Hi all,

I wanted to start this thread to discuss from a general perspective on what your range/principle/approach is to when you have.

1) Limped in, and someone is making a 4-5x raise after you.
2) Someone from ep makes a raise, and you have a perceived flatting hand.

I am having challenges when I have hands like A10, KJo, K10, QJ, Q10-Q9ss, J9-J10ss, A2-A5ss.

I recognize there are factors that influence the decision (ex: raise amount, how many players already in, stack sizes, player tendency etc etc).

I am interested in hearing everyone's approach to this. Often times I look down at these hands, and make an assessment based on if I think player will spew off if I bink, if other players are likely to call, and raise amount - however I feel I am often guessing what the right play in these spots. Interested in everyone's thoughts on this.

You called it, it depends. On way too many features to just "build a range." I won't lock this immediately, but I suspect it is far to broad to generate useful discussion.

A general/abstract question will get a general/abstract answer back.

A point of understanding: When dealing with stacks that are <=150BB, a 4-5x raise size in a live game is actually decently large when compared to online games. This is not only due to the large size as compared to the general 2.2-3BB opening size online, but also due to the more multiway nature of live. If I raise 2.5BB online and get a caller from outside of the blinds, the pot is 6.5BB. If someone raises 4BB live and gets 2 callers, that's a 12.5+BB pot, near double the size.

From above, it should be seen that playing tightly to raises is no tragedy. Not only are our pot odds generally poor as a caller, but we're also generally playing against less aggressive players (tighter PFR ranges) and more pronounced rake effects. Most players' #1 problem is playing too loosely.

Does the PFR limp in at a decent frequency? If so, what are the best high card & pocket pair hands you've seen them limp in with & end up at showdown? This is a huge clue to determining their raising range. If they aren't limping much, you know that they fall into 3 categories of preflop play (TAG, LAG, unlikely nit) and can get a feel for their preflop range in that fashion as well.

Against tight/infrequent raisers, liberally fold offsuit hands, even the offsuit hands that "hurt" to fold, and then fold an offsuit hand that is "1 better" than the one that hurt to fold (If ATo hurts to fold, fold AJo as well). Domination/RIO concerns are huge problems when you're offsuit against a tight raiser. Having AQo doesn't mean much if you're always up against JJ+/AK, as you win a small pot when you hit & are good and get crushed when you hit & are beat.

+1.

I could try to give a good answer to this question, but this is too much like asking “how do you play poker?”.
I could write 1000 words in response to this and still feel like I haven’t covered enough.

Well for 1, that can be avoided by never limping. I’m thinking about going to play a few sessions with that rule: never limp. At least not open limping

^depending on the game dynamics. I disagree.

Are you OK with limping at aggro tables in hopes to get 3bet? When are you OK with it? I’m currently taking the CORE course on ted chip poker & just finished a whole lesson about almost never limping

^less into it at an aggro table.
Trying to balance a limping and limp/rr range is dumb imo.
But there are certain tables where I don’t think it’s terribad with certain hands.

My game is sometimes so loose and passive it would be absolutely mad to never limp.

Exactly.

Agree this is too big a topic to realistically cover in a thread. The only quick thought I'd offer is this:

If you don't have any idea of the range the opener/isolator is using, what their postflop game is like or what the other players in the hand are like then you probably shouldn't be flatting very much at all.

In those situations I mostly just 3bet or set mine until I get a feel for how the game is playing.

They have a great thread in the limit forum where you tell your hand and the action before you.
Ex. I have A T o in middle position
Utg raises

Should I call, raise or fold

I know limit and nl are 2 different animals, but can't we do it like that?

Sent from my LG-H820 using Tapatalk

I think it's just so villain dependent as to be nearly impossible. For example in my game I face old regs who only open JJ+ AJ AQs+ from EP, players who limp/call QQ+, others who limp/reraise QQ+, young guys who open 25% of their hands, people who flat almost any two cards once two or more players are in the pot, folk who almoat always flat in the big blind, and a handful of aggressive 3bettors who'll iso-reraise at every opportunity.

On top of that my games regularly feature a wide variety of stack sizes from 40bb up to 1,000+bb.

People are getting tilted, there are personal rivalries and friendships between regs to contend with and then there are the dramatically changing table dynamics as the night progresses and players from bigger games get moved to our game as the bigger games break.

There's simply no way that anyone can tell me or me tell anyone else what calling range to utilise "in general" when "in general" my game is so incredibly variable.

In general you've just got to pay attention to what's going on and do your best to adapt on the fly to the ever changing reality that is your game.

Generally you want to enter each pot with as many advantages as possible so being in position and having some idea of what your various opponents are doing and why is going to allow you to profitably call more hands while being out of position and knowing little is going to mean you can only profitably flat very few hands.

However, sometimes knowing a lot actually means you opt to flat almost no hands at all. E.g I know a couple of extremely nitty players who start the session on 40bb and only open JJ+ AKs for relatively large sizings. Why would I ever call them unless I have QQ+ myself? I wouldn't, and I don't.

I'm sure you do. The solution is to fold pf.

When you get better with your player reads, you can look at treating these like 2 napkins.

I’d suggest calculating potential implied odds (IO) = effective stack size/(raise+calls) as step 1. As a guideline, you can use the much discussed 15-25-35 rule to evaluate calling or folding. PPs would require 15-1, scs 25-1, sgs 35-1. As you become more experienced and post-flop play improves, there is some flexibility especially ip. Reverse Implied Odds (RIO) exist when calling sm pps and low suited cards, so beware.

Step 2 – positional awareness. For example, EP open ranges are tighter than HJ opens. Limp/calling raises oop is generally a leak.

Most of the hands listed in the op should be folded, while some could be opened depending on your position. JTs/A2-5s could be calling candidates in position.

GL!