Hey guys , am new to online poker , used to be a full time life game player but recently decided to try out online due to personal commitments . Never really read 2+2 forums much until i started online .

Thought that i'll set up a discussion thread regarding adaptability when HU is concerned .

I'm not so familiar with your lingos and terms except for the basic ones so please do pardon me regarding that .

Okay recently i have been playing alot of HU at 100NL and 200NL and i realized that there are some players on the cash tables that love to use the button min raise .

Perhaps i'm used to playing bigger limits live and moving to online is already considered moving down in stakes considerably the Button min raise really gets the better of me and tilts me it's like a constant jab stealing and their range is still pretty uncertain imo against good regs and the pots are considerably smaller thus more floating , uncertain spots etc .

Of course i understand the use of the button min raise , you risk a lesser amount with 2x instead of 2.5x or 3x to steal blinds and able to call with a wider range on the button when facing a 3bet , in most cases 3x the initial raise .

So to those who either uses the Button Min raise strategy or those who don't use this strategy but play against opponents that uses this strategy on a regular basis , kindly do enlighten me about what other reasons is this effective or how to counter it ? Or just simply follow suite and Button min raise as well instead of 3x

If you do this your going to lose a lot of money. Dont ever 20x. They cna min raise and you keep 3 betting they can fold and they don't care about that min raise. I know a guy whos made 100 k now in heads up by min raising. And thats the players he wants to play against are guys who are over aggressive. He just folds while they 3 bet to much. He said the plan is to get them to 3 bet big and he can just wait for a big hand then there out of position against his big hand. And i seen him just destroy aggressive players. He bascially tilts them into over playing pre flop out of position and hes excellent post flop player. THe players he has problems with are ones that call and see flops. THe pots are so small hes really not going to fight for them if he misses he might barrel once and then if they float a lot they can chip away at him cause he will give up after the first barrel. So what i would do call call raise float some flops and take it away on the river on scare cards.but if you think your going to run them over its not going to happen unless they call a lot of 3 bets. They will just fold and wait for strong hands.

min raising is a strategy to use against people who 3bet a bunch b/c you risk less to win with your steal, and can call in position (as long as they don't 3bet huge) with a wider range b/c the SPR is smaller. If they 3bet huge you can play big pots in position with a range that crushes there's by folding a bit more preflop. Against a min raiser widen your BB defend range to include all AXo hands and alot of suited hands, obviously postflop is opponent dependent

This thread is being totally or partly derailed and i can't even tell which. I honestly don't know who's joking and who is not. The only responce that made any sense was basically just quoting a portion of the OP.

I think this is a perfectly legitimate question for a player who is new to online poker.

To OP; where you went wrong was maybe saying that you consider moving to online play similar to dropping limits..thats a bit offensive and probably ill concieved. My bet is that the best players play online if only by sheer number and the idea that online players suck is simply out dated. I thought the same thing when i started playing online again recently after years away (for one thing i'm in the USA so my options have been limited) I digress; this is not 2007, and internet poker is NOT the ATM it was during the poker boom. These kids have become dangerous. Being a 33 year old "old man" myself, I understand all to well the idea you had in your head but I'm telling you now that you need to REALLY pay attention and see if your opponents "unusual" plays are bad plays or if you just don't "get it". I got MY #$$ kicked for a long time until i figured out how to adjust to the new school of online players. To be completely honest, most of my "adjusting" to there strange play was actually intergrating it into my own game.

Another reason your not getting real good advice here is because this topic has been beaten to death. By me for one!

While I still don't use MR's myself, I have dropped my default bttn open to 2.5X; I actually find its best to try different sizings in a single match and adjust from 2.5X. But that's just me.

