Hands like AJo+ and 22+ and TJs+ have obvious value but I'm curious what people think about hands on the margins, under what circumstances do you like to play your SC, suited Broadway or Ax suited. Do you need a multi-way pot in position? Will you limp KJs UTG? What about 78s vs 45s? Do you play one but not the other? If you play 9Ts UTG do you limp or come in for a raise?

I'd love to hear some ranges from you guys and what you play and what you don't, the reason I've started this discussion is that from what I've read on LLSNL most advice would have you play a 10/7/5 type of vpip and in live poker where players post flop is terrible and ranges are wide that seems excessive.

For simplicity sake let's assume everyone at the table is 100bbs deep.

It depends.

AJo is trash. Offsuit hands are trash. 22-55 are trash-ish. 45s is trash. I play all hands that I am first in for a raise or I fold. KJs I will raise at a weak table UTG.

The rake is very high at live poker microstakes. Any time you are planning on playing a small pot, remember that you're paying up to 20% of your profit - ie, raise preflop to 5x bb from btn with a weak hand that will rarely be good at showdown or flop a lot of equity, the bb calls, flop XXX that misses and you cbet 6bb and they fold and you win 5.5bb profit! But the dealer takes a BB for the house and .5bb-.2bb for the BBJ and most people tip the same. So take 1.4-2bb out of that pot for 4.1-3.5 bb won at a risk of 11bb. Obviously it is more complicated then that, but in general hands where the plan is to win on the flop with a continuation bet are feeding rake to the house.
Most graphs of bb/hand for poker hands for plyears are very top heavy at AA way in the lead, then KK, then a clustering of really strong hands (JJ-QQ,AK only pretty much), then a larger clustering of decent hands, then a bunch of stuff that is breakeven dipping into -ev. At live poker the breakeven hands become more -ev because of the rake.

Now if you only play QQ+, AK, those hands aren't going to be as valuable, your range will be face up, you'll be old man coffee, etc. But once you get into hands that are mostly there to be bluffs or make weak showdown hands (KJ, 78s, A6s) you need the pot to be multiway so you are sharing the cost of the rake or have some other very compelling reason to be involved.
100bb deep with live poker raise sizes and multiway pots hands like 67s are pretty terrible. The SPR is tiny on the flop and you will end up against better made hands and better draws often enough to shatter the tiny bit of profitability you may have made.

The rake is a heavy hand in LLSNL. Things change in a time game.

Raise if folded to looks roughly like this, but depends:

Seats 1->3 : AQo+/KQss/AJss/77+

Seat 4 & 5: AJo+/KQo/ATss/KJss/QJss/22+

Seat 6: ATo+/KJo+/any two T+ suited/A8ss+/22+

Seat 7: Never happens but something like any two T+/Axss/T9ss/98ss/22+

Seat 8 & 9: Never happens but would vary wildly anywhere between 20% to 100%, probably would be about 30% vs. a typical loose passives and 50% vs. a TAG from BTN and higher for an OMC.

Seat 10: N/A

Table conditions are generally passive (this is 2/3NL). If people play tighter, I open up. If very passive, I will open limp baby pockets in EP and start open limping suited aces around MP.

Also "trash" is a relative term. You should raise 72o in SB if it folds to you and BB is a nit. You should fold KK preflop in the right circumstances. So it's not about what is and isn't trash, it's about playable ranges based on position, stack sizes, action ahead, opponent tendencies etc. etc.

To echo what WereBeer said, trash is any hand that isn't profitable given the circumstances (position, stacks, V tendencies and read, H tendencies and reads, rake, tipping preferences, etc.)

In the early stages of playing poker, it's useful to have tables of trash vs. not trash because it takes experience and homework to figure out what is and isn't profitable in any given spot. There are any number of books and other sources for that -- as well as much debate about how some particular hand should be rated in some particular spot.

Those charts are very useful learning devices and will provide the beginner a significant boost in results. I strongly recommend starting with some table. I don't think it matters that much which one you use (assuming you've picked a reasonable one). There's so much variability in different V's, different table conditions, and H playing tendencies, that spending much time debating whether AJo in MP is a limp, raise, or fold isn't going to be worth much in actual EV.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, start with any reasonable set of EP, MP, and LP recommendations. Memorize them and use them. But as soon as you can, start understanding *why* each hand is in each category. Start learning to appreciate when a hand should be played differently. Start learning how you can read opponents hands and tendencies and play their hands instead of yours. That's where the real mastery of poker lies.

If you're not interested in putting in that much effort (which I think is perfectly reasonable -- not everyone plays poker to make it their lifelong study), stick with the recommendations you've picked. But don't worry that much about fine tuning it. Any reasonable set is likely to work fine.

Just to answer the question actually asked, I used to use something like...

EP: Raise with AQo+ and TT+; limp PP, SCs and KJs+; fold everything else
MP: Raise with AJo+, 88+, KQ; limp PP, SCs and KJs+; fold everything else
LP: Raise ATo+, A8s+, KTs+, 22+; fold everything else

3b with QQ+ and AK, fold everything else.

Cold call only with TT+ and AQs+, KQs.

My typical range of getting into a pot in EP (and mostly MP too, although perhaps widening a bit if some bad limpers have entered and I don't feel there is going to be a raise behind me) is 22+, AK/AQ, Axs and suited broadway. As I get into LP typically I'm adding AJ/AT, Kxs, offsuit broadway, and any 2 gappers (down to like ~74o).

