Being an oldschool TAG, i am used to playing a mostly raise/fold preflop strat.
I've learned to think in terms of "can opponent call with worse or fold better" before just blindly re-raising cause "lols..i prolly has the best hand", as a result i've been taking more flops (especially in position) and making more money in general.

But, i'm worried that i might be taking this too far.
w/out getting super long winded (as per usual..srry)

I'm just gonna throw out a few examples and see what the consensus is on rais/fld/flat

Suppose 100BBs effective vs unknown player for the following (NL100)..
you are in CO position and opponent raises from HJ. (say 2.5X)

Raise/Fold/Flat?

1) AQo
2) AJs
3) KQo
4) KJs
5) JJ
6) 99
7) 77

Just as default do we raise/fold/flat vs unknown?
And how might our option change if we know opponents style/mistake propensities, etc.should we be more inclined to flat/raise/fold against loose passive fish, nits, good tags, and good lags?? Or do we need more info than that (post flp info) to change from our default strat??

TNX

lets assume I took a year off so that someone could conceivably be a reg at whatever stake level I am now at and I don't know him, so a person can truly be an unknown, and it is the absolute first hand against him on the first orbit I've seen him, I probably flat all of it except for maybe the JJ. I might 3b get that in, but I think that's far less likely than flatting, playing postflop poker, and trying to acquire some information on the unknown. At this point this early in an adversarial relationship, information >>>>>>>>> balance/image. Especially since we have the nut position on him and will be able to abuse him relentlessly once we get even a tiny inkling of how he plays.

im very unsure about this

don't think i'm folding any of these unless there are some insane squeezers in the blinds.

agreed - I do like 3-betting AQo & KQo. Suited play much better post flop.

flat all

i'm usually 3 betting AQ and JJ, flatting the others accept KJs (i'll flat that vs LAG or any type of fish but against unknowns i'd rather just take that one until i have a better idea.
So, it doesn't seem like i'm way off, i got in a hand with KQo where I flat called and my opponent had A9 and got there. Then a few hands later I flatted 99 against same player (he turned out to be a pretty decent player, TAG in EP, LAG in LP, just good solid player. He wasnt making any big post flop mistakes that i could descern and when i flatted with the KQ i just paid one bet off.. not detremental. The other hand, he opened from LP with A2s, I flatted with 99. Flop came KcJs2d. He checked i checked. The turn was Qd. He checked, i checked. The riv was 4c, he checked and i x'd.
Maybe i was being a bit results oriented but i was starting to think, at least for unknowns and for decent players who aren't gonna make a lot of post flop mistakes, maybe its not great to let them draw out with AX when I could 3 bet KQ and they actually can "fold better" like A9o for instance. And in the other hand when i flatted 99 against A2 all i really accomplished was letting him draw to his ace for free.

I just wanted to check and see if most of you put KQ and 99 into your "flat in pos" range like AJs. AJ is one of those hands that is just; so often ahead of LP open range, NEVER folds out better, rarely gets called by worse, and can dominate alot of stuff that opens LP (if its suited it flops even more equity). But with hands like KQ and medium PP's you can fold out hands that are technically better or get called by hands that are technically worse (KQ can fold out some pairs and AX combos) 99 can be called by over cards (which is OK cause you have position and will hold up to the flop like 2/3. And if your opponent folds KJ or something that doesnt seem so bad either.)

Started thinking i was just 3 betting too polarized maybe.

AQo and JJ though???? not sure why either of those hands can't be value 3 bet vs LP raise from LP?

the posts in this thread are great. instead of posting on 2p2 and trying to get formulaic answers for close spots, why don't you think about the reason why you would make a given play with each hand against the given opponent with all available information at hand (who's left to act, their stack sizes, etc).

lol at thinking that all regs playing 16/12 play the same both pre and post, and lol at thinking that just because it's the same hand in the same spot and the opener is a reg that the situation is the same.

train your brain to start taking in all available information, analyze that info, and make the best decision and you'll continue to be a profitable player for years to come. try to find easier answers that allow you to autopilot against regs while mass tabling and you might as well start looking for other jobs.

you know, i actually posted a much more comlex and detailed 3 hands with more information about opponents preflop styles and post flop mistake propensities. But i feel like i tend to get too long winded. I decided that, if i knew how people played these spots default i could determine the rest on my own. I don't think i said anything about regs or listed any HUD stats at all so i am only assuming you're even talking to me. I guess i asked if defaults would change against TAGs or LAGs but i asked specifically if that was enough info (in and of itself) to change default flat/3 bet ranges.
"and you might as well start looking for other jobs" I have no clue what that means at all.
I think i have a tendancy to overcomplicate things, and people have made some comments about that. So i tried to keep it simple, and you tell me i need to give more complete info. Sorry, all, i guess i just have trouble balancing my desire to give all important info against readers general desire to not have to read a long winded account.

