Okay, so you’ve been playing poker online for a while…if you’re like most of us, you probably started out super fishy…you know…playing too many hands preflop, playing too passively…that sort of thing. After doing some reading and posting on 2plus2, you’ve become better than most of the field and on par or above the regs at your level. You’ve been playing tight, aggressive poker for a while and it’s winning you money…but…

You’re getting bored.

You want to change your game up and develop parts of your game that need work.

Maybe you want to learn to play more tough spots.

For these and other reasons, most poker players (at some point or another) have thought about “opening up their game”. In essence, this means playing more hands preflop. I, for example, spent a long time running between 11/9 and 13/10 preflop. After a lot of work, coaching, and thought, I now run anywhere between 16/14 and 20/17, depending on the table. Now, I had my own reasons for wanting to make this change, (and obviously you do too, if you’re thinking about this), but here are a few good reasons to do so:

a) “I’m a better player than most of the people I’ll come up against…the more hands I play with worse people, the more chances I get to push my skill advantage and the more money I make.”

b) “I play in a lot of games where the field is pretty weak-tight. Opening up and playing aggressively will allow me to run people over, win a ton of small pots, and a few big ones here and there.”
c) “I’ll learn more about the game by experiencing different situations. It’s not often that a 10/7 gets to play middle 2 pair on the turn…”

d) “I think it’ll be more fun and challenging and boost my winrate!”


So…we’ve got a reason…now what do we do? Well, I could lay out a set of opening hands by position, but I think that’d be really boring and kinda pointless. (After all, you can google that stuff, right?) What I will do is give some very general tips and share some of the things I’ve needed to learn in order not to go completely insane. Any other players that wish to add here may feel free!!

Tips!

Loosen up IP first

Start from the button and work your way back. The easiest, most profitable way to open up is to just play looser from the button and cutoff. The more hands you play in position, the better off you will be. I’ve seen 22/19’s who run 7/6 from UTG…so you don’t need to play loose all over the table in order to put up LAG numbers.

Isolate when in position!

If you’ve got a weak limper at your table who folds to cbet a lot, it doesn’t matter what your cards are! Isolate them pre with a raise, then cbet. Be wary of good players behind you though…observant ones may read you and re-raise. The closer you are to the button, the more willing you should be to do this.

Steal steal steal!!

This kinda goes hand in hand with the first one, but really…if there are nits in your blinds (or other fold-happy types) steal beyond your heart’s content! At the right table, you should be able to steal 100% of the time. (Overall, I feel nitty when my ATS is less than 50%).

Bet-size accordingly

When you run 11/9, your preflop holdings are very strong. You rate to have the best hand, and your goal is to start building a pot. Many TAG’s I see open for 4 (sometimes 5 BB). However, if you’re running 20+/15+, this is gonna get you in a lot of trouble. Why? Because your holdings aren’t going to be that strong. Many times, you’ll be opening small-medium pairs, suited connectors, one-gappers…hands that rely on implied odds. The larger your preflop raise, the worse the implied odds are (since the stack-pot ratio will be lower). I’ve played with lots of sizes…I personally like 3BB, but that may change.

I also charge more when I isolate (4BB+1/limper in general). For the most part, the goal of isolation is to have the hand end by the flop’s end. The limper limps in, we raise, and he either folds immediately or calls and then folds to cbet. As such, we want to squeeze a bit more value, and the place to get it is preflop. (If you know he’ll call more preflop and still fold, by all means, bump it up!).

As an aside, note that isolation usually puts you IP postflop, whereas opening can leave you OOP more often. This is another reason for the smaller open and larger iso.

Again, this is really nothing new and much of it is part of a good TAG strategy as well. However, there’s a lot more to be said about opening up than playing the same postflop game, but just playing more hands pre.

Observations!

More 3bets

It should make sense that a person who raises 16% of their hands is going to see twice as many 3bets (on average) than someone raising 8%. What isn’t so apparent, however, is that it’s often going to be a good deal more than twice as many. This is because players aren’t going to have the same range for 3betting a 20/16 as they’re going to have vs a 10/8. I know I felt like I was getting 3bet over and over for the first couple of months, but after doing some analysis, I saw that (with exception of a few players), the ranges were the same…I was just seeing more 3bets, because I was raising hands I used to fold.

Double the BR

If you’re aiming to play loose-aggressive, I’d highly suggest having double the bankroll (or dropping down)…especially when starting out. I’ve found that playing looser (and maintaining aggressiveness) leads to a swingier graph.

