This year, we had consistently excellent Concept of the Week threads. In this post, I am going to try to put together the highlights from the 2009 COTWs into a comprehensive “playing the micros” post. I'm hitting the highlights, aiming the discussion at the new players that will join us in 2010. For a more detailed discussion of any of the concepts listed here, simply click on the link and it will open that COTW. If you've read the CotW posts, this is basically 100% unnecessary for you to read.
I.Table Selection
In general, look for tables that have high VPIPs, short wait lists (so you know the table composition will be the same when you take your seat), few short stacks and many 80bb+ stacks. When you are offered a seat at the table, you might have to decline it. We are looking for seats that give us position on the fish(es) at the table. We want any solid regulars across from us. If your seat doesn't offer you these advantages, you may want to decline it (and consider putting yourself back on the wait list).
II.Playing a Solid Tag/LAg Preflop Style
One of the key components of playing a solid game is to play preflop with
positional awareness. The idea behind positional awareness is simply that when you are in early position, you are more likely to play the hand out of position. Playing out of position is more difficult than playing in position, because on each betting round, you will have to act before you have any information on what your opponent thinks of the situation.
In contrast, when we are in position, we get to evaluate our opponent's action on each betting round before we decide what we are going to do. This extra information allows us to play our hand more profitably.
To minimize the difficulty of playing out of position, in general, we limit ourselves to playing a narrow range of good hands that either have showdown value, or can flop solid showdown value fairly often. As our position improves, we can open up and play more hands in specific situations. Moreover, we can use plays such as the
isolation raise to manipulate our position; when someone to our right limps, we can raise, encouraging players with better position than ours to fold. When successful, this play allows us to play a hand heads up in position with the betting initiative against a player with a weak hand.
Similarly, when we are in late position and have the opportunity to raise first in, we should raise a wide range of hands in an effort to
steal the blinds. When we have a stealing opportunity, many factors go into the decision whether to raise. Our cards are only one of these factors, and are not the most important. It is far more important to know the players whose blinds you are trying to steal. Be aware of their general tendencies (VPIP/PFR) their fold to steal stats, how often they 3 bet, and take into consideration any history you have with them, especially any recent history (the last few orbits). Based on these factors, you should be stealing different ranges against different players in the blinds. Against players who usually fold, you can profitably steal with a wide range, expecting them to simply fold the vast majority of the time. Against these players, we will rarely commit any additional money to the pot when they don't fold.
Against players who are loose and will call a lot of steals, we can't profitably play a wide range, but we can play a lot of hands that have the ability to flop well, especially hands that will dominate the blind's calling range.
Facing a three bet, the usual play is to fold. However, there is a time for calling and a time for bluff 4 betting, in addition to value 4 betting when our premium hands get 3 bet. These are fairly advanced plays not to be undertaken carelessly, because they are very expensive. You have to have a firm grasp of what the 3 bettor's tendencies are. If he is a tight 3 bettor with a 100bb stack, prefer folding over all other options. You want to call only with hands that have good equity against the range that he 3 bets. You should essentially never be bluff 4 betting against these players.
By contrast, against loose 3 bettors, you should play back at them more often. You can incorporate bluff 4 bets, lighter value 4 bets and some flat calls.
Some general guidelines. A player who 3 bets 2.6% of the time is usually 3 betting AK and QQ+. You have to consider the possibility that he 3 bets a slightly wider range than this, but does not always 3 bet these hands. But this is a good gauge of his 3 betting range. If the player 3 bets 3.3% of the time, he is adding in some combinations of JJ and AQ. If he is at 5% he is probably balancing his range by value 3 betting the above-listed hands and including some weak hands—perhaps ragged suited aces, or small pocket pairs or middle suited connectors—as semi-bluff 3 bets. A 3 bet figure above 5% is one that I would characterize as very loose, and I would flat or 4 bet fairly often against those players.
