Co open limps..he plays about 40% of hands. He will raise the top 10% of this. He plays reasonably well post. The button raises...he seems a bit laggy pre, he's agro post, probably fairly st forward.

I am in the SB. The BB is a fairly loose defender and plays poorly post.

What are you doing with these hands? QTo, As2s, 55, A8o

They all seem pretty close.

I'd fold Q9o, but I'd call QJo. QTo is a gametime decision for me.

I'd call A2s, but I think it's really thin and is dependent on lots of implied odds.

I'd call 55-22, but I'm 3 betting 66+.

A8o? I doubt you ever see a free showdown here. I'd fold.

I agree with most of this. 66's seems a bit thin especially since the BB is a loose defender. That being said, I would probably 3 77's because it is my favorite hand. I'm thinking 88's is closer to the right answer, but I could be wrong.

Against a bad bb qt and 55 seem the best to call because of easy postflop playability, a8 and a2 both very borderline but I give a2 a small nod for better profitability because of nut draw and lots of disguised hands when you make 2 pair, trips, wheel

Also because a pair of 8s is going to lead to lots of troublesome spots

Call all of them. Not that close.

I raise KQ offsuit in early position. Tight old guy on my left 3 bets. I've been sitting by him for 4 hours and have only seen him do this with aces and kings. A guy after him caps, and it is back to me. I know I am absolutely crushed here. Should I fold, or call 2 more bets since I am getting 10-2 odds? This happened to me yesterday, and I didn't know what to do. I finally called and mentally prepared to fold if I only made one pair. It seemed to me it is somewhat analogous to calling a hand like T7s in the BB, after a raise and a cold call (it is the same 5-1 odds to call). Of course the range of hands I am against is much tighter, but just like with the T7s, the KQ offsuit in my scenario needs to make better than one pair.

Easy fold with KQ.

Easy call with T7s

T7s is a much different situation even though your getting the same odds. In the KQ case, you are much more likely to be up against a big pair. You can flop well and still easily loose. If you flop two pair with T7 your in better shape because the board won't necessarily crush your opponents range. If you make a straight or flush, it will hold up more than if you were to make a straight with KQ. T7 is easier to get away from post as well. Less RIO.

Bottom line...T7s has more playability and less domination issues as than KQo.

This is a spot where you believe the first reraise means at best like QQ+, AK and someone decided to cold cap that guy? At least one of these ranges is faceup the nuts, so you grin and fold. If they were both tight, it would be easier. The only thing slowing you down is how strongly you feel about your read. If you'd played both of these guys for years and know they both have it, easy fold. Domintation makes this worse, because you hope he isn't just playing KK -- you're wanting him to have like AK and AQ (maybe suited), and those hands kill KQ. The problem here is that you make better than 1 pair and lose to a dominating hand.

Thank you, mongidig and DougL. I agree with your analysis. At the time I knew I was dominated, but the pot odds aspect of it confused me. I remembered the old adage that if you limp and it is raised behind you, you should always call one more bet. I confused this with thinking I should call the cap because "I am already halfway there" (having put in the initial raise).

This is also different than the T7s example in another way. While the odds you are receiving closing action on this street are the same, the total cost is not, which means implied odds on later streets are greater in the T7s hand.

What are you doing with 66, Q9o, J9o? If you call those too, then what are you doing with 77, Q8o, J8o, T8o? At some point it turns bad pretty quickly, which makes it seem close to me as the question is posed.

*not that close to a fold. 9Qo 9Jo are close to folds.

*I don't believe in raise or fold in the SB.

I think Q9o, J9o, seem like easy folds.

3 loose passive pre flop players limp, it's folded to us on the button.

Do you raise QJo, A7s, 67s?

Yes, sure, why not.

I'd raise A7s and maybe QJo (though probably not unless blinds are tight). I'd limp with 76s.

A guy strattles UTG....folded to me in the HJ....I'm trying to figure out an appropriate 3 bet range. The CO is pretty loose and will often take three to the face. The other players are tight ish. The strattler will reraise no matter what happens. He will check/ fold post flop if he completely wiffs. He plays passive post and is a calling station. He will continue to bet post flop if he thinks the board did not hit others range.

What would you do with QJo, A8o, 66's......These all have nice equity, however, we still have several players behind us.....I'd love to know how low do you go?

I think an opening range vs a straddle should be wider than vs standard blinds. I think this is more true the later your position. Think of the extreme situation where it folds to you in the big blind vs a straddle. Clearly, you should raise more hands than you would in the small blind vs the big blind in a standard situation. This is because the pot is larger so you can raise wider preflop.

That's how I determine my default. However, because of this:

You need to tighten up with the offsuit hands particularly, but I'd still raise the hands you listed.

Thanks Bob! Are you raising much worse with these hands?

Would you raise these hands one position earlier? There should be plenty of motivation to get in there with the blinds and and a blind strattle that's going 4 bets. At what point is your position just to early to get agro.

I'd raise 66 from three spots off the button, but not the other two hands.

If the table is respecting my 3 bets, then I might go as wide as A4o, T8s from the HJ.

If the table isn't respecting my 3 bets, then I'm as tight as A8o, J9s from the HJ.

So if the straddler is going to 4 bet <random>, why do you care about suits? Sure, more equity. However, if we're going to have a bloated pot preflop (esp in a HU pot), we care about hands that get to showdown and win. Thus, bad Ax would be better than a suited connector. Basically, he's bloating a pot for silly reasons and we don't want to reward him by making folding mistakes later. The way we're winning money is realizing our preflop equity edge, rather than making a huge hand and then relying on implied odds.

I think when adjusting from default --> dealing with a 100% 4 bettor, that we'll see more offsuit hand being eliminated from our range. These are the most likely hands to rely on preflop fold equity to be profitable. I'm thinking about QTo, JTo. That's 24 combos. For suited stuff, I'd raise T8s, 76s as a default, but would fold them both vs the 100% 4 bettor. That's 8 combos.

That's all I meant when I said this:

Exactly. Equity is the path to profitability. When we're talking about the profitability of the hands at the bottom of our range, we're looking at tiny winrates. The flush possibility is what makes me want to play 87s, 97s, J8s, Q6s, K2s, but I'll fold a King as strong as K8o vs this guy that's 4 betting the straddle 100%.

I don't get this logic - you should basically never be relying on any fold equity vs someone who has straddled. Have you ever seen anyone straddle, then fold to a raise HU from the BB? I have almost never seen a straddler fold to one raise from anyone.

I'm with Rob. 76s has 7 high. K8o has 8 as the low card. 8>7. QED