I would consider junk pretty much everything else (A9o-, Qxs-, 3+ gappers), which I'm pretty much never playing, with the *possible* exception of iso/steal attempts against 0/1 limper in LP.

GcluelessjunknoobG

My range is ATC .. as long as you have a plan. And the plan doesn't necessarily mean for this hand only.

All of the comments here are tied to table/player dynamic and also can change based on position.

I can change my range based on who is 'going' to call my opening bets first as well. If I have 2-3 loose players on my left then I can open wider and know what's going on, but if I have a tight player to my left and he ends up calling first then I know my range is shot and it's time to pray. I also know that the loose guys wont be calling because the nit called first.

I called a $29 shove when in the BB after 3 others called. What did I have? 29dd .. NO, I didn't have 92dd, I had 29dd = $29 all-in. Must call!! (not really) Thanks to the 994 Flop and Ace Turn I cracked JJ, QQ and AK in the same hand for many chips. You see this as a spew but I see this as part of my game (my plan). Players in this game know I play this way and I can steal enough pots (and win huge ones) along the way to warrant the questionable investments. By the way I only needed to get another $77 into the pot to be =EV here at 15% to win PF. I know I can do that 'at this table' .. otherwise the plan is no good.

Of course this is for live play against regs or players who pay attention during a long session. Should I do this in a random game then it wont have the long term effects that I'm looking for. GL

Does it still count as trash if I know it's trash and play it anyway?

I might start out with a rough plan something like WereBeer's post laid out but as I notice player tendencies, stack sizes, who's on tilt, what people think of me, etc. I often deviate a little and sometimes a lot from the plan.

Winning poker isn't following a formula from a book. You have to make good observations and deductions, then be flexible and quick to adapt to that information. Some of the biggest pots I've won are because I picked up on a dynamic or a tell and made radical adjustments.

With a bunch of loose players on our left shouldn't we be tightening up our raising range to simply value hands due to our ability to steal pots going way down?

And having a player (even a nitty one) call a raise is usually encouragement for a loose player to make a call, not a discouragement (pot odds!).

GcluelessNLnoobG


You also needed to not lose any money when you were overflushed / overtripped / had two pair counterfieted / etc.

Gresultsorientedspew,imoG

Caro used to just light hundos on fire for his image but he eventually stopped.

But seriously ill take the worst of it in spots to give action to the right players especially.

As for the question I mean it's just entirely too open ended. But non Broadway things with more than a gap or 2 and especially if one isn't an A and they don't have the same shapes in the corners tend to not make the cut for me much of the time.


cAwhydoesmyiphonewanttolighthindusonfireAm

I consider off-suit multi-gappers trash. Everything else is playable.

Including 92, as long as it's suited?

I've been known to play 92 suited quite a bit. Calling $29 with it from the big blind is a major leak though.

All good comments that make sense. I just play in a few of the most non-sense making rooms I think.

1) My opponents tend to be passive as well as loose and 'want' to out-play the table post-Flop but end up writing a script for their hand with their actions. Either a c/r PF or double barrel will take down most spots effectively.

2) The nits in our rooms basically don't get any action since 'everyone' knows the chips aren't going back into the middle very easily. The fun days of trying to crack most of these guys have past. We have basically 90% regs so once the word gets out the action gets pretty limited. I showed one guy KK and correctly folded one night after he flatted my UTG open and he checked the Flop and Turn behind me .. desperately trying to get some chips he bet out on the River and then I set the whole table off when I showed and it set him off. Easy read with AA here, he bets all other pocket pairs/AK here so an over doesn't show up and he'll take his chances trying to get me to bet ... like I 'always' do if I miss my set.

3) I trust my post-Flop game. Perhaps to a fault but I'm not going broke here. If someone has a bigger 9x it's gong to show up in the betting and hopefully I lose the min.

Spew, for sure, but I firmly believe that you need to give to get and this is one of the ways that I can convert a 1/2 limpfest into a 2/5 short stacked game where opponents get nervous about the size of the bets on the Turn and River, thus generating 'extra' folds worth way more than the $29 'invested' at close to =EV earlier. GL

TBH, until you understand the concept of position (which your question shows you don't understand it yet), any answers are going to be more detrimental to your game than helpful. Therefore, I'm not going to answer your question. I will note that many posters in this forum are often too loose in EP and too tight in LP.

Caro has admitted to two mistakes in in poker career. The first was that he didn't need to burn hundos. He feels that 20s would have been enough. The second was that he paid for buyins for woman to get laid. He'd tell them they had a chance to cash when they had no chance. He should have been more honest.

This is very true. Folding to you on the button shouldn't happen very often in a decent game. Maybe one or twice a session tops. When it does, unless the blinds are overly sticky you can probably raise ATC profitable. You usually won't steal. Usually you'll get one call, they check the flop, you bet any flop, win money. Just the other day I raised 63o OTB, got called by the BB, bet an AKQ flop, and watched him fold JJ face up. I feel like broken record on this forum sometimes, but I'll say it again in this thread: The button is the most powerful seat at the table. Whenever you have the button look for any opportunity to play your hand. I'm not saying play 100% of hands, but you should be abusing the button seat as much as possible.

To answer your original question, probably 65% of the hands are just pure trash and only have value as preflop steals. Another 20% or so only have occasional value in sometimes seeing cheap late position flops. The top 15% are your primary value hands that you can usually play, adjusting for position. Again, play very very tight in EP, and loosen up as you go back.