As you can see from the previous discussion, the tight aggressive and loose aggressive styles of play both favor seizing the preflop initiative by betting and raising. However, there are times when we do want to simply
cold call a preflop raise. The general rules here are very simple: you want to cold call with hands that have the ability to flop a monster hand or a draw to a monster hand. Thus, we prefer cold calling with small and middle pocket pairs, suited connectors and suited one gappers. These hands will usually not improve on the flop, so we will be folding them a lot and losing our preflop investment. To compensate for this sad reality, we need to get paid well with them when they do improve. Consequently, preflop we should only call a raise with these hands when stacks are offering high implied odds. The more of the following things are true, and the more true they are, the better our implied odds:
Stacks are deep. The deeper the better; in general, we should apply the 5%-10% rule, and always fold if the preflop raise represents 10% of the effective stacks, and usually lean toward calling if it is less than 5%. When stacks are effectively
200bb deep, the nature of the game has changed so much that hands getting implied odds are almost preferable (but not quite, so don't get carried away) to the premium hands that are usually offering reverse implied odds.
The pot is shaping up to be multi-way. You don't have to always be the second caller for this to be true; you need to look at the tendencies of the players behind you-- if they are loose and passive, this increases the possibility that they will enter, especially if the big blind has such a tendency.
The possibility of a Squeeze is remote. This means you have to consider the tendency to 3 bet of the players yet to act, and the position of the initial raiser. Even aggressive 3 bettor are cautious about 3 betting a person with a tight raising range who opens UTG.
The initial raiser has a tight preflop raising range. This increases the possibility that he has a hand that will pay you off when you hit.
The initial raiser plays aggressively post flop. So does this.
We have absolute position. This means we will be last to act.
We have relative position. As a practical matter, this means that there is not going to be anybody who checks to the raiser and then acts again after us.
Our hand is not susceptible to post-flop domination. The closer our hand comes to flopping the nuts or a draw to the nuts, the better off we are. So we prefer 99 to 66, as there is less chance of being set over setted; and we prefer ace rag suited to 87s, provided that:
We are confident in our ability to play one pair correctly post flop. We need to be able to fold top pair when we play suited aces. Similarly, we need to know when to get them to showdown. You want to be offering the least possible reverse implied odds.
One thing that is true about today's game is that it is unprofitable to
play drawing hands in a fit or fold fashion. They simply do not hit often enough, and when they do hit, they are fairly obvious to your opponents, making it harder to win big pots with them. Playing draws profitably requires us to play aggressively—we need to build pots for when we improve, we need to utilize fold equity, and we need to win some pots unimproved when the villain appears weak. Against the more unaware opponents, blocking bets can get you cheap cards when you find yourself drawing out of position (something you should generally avoid like the plague).
One situation where you might find yourself drawing out of position is when you are
defending your blinds. The consensus for playing the micros is that we shouldn't really bother to defend our blinds, and should simply fold to most steals. However, defending is appropriate in several situations:
The small blind open limps. Raise.
The stealer is weak. This means either that he knows he is “supposed to” steal preflop, but plays his weak hand poorly postflop, or that you have reason to believe that he will fold to a resteal 3 bet.
You have a good hand.
The basic decision you are faced with when you have decided to defend is whether to call or 3 bet. This subject is really too complex to summarize, but I'm going to give it a try: In general, you should call with hands that are near, but not at the top of, the stealer's raising range. There aren't many of these hands, and, as you can tell from the statement, your calling range ought to depend entirely on the stealer's stealing range. The hands that you should 3 bet are those that you are value 3 betting against his range, and those hands that are probably ahead of his stealing range, but will be difficult to play after the flop. The other important factor in the call/3 bet decision is how the stealer reacts to 3 bets. The more inclined he is to fold, the less inclined you should be to 3 bet premiums and the more inclined you ought to be to 3 bet hands that tend to flop well only rarely. We have had several lively debates on where which hands fall on this continuum, and you are doing yourself a major disservice if you don't read both
this thread by knn05 and
this one by Gregghehe
Two Plus Two
If you are value betting, are you prepared to play for stacks? Have a plan for this, because if you bet the flop and then the turn, you are getting danger-close to the commitment threshold.
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