Hero has always played a nitty TAG (e.g. folds KQo UTG) and never open limps. Hero will 3B rather than call on the button with AJs against weak players. What are your ideas about the hero adjusting opening ranges to this particular table?

1/2, 9-handed, buy-in up to 400, you can top-off at any time to the highest stack on the table. Standard opening raise to 10 plus 2 for each limper, 3-bets to 3 to 4 times the opening raise. Stacks are deep: 300 – 700

Types of players:

Four non-observant calling stations (CS): playing first-level poker, open limping 30 percent of their hands, open raising 20 percent of hands sometimes with hands like 9Js, KJo or 44 UTG, calling raises with 30 percent of their hands, but also occasionally limping with premium hands KK and AK, calling 3bets with premium hands and trouble hands like KQ. Rarely 3B, even with KK. Post-flop passive. Playing poker for them is like playing blackjack—they expect to lose over the long term.

Two weak LAGs: playing 35 percent of their hands, sometimes raising wide to 10 with hands like 8Ts in MP, calling open limps, calling raises with speculative hands like low PPs and SCs. 3-betting premium hands and often light with hands like JTs. Post-flop aggressive with many bluffs. Play more second-level poker than the CSs, but willing to gamble.

Two solid, thinking players (TP) mostly TAGs playing ABC but also willing to go LAG with good speculative hands to play for stacks. Excellent post-flop. Observant, winning players.

Sample hands

Hand 1

UTG (CS) open limp, call
UTG2 (CS) call, fold
MP1 (weak LAG) call, fold
MP2 (TP) raises to 16 (let’s say with AKo)
HJ (Hero) folds
CO (CS) folds
Button (weak LAG) calls
SB (CS stacks 700) calls
BB (TP stack 700) calls (let’s say with TJs)
pot is 80, 5-ways, two thinking players, two calling stations, one weak LAG


Hand 2

UTG (CS) open limp, call
UTG (CS) call, call
MP1 (weak LAG) raise to 14, call
MP2 (TP) folds
HJ (Hero) folds
CO (CS) folds
Button (weak LAG) 3bets to 50
SB (CS) folds
BB (TP) folds
Pot is 200, 4-ways, two calling stations and two weak LAGs


Should the hero adjust his nitty range to this table? What do you think about this adjustment with a stack of 400 in UTG+1?

Open limp and call 2bets with speculative hands with good implied odds like 33, Axs and low SCs going 4-way with two CSs or a weak LAG in the hand. Fold to all 3bets.

Open raise to 20 with premium hands like KK, AK, and AQs. Let's say at least one CS or weak LAG are calling this large bet 70 percent of the time. Few of these hands go more than three-way. Thinking players always fold here unless they have a premium hand.

Fold everything else.

Obviously, this range is a highly exploitable by the TPs. Would this range nonetheless be more profitable than the Hero’s typical nitty TAG ABC range?

I’d like to know opinions about ranges for the Hero in other positions as well.

No, especially not low SCs. These hands have to played judiciously and in position. With pocket pairs you want to get in cheap and multiway to get better odds and to have more opponents to stack when you hit. Just blindly open limping these hands from EP or MP is giving away money. So is auto calling a raise with them, especially with the oversized opens that are so popular in live poker. Low suited connectors in particular are overrated.

"
Open raise to 20 with premium hands like KK, AK, and AQs."

The problem here is you are choosing to turn your cards face up. I think this is a really bad plan, especially once you get deep and start playing multiple streets. I'd much rather open a much wider range, and for a much smaller amount, so that nobody knows what my cards are. Also your RFI standards should vary based on position.

Here are some adjustments I like to make :

If I think there is a high likelihood I am getting three bet, I tighten up. If there are some really aggro droolers raising every hand with trash, then I will limp reraise from EP.

So would you never never open-limp at this table UTG? Fold with middle pairs like 66-88?

In terms of bet sizing, if pots are going multi-way even when people raise limpers to 16, would you try raising to 20 + 2 for limpers with all your raised hands, to try to get heads-up?

With multiple stations in the game I would be adjusting my game. Mostly I would be opening up my range when in position. As long as I expect to be able to get in cheap I limp a wide range, suited connectors 65+, unsuited connectors 98+, any suited ace that I don't raise, some suited one gappers and two gappers, some unsuited one gappers. Obviously tighter when calling raises. With villains that will call multiple streets of pot sized bets with a single pair I'm going to try to play anything plausible from late position.

As long as you have 2 good players in the game you can't go too crazy OOP. The good players will pick up on any sizing tells and start abusing the exploitable end of your range. This gets annoying when they start bluff 3 betting you because your still going to fold most of your range.

I wouldn't open limp in EP but possibly from MP if the good players are not in a position to take advantage. Mostly not though. Like PokerPlayingGamble says, it's better to raise with a wider range and smaller size so your roughly consistent while seeing more flops.

The other solution of finding a size that gets you heads up will be +EV also but is going to force you to a narrow strong opening range. It may still be the best solution for your EP raises.

A good rule of thumb is to play the opposite of the way the rest of the table is playing. Against this crowd--"TAG" will get the money. They're making the mistake of playing too many hands. No need to jump in with them.

I also wouldn't adhere to the standard shibboleth of "never limp." It can be very effective in many situations where most opponents are loose-passive. Play speculative hands as cheaply as possible, with the assurance that you'll get paid if you hit the flop hard.

Many people would advocate drastically widening your opening range and mixing it up, but I'm disinclined to do that when I figure to get paid off consistently just playing ABC.

In general, I'm looking to widen my range as my position gets better.

Stations? Wait to hit, go to valuetown.

LAGs? Play them when IP and call when you have equity.

Can't comment much on UTG/UTG+1 range, but with a hand that is likely to realize IO when it hits, I'm not opposed to limping. When you do hit it hard, I think you need to play it according to the station/LAG players left in the pot. Got a station acting before a LAG, but that bet in. LAG first, check to them and consider a call if you think the station is coming along.

This actually sounds like a horrible game to play in. Players mixing it up with some light 3betting and trapping? Wide enough to occasionally open 44 and T8s from all positions? You dont want to play in a game like that. You want to play in a game where literally everyone is limping/calling, and the 3bets are polarized. Most live players have a strictly polarized 3bet range. They feel the best way to get paid with AA is to occasionally show down 72o. This is very easy to play against since their 3bet% will be like 50.

Now a game like you describe does have the tendency to get super deep with all the splashing around and in fact could end up being fun, but I'd rather play with the passive businessmen who also buy in deep. Now if you have no choice but to play in this game (only home game in town or something) well, it gets complicated and this is what entire books are written around.

This is the only game in town. Closest casino is 90 minutes away. The game been hugely profitable but all high variance.

Game gets tougher or easier depending on my position. One night it was seat 1-9: Hero, CS, CS, CS, weak LAG, CS, TP, TP, weak LAG. Here, I could play wide and 3-bet the TP light. Another night it was Hero, TP, TP, CS, weak LAG, weak LAG, CS, CS, CS. Really, really hard to play in this game. Calling the stations with speculative hands met calls or huge 3-bets from TP and weak LAGs, with hero then facing playing speculative hands OOP on the flop. Unfortunately, few options for seat changes, if any at all.