Varying Opening Range and Size:
One thing that I think gets over looked, especially by a lot of mass multitabling players, and even a lot of coaches (who claim preflop is largely solved even at ssnl…lol) is just how dynamic your opening range preflop needs to be, especially from MP+. By simply playing a “standard range” and opening to a “standard size,” we make ourselves easy to play against, miss spots where we can get value from recreational players, and feed dead money to sser’s, lags and maniacs.
Early Position:
Tightening up: This should really only occur at tables that you’ll be leaving when the big blind gets to you anyways, as if there’s only regs left to act when you’re in EP, clearly you need to look at finding a better table. When this is the case hands like AQo and 55-88 can become –ev opens from EP. At this type of table, we are unlikely to get cold called wide (esp oop), unlikely to get paid off when we hit and likely to get 3bet and put in tough spots OOP.
Widening our Opening Range: From EP this is largely centered around the weak spots at the table and the likelyhood of us getting a multiway pot. Keep in mind that this is still fr, and we are still hand-cuffed by the 7-8 players left to act. Look to add hands like ATs, KQs, and 22-55 with weak players in the blinds. (You can widen even further depending on how weak, and who’s IP on you) Look to force multiway pots, with hands that play well in them at tables with multiple weak players, especially if they are to your direct left.
Sizing can also be varied depending on the type of situation we want to create. (note this is pretty much the only spot ill look to throw in a bit of balance occasionally.) Look at increasing your opening size when particularily big fish are in the blinds and we have strong hands. Consider min or 2.5x opens (and even sometime open limping depending the fish and stack depth) with speculative hands and an extremely weak player to you left
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*Note: Regs will have a hard time abusing this if you pick the right spots. They need legit hands as the big fish likely isnt folding. In the case you do feel abused, keep in mind we have now created a spot where we can get a typically solid abc regulars to make a huge mistake when we have a big hand.
Middle Postion:
Tightening up: This will occur most commonly when we have postion on the weak spot at the table. Once the fish folds, we now are essentially in a SH game with 5 regulars. Before opening, we look at who’s left to act (especially with postion on us) and base our range on that. Consider reducing opening size to 2.5x with your entire range if there are multiple Ssers left to act.
Things that should cause you to tighten your range:
-Aggressive 3bettors left to act, especially aggressive BTN and CO 3bettors
-Good lag with position on you, who will cold call a lot and abuse you.
-Bad reg with an IP cold calling leak, who will not fold to cbets.
-Multiple regs who you believe have a skill advantage over you, or are even of comparible skill, but have position. Be realistic.
-There are aggro SSer’s Left to act IP or OOP
Widening our Range: This is where we can really start to get away from the hand chart. From MP given the right conditions, most reasonable hands can become profitable. The idea is to create as many profitable spots as possible, (mostly through seeing a lot of flops IP with playable hands vs weak players.)
I tend not to vary my raise size much at all from this postion, but rather my opening range, but the same things as in EP apply.
Cut Off:
One of the biggest mistakes bad regs make is the treat the cutoff and button as essentially the same postion. The reality of the situation is, that this is far from the case, as we have a player left to act, who, if hes good, is in an ideal spot to exploit us. (IP playing vs a wide range with few players left to act)
One interesting thing to take note of is that, especially if the button is a thinking player, weak players in the blinds no longer necessarily widen your range. (As this makes the btn cold call a lot wider/3bet bluff wide/we cant expect to steal the blinds often.)
Tightening Up:
Look to tighten up your range if:
-button is a LAG reg, a competent TAG or a maniac.
-There are SSER’s left to act (also consider decreasing open size to limit dead money)
-There is a fish OTB who does not fold to cbets
-There are fish in the blinds (tighten to playable hands)
Widening our Range: What we’re looking to do here is to play as many hands profitably as possible, while keeping in mind that a lot of regs will having a tipping point where they start to play back a ton, and using that to our advantage. (Think, you should be fairly happy when an OOP opponent starts playing back whether by calling more or 3betting more with weak hands.)
There are two really obvious spots where widening our range is good:
-The players left to act fold to steals too often.
-The players left to act cold call too often and fold too much post flop.
Button:
Since I think the concept of stealing has more or less been beat to death, I’m going to focus on button open sizing.
I switch between 2x and 3x+ button open sizes very liberally, and throw in some open limps in the right spots depending on who is in the blinds and very strongly believe this is the most profitable strategy.
Reasons for 2xing:
-You get a better price on our steals
-Villians will over adjust and call OOP too often. (and basically never be able to get to showdown OOP when we don’t want them to, as we can rep literally anything)
-Villians 3bet a lot vs steals/will make sizing error vs min-opens. (You force him to either A) change his strategy vs steals which he will be uncomfortable with, B) play weak hands OOP in bloated pots or C) Use a sizing that makes it so we basically never have to play back.)
-SSERs in blinds. I cant stress this enough. SSER’s win b/c you create too much dead money for them. If you betsize correctly 40bb’s is acctually a really terrible stack size to play. Any time you are sizing your bets vs a 40bb stack pre or post flop keep in mind that a much smaller bet has the same leverage as your normal sizing would vs a full stack.
-You have a hand that plays better with smaller SPR (and you already vary your button opens alot based on opponents)
Reasons for 3x+:
-You want to create dead money now, as your opponent will call and fold later too often.
-You have a strong hand vs a fish, and wish to set up to get stacks in later.
-Your opponent will be 3b/fing a lot and you want his sizing to be larger.
-Your opponent is 3bet bluffing and barreling a lot, and you want his sizing pre and post flop to be larger.
Reasons for Open Limping the Btn:
-Despite stealing being extremely +ev in most spots there are some (somewhat rare perhaps) situations where I think mixing in limping is the most profitable play
-There is one big fish, (specifically if the whale is BB and SB is an overly aggro 3better) or two somewhat weak opponents in the blinds. They will not fold much pre or postflop so the creation of dead money, and increased pot size is not an advantage with speculative hands.
-You have a hand that plays better with a higher SPR.
-The higher the SPR, the greater your abilty to abuse position and skill advantage.
-You are facing an over aggressive opponent who will raise limps with a wider range than he will call.
-You are facing an opponent who plays very 3bet or fold from the blinds and you want to force them to play pots oop vs certain parts of your range.
-Even if we have an unbalanced range, we have position to offset our hand being somewhat face-up.
Let me know what you guys think, I’ll be back with some HH to discuss later.