs+ 67s+ A2s+ KQo AJo+ is only 16%. I would remove KQo and AJo and 22-44 before I remove Axs, which would move our range to 13.9%, which is fairly tight. Finally, you can play 67s 1/3 to 1/2 of the time only, and then it won't be much.

For reference 56s-T9s (assuming we all play JTs) is only 1.5%. Yes, these hands that you think are "way too loose" to play only increases your PFR by 1.5%. A2s-A8s is also about 1.5%, so combined me playing all those hands only increase about 3% PFR/VPIP.

How much is 3%?

ATo KQo KJo, KTo alone is already 3.6% and accounts for more than ALL of the hands you think are "too much", and I think people pay off and lose value/value cut with those hands way more from EP.

(I'd play most of them in a soft game too, like I said, just pointing out for reference).

lol trollz. idk from where in my post do you infer that I'm not positionally minded. The ranges I give all allow for being a lot tighter EP than LP. You just don't know maths and combinatorics and can't wrap your mind around the idea that you can be tight and still play suited connectors.

Reality is, the tighter you are perceived, the more you can play suited connectors, since people will 3b you even more polarised, and people will put you on AK and high cards more. Another example is Axs, if we open A2s UTG and we're tight, people fold/don't flat ATo or AJ, and certainly when we do flop dominated Ax, people rarely value bet thin against us since we're perceived to have so much AK AQ, being tight, so we get value towned a lot less. (But of course from a balanced perspective that doesn't matter, we should be playing these hands regardless of exploitation.)

Sick find, nice.

Not sure if the "you" in the second to last paragraph is directed at me, but I actually think what you've written sounds accurate and helpful and didn't mean to imply I objected to your points about AXs and SCs. You've obviously put a great deal of thought into playing these hands and your mathematical approach seems solid. I have a degree in math. It helps me understand poker concepts when I see the underlying mathematics vs. the more typical authoritative argument "Play this hand this way because I have ten years of experience and just trust me on that"

FTR I think Timmay was saying SCs and low AXs should be removed from live FR EP opens, not online. Personally I don't have enough experience live to comment authoritatively on the matter, but I can't think of any logical reason not to open these hands unless we're constantly getting 3-bet or some other specific table conditions.

How do you rank the AXs hands? Are A2s-A5s better than A6s or A7s, for instance, due to the former group's ability to make a straight? Or is the higher kicker generally more important?

Would you open all AXs and SCs in both 100bb and 200bb games?

I apologise, I didn't specify. I was speaking to timmay and others at that point, I understood what you'd meant.

re maths, I only have a cursory understanding of "real" maths, incomparable to any actual mathematician, and my talents light in much more intuitive understanding of things like gameflow. That said, even then, I realise it's criminal to refuse putting time into understanding basic maths the way many live players seem to.

I feel like I have a reputation of being math heavy in my approach, but of the high stakes and successful players I know I am by far one of the least math oriented. They all spend lots of times with solvers and their databases, and it seems ridiculous to me that people have all these great examples of great players and how they became good at poker of all forms and formats, and people aren't willing to learn from that.

Galfond is a good example of a less strongly mathematical and precise approach (lots of intuitive estimation of "correct play") who still gives mathematical approach a lot of respect and credit.

I stand on the shoulder of giants here, there's just so much of the work on these things done and available out there in coaching videos in particular, that the amount of work one has to do is just tiny compared to trying to work it out all by yourself, so I think people not willing to look into these things is just making a huge mistake. RIO has lots of good videos on a lot of these relatively simple math spots you can look into.

So for a while, people began saying A5 is better than A6, then people said no the 6 kicker is more important, maybe 3 years ago, said it was a misconception (I recall a conversation between Aejones and LuckyCHewy about that in a video). Since then it's swung all the way back to thinking A4 A5 > A6 A7, and there's a lot more database analysis nowadays to back these assertions so I assume it's correct. The precise comparison I'm not sure, and I suspect position and situation matters. One thing is clear, against a tighter range A5 is superior, and in fact A5s is basically THE BEST 3b bluff hand in most situations. Furthermore there are many spots where you play all of them, and in those cases, A5s play better in 3b pots, and A8s and so on play better in single raised pots relative to each other so we 3b A5s without question. It's possible though, that A8s has more raw equity in vacuum than A5s in some of those spots, I have to admit I have not played online NLHE at reasonable volume for a year and a half so I'm not sure.

