Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 2,330
QJo is plenty strong enough to target and attempt to isolate a weaker >40 VPIPing player from the blinds. It's definitely a mistake not to open this hand in this situation considering that type of player is in the blinds. The button in this hand is also sitting on 80 chips so we are essentially the CO in this spot.
As far an overall strategy one shouldn't always look at the EV of one particular hand in their range but the overall EV of their entire range from this position in this spot. You need some weaker hands in your range to improve the profitability of your overall range. If you just want to nit it up with the top 10% or whatever that's fine but realize in tougher games you're going to be leaving alot of chips on the table. Good players will tag your range as tight and not only will you be leaving chips on the table by not opening with QJo in this spot but you also will not be getting paid off or making as many chips with the stronger parts of your range in this spot. At least Colin's range was reasonably wide and had nice board coverage but really most broadway combos, especially with a weaker player in the blinds, and the antes, are going to be trivial easy opens in these spots as well.