Change Your HUD!

Since you’re not going to be playing premiums all the time, you need to get a good idea of your villain’s ranges for all three streets. I’m sure most of you have a villain’s VPIP and fold to flop cbet %, but do you know how often he bets the river after you cbet the flop and check the turn? How often does he call 2 shells and then fold to the third…or cbet the flop and bet/fold the turn a high percentage? As you move your game past the flop and start focusing more on the turn and river, you’ll want much better reads of how your villains play those streets.

Adjusting?

The toughest part (for me at least) about running looser is figuring out whether someone is just making a standard play, or if they’re playing back at me. I’ll say that for the most part, people are just playing their same old game. If someone has a 3bet of 2% and they fold to your first ten opens, and then 3bets you the next time, chances are, he’s still got that 2%. In fact, he’s been waiting for it…foaming at the mouth for the chance to 3bet you. Now…if he 3bets you the next 3-4 times, then you can start considering that he’s opening up against you.

When people DO adjust, it’s usually in one of three ways.

1) They tighten up, figuring that they can hit big and then act tilty.
2) They start bluffing against you.
3) They open up their value range against you.

Getting a feel for where your opponent is can lead to super lucrative spots. Case in point:

Hero has been running 22/18 at a 50NL table and has been minstealing from the BTN because the blinds were nitty. Hero minraises from the BTN with 52o. SB 3bets to $4.50, Hero folds. SB starts talking trash about me being a min-raising fish.

Next orbit: Hero minsteals Q9ss from the BTN. SB snap-3bets to $4.50, Hero calls. Flop is Ks 2c 5s. Villain bets $6.50, Hero snap min-raises to $13.00, Villain folds, Hero shows Q9ss. I opted to do this because his timing preflop made me feel like his range was wider, the board was very unlikely to have hit him, and I had outs. Aside from that, I thought it would be good for my image (hence the show).

At this point, villain stopped 3betting my steals. I figured he was going to wait to bust me with a solid hand. The next day:

Hero opens to $1.50 from BTN with 56hh (there was a super calling fish in the SB so I was playing a bit tighter and upping the raise size). SB folds, BB (villain from previous day) make it $5.00, hero calls. Flop is 6d 6c 2c. Villain bets 8, Hero snap min-raises to $16, Villain calls. Turn is Tc, Villain checks, Hero shoves, villain tanks and calls with AcAh and misses river. Hero wins pot.

I figured he had a nice hand since he’d been waiting a while to 3bet me. With 56s, I’m more than happy to call IP, but I’m playing this straight-forward because if he has an OP, he’s not folding it to me. When the flop comes down, I take exactly the same line as I did the last time, knowing that even if the flush does come down, villain will probably still stack off with an OP (especially if he has one of that suit).

Lowered FE

When you run 10/8, people are going to assume you have something. When you run looser, that’s not the case as much. I’ve lowered my cbet % quite a bit after loosening up (I was probably cbetting too much anyway). Also, A-high flops aren’t going to be as scary to (observant) villains as you’d like them to be. Finding good spots to double and triple barrel will be highly profitable (the same is true in a TAG style, but I think it’s much more important here since our FE on the flop will be less).

The Zen of Loose Play

I think the biggest thing I get from playing looser is that each hand means less to me. Since I’m not sitting around waiting for a premium hand to play, I’m less upset about having to fold postflop, or fold to a 3bet because…hell, I’ll be in another pot in 3-4 hands. (I think this ties into not being results-oriented, and it’s much easier to exercise when you have more hands to look forward to.)

Mood Matters More

Yeah, playing tilty is going to be bad regardless of how loose/tight you are, but believe me…since you’re playing more hands, your mood is going to have a much larger impact. (This has just been my experience…I’m an emotional person. If you are tilt-free, I envy you. ). Pay VERY close attention to your mood. If you’re not looking at things objectively, then LEAVE. (I don’t know how many thousands of dollars I’d be richer if I listened to that advice when I needed to.)

Be Ready to Lose

Of course, we all want to win. However, you’re going to confront a ton of new spots you haven’t been in before. Once you get used to them, you’ll find that some players are adjusting to your play and you’ll have to re-evaluate how think you can value-bet and what types of hands villain will fold, now that you have a looser image. As with any major change to your game, your winrate may suffer temporarily. Resist the urge to tighten back up (unless you really feel like you’re playing bad).