I open them like 30bb up until infinity unless I have very specific reads about opponents (people just ripping in ATo when it's 30bbs or something).

You asserted that opening 76s from EP indicates that he lacks positional awareness. My assertion is that while 76s can be opened from EP, there are many many far less playable hands than 76s that I would not play in EP but that can be played in LP. So while I open more hands from EP than you, I likely still play a higher percentage of my hands in position.

I would argue that they aren't even comparable.

Oh goodie. What type of experience does the high stake crusher have at low stakes? When is the last time he played low stakes? What type of experience does he have playing a 60bb stack? How does he know we can't play a wide range profitably with a 60bb stack?

If the 1/2 games you are playing are still as soft as I suspect they are then you can actually get away with open limping certain hands profitably. I would personally never open limp a suited connector but AXs can certainly qualify.

Even if I use your betting trick of making it $23 on the flop, plus don't tip the $1 at the end (hint: I actually don't tip on small pots like this, but shhhhhhh let's keep that between us), that still ends up with our opponent putting in $38 and us only getting $30 of it, so still a huge tax of 21%.

The point I'm simply trying to make is that none of us are *that* much better than our ok-to-good (let alone elite) opponents to outrun this crippling tax.

Gpeopledon'tkillpeople,rakedoes,imoG

Sol, I'm assuming you play in deepstack games?

Both of these points jumped out at me for my typical 10 handed loose 1/3 NL game. If you raise in EP with a typical $300 (100bb) stack to $15 (which would actually be considered on the somewhat small side at my table) and go 5way (standard), that's a $75 pot with $285 (SPR < 4). What's this 3 street business? The hand can easily be over on the flop (any raise on the flop is stack committing), and should easily be over on the turn; if you've somehow gotten to the river with 2 bets, I highly doubt there's any decision to be made on the river given what little we'll have left.

And ditto for this "4b" thing. A 4bet at these stack sizes with standard lol live open sizing is a shove (or an effective one at the very least).

Basically, these "smaller" (100bb) stacks + large opens + multiway pots make this pretty much shortstacked poker, where tight-is-right big hands are king, no? Which is why I'm very skeptical of this suggested wide opening range.

Of course, if you're playing deepstack, then different animal.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Agreed here. You want hands that dominate other get it in hands, and nut flushes is the prime NLHE example (also big pair + higher wraps in PLO)

The rake tax is definitely huge, but I think that's a stronger argument for playing hands that let you barrel down end up with fewer chek down/pot control situations like 1 pair hands often are.

I actually play a big mix of depths. Sometimes the games I play in get double triple straddles, and everyone becomes very short. I also play shorter sometimes due to positional reasons or just for leverage reasons, and lots of high stakes players online do the same.

I think a lot of these hands are playable not only deep. Sure you have fewer implieds, but you also get more spots where you can jam draws profitably.

The 3b and 4b parts are brought up just to illustrate how strong there are as hands. Of course they're not usually as relevant in low stakes games.

Low SPR is a great spot to have a nfd + 1 over on. You basically can never misplay horribly when you flop a flush draw at that SPR. If you get dominated with a flush draw it's pretty much a cooler (though obviously it happens, which is why we raise to isolate and fold out some J6s Q7s type trash)

(wanted to add that 4 SPR can defnitely still be a 3 streeter sometimes, but at low stakes probably only done on dry boards)

That is kind of correct. When we are multiway, we want to play hands that can get it in with good equity. This actually makes hands like QJ much worse and suited hands much better, since QJ is going to flop top pair and be dominated or facing two pair all the time if it goes 6way.

Also people don't actually call so much that you go 5way all the time, that's an exaggeration. Obviously if that's the case you should start making it 20 or 25 as an open and make tons of money.