After thinking this out at length and putting it into practice, and discussing it ALOT on 2+2 I came up with a "Defend vs MinRaise Range" this is based on your opponent opening 100% on the bttn and always MRing. I think it's pretty good and I use this as default myself but I have acutally started calling with some more of the suited connectors and one gappers;
Range vs 100% MR on Bttn HU:22+,A2s+,K2s+,Q5s+,Q7o+,J7s+,T8s+,98s,A2o+,K5o+ ,Q7o+,T9o
I try to 3bet the top half of this range about 75% flat with it 25% and flat call the bottom half about 75% and 3 bet it about 25%
You'll end up with a 25% 3 bet percentage and you'll be defending in some way about 50% (a bit more if you include suited connectors down to 54s)

I tried to PROVE this range mathematically and probably failed but even my critics more or less agreed with my range i think..just denied that i proved it. And, stictly speaking, they were right.
NEway, maybe take a look at the old posts by me on range vs MR, toy game, and others if you can find them. I don't know an easy way but i don't think my "toy game" thread was too long ago. It was essentially about finding a GTO range vs MR.

L8r,
And welcome to 2+2

3b 4x and adjust from there. If they call wide then make it more like 9-10bb see how they adjust. HU is a game of adjusting. Also u can flat more preflop and see how he reacts w cbet tendencies etc. Personally I don't like minraise because you play smaller pots in position with ur edge. I only minraise if someone is 3b super wide

Alot of players use the MR so they can call whider with hands when they are 3 bet and I actually have found that these players will usually call a "normal" reraise of three times there open raise. So Kenji makes some sense to me.
I disagree with making it any higher than 4X there raise when you 3 bet though. Instead you might just tighten your 3bet range up.
It is true, and obvious, that you can flat more against MR than against 3X open but its VERY easy to get carried away with that due to pot odds and start playing almost any two cards. Don't do that.(unless your playing against me.lol)

Look back at my continuation range vs MR. I think its pretty good. If it looks like its not liberal enough you maybe underestimate the power of position. If it looks too tight you may be underestimating the effect of getting 3 to 1 to see three cards. obviously you will need to adjust from that list but that seems to help me lose <1BB/hand OOP while I see what's what(and that's really the goal isn't it?)

MRing keeps all the big decisions post flop and forces your opponent to play flops with you which moves the game away from luck and towards skill. The flop and beyond is where the game gets complex. IMHO:some GREAT players MR alot in position and they win doing it (because it emphasizes there post flop edge). That creates the illussion that MRing is proper heads up strategy. "Daniel Negraneu and Dwan Durr MR the button, are you gonna argue with them?" But most of us aren't as good as Durr or Kid Poker after the flop. And the effectiveness of MRing your button relies on you having a post flop advantage. In a sense MRing the button 100% seems to ampify your post flop edge vs opponent (or your post flop disadvantage) but I, for one, am pretty sure it has a mathematical cost.

To me, the bigger post flop edge you have over your opponent the more sense it makes to MR your button. If you are super super good post flop and your opponent makes alot of mistakes then this may well be the best way to play. Against more evenly matched players I really don't think MRing is very close to GTO. You lose alot of the fold equity you'd have from raising 3X when you don't have a good hand and you fail to charge your opponent a bad price to flop against you if you actually do.

From a FTOP/EV/MATH stand point I feel you are giving up something when you MR your button, especially if you do it 100%. But that small sacrafice is often more than compensated for if your opponent adjusts incorrectly and/or you have the post flop skill advantage. Its probably JUST PLAIN WRONG if your opponent is better than you.

To defend against the MR you need to have a 3 bet range and you need to call whider than you ordinarilly would but you CANNOT play any two cards. Be honest with yourself and don't MR if your opponent seems to be at least as good as you unless he is making mistakes in his defense strat vs MR. When you do 3 bet against a MRer tend to bet larger than 3 times his bet and be willing to barrell the flop and turn with a whide range so your opponent can't just float and steal on the turn, and so he becomes less comfortable calling your 3 bets.
The other way to defend against a player who MRs 100% on the Bttn is simply to be better than him at poker. In this case he should not be minraising his button 100%.

So that's my take on it.

I noticed this a lot when playing on ipker. Players min raising close to 95% of their button. I know for sure they are bots. Some will raise call close to 100% and the others will raise fold depending on your 3b size...

Are these jst robots trying to build up pots and hoping they can break even to make money on rake? It's kind of annoying when you're not getting decent cards.

check out COMBATSTYLE. This person will raise(95%) of his bu and call the 3bets about 65%.

lol sounds like a tough strat to beat.

Why is this thread bringing in so large a % of clueless player?