Gears

One of the good things about developing a good, loose game is that you still have your (hopefully) good, tight game to fall back on. You don’t always have to play loose. Sometimes the table is really loose-passive. Sometimes you want to throw off the observant players by playing TAG (or even nitty) from time to time. Changing every now and then can be beneficial, and keep the regs guessing.

Call! (huh?)

I’ve found that when playing looser, I see many more spots where a call is the best choice. This is because I’ll have middle pair, or bottom two, or TPWK, which certainly has some showdown value, but isn’t good enough to raise with (or bet). If you find yourself in a spot like this, calling can be fine as long as you know why you’re calling. In other words, either because villain might value-bet with worse but won’t call a raise (bottom two is a good example) or villain’s range and the board texture suggest a good likelihood of a bluff.

Pros/Cons

I’ll finish up with what I think are some quick/easy pros and cons of playing a looser game.

Pros:

More hands played=more money, provided your skill edge is constant.

You become harder to read, both because of a wider preflop range and a more aggressive postflop range.

You win lots of small pots and steal lots of blinds

There are still a ton of players who assume that tight=good and loose=bad

You gain more postflop experience and find more spots to bluff (you’ll need to, since you’re starting hands won’t be QQ+ all the time )

More rakeback!

Cons

More taxing, mentally. You’re working more with reads and the board than hand strength, and this requires more thought.

Depending on your aggression and abuse of fold equity, the variance can be killer!

You face more resistance, which can lead to easier tilting.

Per set amount of hands, you will see more BS (simply as a result of playing more pots).

You will see MANY more situations with a medium strength hand. At first, it will be difficult to assess whether there is value to be had, and to be honest, seeing 10 hands in a row with MPWK can be annoying.



If I think of other things (which I hopefully will, since this definitely isn't the "be all, end all" of this topic) I will certainly add them. Thanks for reading!

1nd

Great post. Thx.ill post a graph later that shows what can happen if you are too careless when you open up your game or if you open it up for the wrong reasons.

well done.

tl/dr....

lol brock. If I put a post saying "." You'd still say that.

lew, what did you feel that the "wrong reasons" were?

tl/dr...yet, looking forward to it tho^^

Nice essay, I think you hit all the points pretty cleanly.

One point on the transition between TAG and LAG.

When tightening up, I think this is a major sticking point for many people, including myself. Playing many hands, folding on the turn/river is actually easier (and required). However, it also means it is more boring, even though it's +EV.

So, when opening up, I think that this could end up being a major sticking point for many people as well, if they continue to view their investment the same way as they did when playing TAG. Playing a successful LAG requires folding more on the turn/river and that can be hard to become comfortable with.

Nice post, Thanks

Yeah I think that when you're playing a tight game, it's easier to get married to a particular hand. A lot of times, I remember thinking "Man, when am I gonna get a premium hand again? I'm not folding this!" in my earlier poker days. I don't really think that's +EV thinking in any style, but the looser you play, the more dangerous it is. If you can have an attitude of "this is a gross spot and I don't NEED to play in gross spots" in any style, it's good for your game and I think this attitude can be easier to achieve when you're playing more hands.

excellent post RE,i like the idea of opening up,thats what ive been trying for the last couple of weeks,its incredible how people start to spew against you when you run 22/17 or something.

lol! problem is that you know that I read a draft copy.

Shouldn't the increased variance in SD winnings be made up for by the variance cushion you get from stealing blinds + taking down pots on the flop with Cbets in position?

I think it depends on how aggressively you're playing postflop and how much you plan on abusing FE. The blind stealing will definitely cushion you some and as long as you're isoing/cbetting the right villains that will help as well. I tend to think that the variance goes up more as a result of bluffing more postflop (my cold-call % has increased a decent amount since my style has changed). Once you start getting reads on players you find that you can flat in position a ton and then make life miserable for other players. However, I was really just talking about the variance increase as a result of folding less preflop and adjusting to a new style of play.

Very good post Rapid. I have recently went from 10/8 to around 16/14 with lots of ups and downs. What do you feel is the best approach to a reg that knows you have loosened up and is 3betting you way more in position now? I am only playing short sessions so i am not looking to change tables. I have tried both tighten up and and calling oop and floating the flop with air and taking the the pot on the river when checked on the the turn and had success with both. I find calling oop works best for me because they start 3bet their normal range again but i also find it very difficult to tell the difference between them adjusting and opening up their range from them being on a heater. Any thoughts on this?