Again, I feel like a lot of players conflating playing Axs and 56s+ with playing loose, when what I am saying is that you should change the type of hand you play and move away from offsuit hands, not just play a very high VPIP.

Look at the post above, the vpip increase with playing suited aces and 56s+ only really increases it by about 3%.

Going 5way @ $15 is exactly the same as going 3way @ $25 in terms of SPR.

ETA: Course, I'm more discussing what I see the problems of opening too loose in EP are, and not really addressing the original question of the value of suitedness (where obviously QJs is >> QJo, although it's my belief it is still a mistake to be raising hands like this in EP in games that I've described).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Like I said, you only need to win about 20% of the pot on average when it goes 5-way, and with a hand that doesn't dominated much, you're going to get money in either as a decent draw, or as a strong made hand most of the time even multiway.

As mentioned above, I think people just a get affected by the mirage of having to check fold so often with these hands, when KJo type hands win small to mid sized pots more often, but when the pots get big, which will happen easily on these SPRs, you much prefer the suited ones.

My guess is that you have to be an expert player to play the difficult spots profitably so that the amount you lose in those difficult spots doesn't outweight the profits from the easier spots (noting that the number of difficult spots you flop is far going to outweight the easier ones with regards to hands we will consider continuing with past the flop). QJs flopping TP in an SPR < 4 pot 5ways is a pretty dicey spot, no?

Gatleastitisforme,whichiswhyIavoidthemG

Well I don't consider QJs a suited connector, it's first and foremost a suited broadway, and dicey as it is, it's certainly no dicier than QJo.

If you reread some of my posts above I give exampels in more detail, but basically people who are inexpereinced make more mistakes with top pair type hands because it's unclear when a hand is a pure bluffcatcher, when it should be bet for value or protection, and so on.

With 67s and also Axs to a degree (if you don't overplay them and instead treat A board as just a bluff catcher), you generally are either bluffing a draw, cbetting on dry boards, or you have a very strong value hand. Not to say there isn't a lot of finesse in these situations, but these are much simpler to not misplay horribly than when you flop top pair multiway on a draw heavy board.

What kind of tough spots do you expect with a hand like 67s? Your plan is to cbet dry boards 3way or less, and then only if you have a oesd or better, maybe bet a gutshot sometimes when board doesn't hit opponent range, then continue on turn only if you still have a strong draw. When you make your hand, bet for value. If you have one pair, maybe cbet for protection/bluff, but otherwise check down give up. Seems simply to me.

Saying that flopping top pair with QJ is "dicey" is very much akin to players that say they "hate" jacks (and call them "hooks") because an overcard always comes or they hate AK and lose so much money with it or whatever.

It's akin to those players who raise AA huge preflop and then say, "I didn't want any callers; don't want to see a flop." Or some nit who flops top set, then check-raises all in and proudly shows their hand when everyone folds saying, "I couldn't let the flush get there; had to take it down now." They intentionally bet as to push people out when they have the best hand.

Being uncomfortable with strong hands that can be beat on later streets or are possibly already beat are based not only on fear of losing, but on a feeling of entitlement I think. I see so many players that cbet 100% of the time when they raise preflop, regardless of what they have, how many other players are in the hand, and what actually came out on the flop. Doing this is based on the notion that you're always supposed to try to win a hand when you enter a pot. As Sol pointed out, it's perfectly ok to open a hand and just let it go/give up if you flopped bad. You don't need to win that many hands that go 5-ways to do well in those situations, so long as you're not needlessly throwing money away in most of these pots.

As to JQ flopping top pair - start with the assumption that you have the best hand, and if at some point that assumption is proven to be wrong (based either on action or bad turns and rivers), just let it go. Bet it knowing you might already be beat and you may be value-owning yourself, but that's ok because against your opponents' ranges as a whole you are getting value by betting.

I think poker requires sort of a Taoist mindset; you've just gotta kinda flow with the hand, villain tendencies, etc. Let the money come to you rather than trying to force it. Feeling like a situation is "dicey" or "uncomfortable" tends to make people do things to force a situation. So I think it's very important to figure out how to feel more at ease in a hand, and more ok with losing some hands with a mindset focused on what's most profitable in the long run.