Hey guys. Hopefully this is the right place for this post, but I'm wondering about the theory behind opening preflop, knowing that we're often getting called behind. More specifically, at what point does a range advantage overcome a positional disadvantage and a hand become profitable?

For example, if we have a loose and aggressive opponent to our left who is going to call our opens with 50% of hands and play very aggressively postflop, what kind of percentage range should we be opening? And whatever that number is, I guess the strategy is to go to war postflop, playing very aggressively ourselves, since his range will often be so weak?

Is this scenario hypothetical or something you are personally experiencing?

50% seems ridiculously high unless it's heads up, or there are huge whales behind the flatter, or more likely your play has some highly exploitable leaks.

I explored aspects of this issue for a BvB case. The following 2 tables show the results.

The first table displays the equity you need for +EV for a small blind shove against various villain calling ranges. The second table shows the corresponding shove range.

These results depend on the particular hand ranking system I used which seems to rank pairs a little more strongly than some other systems but I don’t think results will differ greatly for other ranking systems.

https://i.imgur.com/L8WlNzF.png

I think about your first question too.

On no other street does it make sense to bet your entire range out of position, let alone multi-way, unless you have a huge range advantage. You would not be over-betting the pot either, as you do pre-flop.

Of course you can't just check pre-flop, but I remain unconvinced that pre-flop hyper-aggression is theoretically correct.

I am going to answer your questions more specifically this time around. I just wanted more information to tailor my answer to your needs.

This will be dependent on many factors such as stack depth, relative skill differences between players, exact positions of all flatters behind you, and positions of any other relevant players behind the flatter(s).


I am not sure you can relate the two in this way. A positional advantage has more to do with an information advantage. A range advantage typically describes hot and cold equity advantage. With a range advantage you may or may not be able to actually turn that equity directly into EV. Your positional advantage can typically always result in extra EV because in general the outcome of your action at that point is typically better defined than when out of position.

A classic example is the fact that a marginal hand in position always has the option to check and showdown on the river. This means the player can realize their equity for free with near certainty. On the other hand a player out of position does not know if checking will result in having to face a bet, what size that bet will be, how many players might get involved, etc.


It's probably not a great idea to get locked in on percentages. You will most likely want to be looking for hands with more showdown value and hands that retain their equity well over multiple streets. High cards are good candidates. Can probably drop out the medium and low suited connectors and lower pairs especially if you aren't very deep and villain puts lots of pressure on your range.

Obviously this would be all relative to your standard opening range. For example a good UTG range in 6 max probably won't need adjustment as it will be skewed towards these hands any way, but a CO range could probably be adjusted to substitute or eliminate hands at the margins.

I would say don't over do this. One of the biggest mistakes people make is over correcting an already decent strategy. I would say start adjusting at the margins of your range and maybe mix in some more c/r lines or call down lighter than you normally would in spots that warrant it. Some of that will depend on how you feel you can exploit the player behind you.

Also note that other players at the table may be adjusting to the flatter and to your adjustments to the flatter so act accordingly.

I've been working through Janda's "Applications of No limit Hold em." and it covers preflop play, in detail, from a theoretical approach. It ends with an extensive list of preflop charts including facing a three bet from different positions, etc. I won't pretend to have a solid enough grasp to try to pass on any information. But I would recommend that book. He's come back later and said that he has a better understanding of the game now and would have done his charts differently. But, as I see it, those charts are incredibly good and having them memorized would put you well ahead of most of your opponents.

Thanks for sharing this. Though this is for short stack shoving as opposed to 100bb+ hands with postflop play, which is what I was thinking about, it was very interesting to look through.

Just_grindin, hypothetical! Though you do run into these players from time to time (at least in the low stakes games I play in). Anyhow I appreciate you taking the time to answer through my questions.

In a similar vein, I read an article recently on Upswing recommending a standard SB opening range of 44% (https://upswingpoker.com/use-these-4...l-blind-smart/)

Is it just me or is that a lot of hands? How the eff do you play a range that wide against a competent opponent? They make the argument that the incentive to steal the dead money out there justifies it, but wouldn't an observant opponent realize the breadth of your range pretty quickly and start to make your life hell, especially postflop? Maybe I'm just not comfortable with out of position postflop play... I guess it's not much different than out of position play in a heads up match, where ranges are even wider, is it? Just need to have a sound strategy I suppose.

I'd probably not adjust too much. I'd continue to play my normal opening range in whatever position I'm in.

You don't need to go all aggro postflop either. Just play like normal and maybe a bit looser, but not too much. His overly loose range will punish itself over time. The worst thing you can do is start check/calling garbage or betting too often and trying to be a hero and constantly outplay someone who has position on you. Just be mellow and pick your spots. You may be able to check/call 3 streets with ace high in a spot where you feel good about it, but you need to be selective about making plays otherwise you'll get burned from over adjusting.

I am not saying that figure is correct but if you think about it the BB has a random hand. So if you have a hand in the top 44% of hands than you have a better hand than BB 56% of the time and should not give the BB a free look at the flop. Plus I am guesing the article is tailored for certain stakes where people overfold or generally don't defend their BB well.

Also, your hand in the SB only has to do better than -1 sb for any given hand because that's the cost of you folding.


Your money comes from stealing the blinds more often than you should so you are free to give up a lot postflop instead of costing yourself more money. But if you have postflop reads on your opponent like over folds flop and turn you can continue to bluff when it seems profitable to do so. Plus your hand quite rarely has 0 equity.

Isn't having a compentant opponent with position on you always a problem in poker?

I mean one way to TRY and compensate for leaks against a better opponent is to carry a stronger range to post flop. The problem is you still have leaks and your stronger range can't fix them all.

The real answer is to study, play, get better and fix your leaks.

One thing to remember is that your wider range will give you a lot of board coverage and make your range harder to read. Those a real advantages heads up.

Yes I would say you nailed it.

Thank you, just grindin. All that was very very helpful.