I feel like i do a good job framing my hands post flop based on my relative hand str and my opponents mistake propensities; i usually am able to determine what i have "pure value, thin value, SDV only, draw (semi bluff or x/??), and air (bluff or not)" then compare that to villains mistake propensities to create good lines post flop. I have been making more money (a lot more actually) since i started flatting more with hands like AJ and KQs in position. I just wondered if i was doing it too much and if maybe KQ wasn't such an "auto flat call" same with mid-big pairs. I just needed defaults from players more used to playing this style than i am so i can go from there. I played predominately R/F poker for well over a decade and the whole concept of range manipulation and flatting with this stuff in position is kinda new to me. After reading the responces though, i think my flat range is at least close to "standard" for new school winning players. Again, not sure about AQ and JJ. But, meh, i guess if you know something about opponent it could be OK. I just feel like AQ and JJ can both be called by worse hands preflop; at least in the examples in OP, looking at LP open and LP R/C. I can see LAG opening HJ and calling 3 bet with worse than AQ or JJ. Do i really want to polarize my 3 bet ranges entirely to bluffs and AK/QQ+?

Thats not a rhetorical question. Let me ask again;
Is it really a good idea to polarize my 3 bet range to AK,QQ+/bluffs only??
And you may be inclined to say "it depends" but i would ask first of all "does it really?" I mean do I really want to flat call JJ and AQo most of the time vs LP raise when i'm in position? And if it just "depends" what does it depend on?
I just ask "can opponent fold better/call with worse?, what is my plan vs 4 bet?, and how does my hand stack up against opponents open range vs his c-range."
But i think there may be times when my AQ/JJ will actually perform better against LAGs LP raise/flat range than his o-range because i'll dominate more stuff once he flats. Plus my hands JJ and AQ CAN be called by worse in a 6max ATS/Re-steal situation, NO??

I totally appreciate this advice and it makes very good sense, but i was approaching this from as almost a "toy game" scenario. Just looking for defaults. I just want to know if i'm flatting with the too many hands in position. I just want to know if it makes sense to "GENERALLY" flat call with this that and the other or if there are some hands i'm flatting with that should be raises and/or hands i tend to raise with that ought to be flats.
Thanks for you two cents though.

pizzle's post lists some things it depends on (many not even on the opp who opened).

i love how you know I'm going to say "it depends" but don't want me to say it. you know why? Because it implies that there are more difficult questions you need to ask and answer. And learning to ask and correctly answer these questions very quickly in the moment is what will make you a lot of money in online poker. The learning process however is much more difficult than you'd probably like. It's very likely that at some point your attempts at study and learning in poker have plateaued, and similarly your rise up the stakes or your win-rate has stagnated or dropped. I know this has happened to me multiple times over my 5 year professional career.

The only thing I can say is that by asking more questions you're at least taking the right steps towards figuring out how to improve your game. However the next step is to get out of the FR 2009 mentality of your opening/3 betting ranges at every position and start thinking about why you would make any play in any given scenario. you're asking lots of questions about close spots, but the same analytical approach can be given to super common spots. And when you ask and answer those questions (questions you already know the answer to but you may not have put words to) you'll understand the same process that you should be using to evaluate these closer and more difficult spots.

don't forget, you're a human playing against (hopefully) other humans at a game of imperfect information. Your goal is to understand how they play and exploit their tendencies, not to develop a wrote play that will win the most/lose the least if you have no information. If you desire to play that style of game you should consider playing anonymous tables on those networks that have them, and limit your sessions to a few hundred hands at a time.

I'm not going to give more detailed answers because 1) it's not in my best interest to do so, 2) Some people pay me a considerable amount of money to be more specific and 3) it's better to teach a man to fish than to give a man a fish.

please don't take any of the above as criticism as every thing I wrote I could have applied to myself or wish I had known or thought about at various portions of my career. I'm far from a perfect player or high stakes crusher, but I feel confident that everything written above is key to making the leap as a player.

My point was that you don't have to 3b ever, whether because of your position, or because of the hand strength, or anything else. I'm going to be favoring lines that get me value while also getting to showdown because I want to see how villain plays. This is one of those spots where you can sacrifice small amounts of ev for information. So, while there are absolutely times when I can, will, and have 3b any hand on that list you made, I would not 3b any of it in this particular situation.

I know.
My point is, that isn't what i was getting at.
I don't ACTUALLY want to know what to do agaisnt an unknown player who opens when i have X,Y,or Z. I just want to know, in theory, if it makes sense to flat with some/most/all of these hands against a lot of players or an average player, or maybe all players. I wondered if i wasn't 3 betting enough, because my 3 bets have become fairly polarized and i just don't know if thats really ideal or not. But it seems by the responces that all the hands on the list are at least reasonable candidates for flat calling with in pos vs LP open...that's all i wanted to know... making sure i wasn't going overboard with flatting my strongish hands vs wide ranges.
Thats all.

some of the most important variables imo are:

squeeze propensity of regs behind you, any fish left to act, opener flop/turn/river stats, wtsd, response to 3bet, response to flop cbet in 3bet pot, response to turn cbet in 3bet pot