I don't think there is anything strange about a live player having questions on how to adjust to MR's. I went thru that myself, in fact I'm still not sure I'm defending properly. I think that I have put together the best strat vs MR's that anyones posted and God Knows it cant be correct. I mean the odds against me just NAILING it are pretty far fetched. I would guess I am among the least experienced players of online cash game NLH matches who frequents this forum. Surely someone could do better than what I've done.

why are so few serious, thinking, and competent players trying to formulate an adequate defense against what is probably the fastest growing strat in all of NLH?

[x] lots of people have formulated adequate defenses (and in fact calling it a defense is kinda lol given like 90% of good players minr as their standard so it's more of just a gameplan in general)

[ ] lots of people eager to share their strat

lol

I know that you're making sense here but I have noticed that you seem to be more worried about divulging information than most. I don't mean any offense by that its just an observation. I would guess that most players maybe play under different names and/or don't bump into each other often enough for this to be a huge thing. I'm in USA so the odds of running into someone on here who even plays the same site as me seems slim.

I do want to bring that 90% thing into question though. Now, I don't play high stakes, so things may be very different but is it really 90% at level you play? And what level, if i can ask, is that?

I'm seeing an influx of it at, say, $50 NLH but its still the gross minority.

I think mixing it up is optimal. limp, min raise 3x and see how opponent responds to sizing. If he always folds to a 3x raise I only 3x raise hands that I don't even want to play if hes folding enough to show profit and min my strong hands since hes calling and 3 betting those and sometimes limping if he is on tilt and constantly raising every hand to pot control You don't need to build big pots post flop if someones on tilt unless you have a big hand. You get no value on any sort of fold equity when someone is tilting. Realizing there tilted you will pick up as you play. A lot of guys as soon as they lose a pot 3 bet very next hand. So you can just limp very next hand. And the reason being is it actually starts to put them on tilt they know your trying to keep pots small now after winning a nice pot. So there is a lot of things you can do. I know diff regs at heads up level some min raise all the time, some 3x all the time some even 4x pre flop every hand and some mix it up. I just mix it up it makes it more fun and keeps me out of the mechanical thinking style. then the game gets stale and boring. Its up to you, but I think it just depends on the player your playing. If someones min raising all the time but folds to a 3 bet a lot then 3 bet a lot. if hes calling every time then just call and see a flop cheap. Its only a little more your getting great odds. If you miss you lose a small pots its not a big deal. I just keep calling the min raise and pretty much it forces them to go to the 3x raise size. Don't let them take your blinds cheap or you will lose a lot of money in this game.

I was actually pretty much with you until the part where you "just keep calling the MR so they switch to a different approach".
I try out different sizes and as early game default vs unknown i base my raise on my hand and what i want to accomplish; JTs is a MR because i want the big decisions to come after the flop and don't likely have the best hand preflop or any SD value, likewise I will MR with small Pairs 22-55 and big pairs TT-AA (small pairs because of set mining dynamic and Big pairs because my opponent is actually making a mistake calling to see the flop getting 3 to 1 most of the time, I need some ballance, and I definately want to play a flop), with big aces and KQ type hands I like to 3X as default becuase i want to get max money in the pot preflop and do have SD value, etc. If i find a raise that opponent will fold to or call vs disproportinately then I have found a leak and will adjust to exploit.
HOWEVER, if my opponent calls EVERY time i MR that is actually one of the very few times I might consider MRing every bttn as default. One of the things the MRer wants you to do is call every time. Its almost like increasing the blinds every time they have the button and is VERY ineffective. You cannot do that profitably, you will be playing ANY TWO CARDS OOP EVERY TIME you're in the BB and that is SUPER BAD for business. You have to fold bad hands most of the time, i think anything that is in the bottom half of the deck in equity vs random and playability, and you MUST have a 3 bet range vs these players. I totally see why you'd think your plan is OK but trust me it is a recipe for disaster. I know because that's what I used to do. USED TO DO

If villain is raising 95 -100% then some players counter it by 3 betting near 50%. Other players will call 60% and 3 bet 30%. It depends how nuts they play the flop and subsequent streets. If you are playing a pro at those stakes and you don't have multiple counter strategies then you will probably get ground down into dust.