Hi guys. What is your view on the strength of hands to complete or play the small blind in $1/3 versus $1/2? I haven't read anything on SB completion on $1/3. Do people play the blinds the same of differently?

Obviously at a tough table you should fold more hands, but at a loose passive table at $1/2 I would complete the SB or raise all but complete junk.

But what would be optimal at playing the SB at a loose passive table at $1/3 with a few callers? I gather you should be tighter since you have less of a discount than $1/2.

I'm thinking when playing $1/3 I should play: all suited cards, all broadway cards, all pairs and all Ace rags?

And raise with about the top 10% of hands?

Let me know what you guys think
Thanks

If you wouldnt limp it UTG, dont complete in the SB. I dont care about any discount. Keep track of all profit / loss from the SB for several hundred hrs and you'll see you're getting your ass kicked.

That is generally a leak. Not a big one because it's only $1 but you win so rarely out of the SB and the pots you do win tend to be smaller. You should be folding hands without good potential.

You have the right idea.

That is way too loose. I can't give an exact range because stack sizes, how many people are in the pot and ranges matter but in a general situation where it's limped pot with several people in, you don't expect BB to squeeze unless he has a monster and stacks are mostly 100BB+ deep then suited connectors, suited ace-rag and suited broadways/connected broadways, any pair and some connected offsuit and suited one gappers.

Even that might be too loose if villains are too aggro for you to chase and/or won't pay you off when you hit.

Raising ranges are equally situational because how sticky your opponents are makes a huge different. 10% is too wide unless villains will give up their limps to a raise a lot. If you are going to try and play LAG/SLAG do it from the button not the blinds.

Awesome guys. It seems that tight is right. Especially at completing the SB at $1/3.

But what about keeping up an "image" when playing $1/2? No one seems to fold their SB when they have the option to complete. Whenever I don't complete the SB I often get a comment on how tight I am and "it's only $1 more." I'm thinking that at a fishy loose passive $1/2 game it may be worth investing that 1 dollar a round to maintain a semi loose image? And if i do hit my miracle hand I have good implied odds...

You don't have good implied odds, because trying to extract OOP is a real bitch. I do waste the occasional $1 at 1/2 to keep from ruining my image, but as long as you complete about 1/3 of the time it limps around to you, you can get away with "dammit a discount and I can't even play this for a dollar?" the other 2/3 of the time without looking like a nit.

Also, keeping your image intact only matters if your Vs actually adjust based on your image, which is not that common among 1/2 players.

Yea I suppose the bad fishy players are "playing their own cards" and not too worried about the image of others. Good advice Garick!

I'm reading "Jonathan Little on Live No-Limit cash games 1." He basically says that when facing a few limpers you should tend to complete the SB with a range of hands that do well against your opponents limping range. He recommends folding easily dominated hands and hands that don't have much potential, and to call with hands that flop well. He quotes A-10 and medium 3 gap suited connectors and better as playable hands.

What do you think about that? This seems pretty loose, but I know he plays in pretty deep stacked games where he feels he has an advantage post flop over others. So I dunno.

AT and suited 3 gappers like Q8s seems pretty loose? A few posts ago you wanted to complete with any suited cards and any rag ace.

Give me Q8s, AT, T6s in the SB over A6 or J3s anytime.

Yea at my loose $1/2 games I've been loose from the SB playing any suited cards. He's seems to be refering to bigger games in his book (this isn't his Small stakes live cash games book i'm refering too.)

Don't worry I'll play tighter from the SB in future. I'm just wondering what others think of his range of completing the SB

3 gap cards are dangerous if you don't play well post flop because you are not usually drawing to the nuts even if you do connect with the board. At 1/2 playing the 3 gap suited connectors may be OK because with a couple of limpers you are often getting ridiculous odds preflop. The same hand won't be worth it at 1/3 from the SB because you won't be getting as good of direct odds.

The AT+ and broadway hands are their own special situation. You need to be careful about being dominated when villains will limp/call with AK/AQ and other broadway hands of their own. That is balanced by getting paid off more often when you do hit the flop hard because villain's are more likely to have hit the flop also.

I haven't read it but stack sizes do make a huge difference. When stacks are 200BB+ you can play much looser and fish for monster flops. When stacks are 50BB you need to tighten up and only play hands with good potential to flop big hands or big draws.

I typically complete Axs/Kxs/broadway/pairs/nogappers/onegappers/twogappers (and raise the top % depending on table conditions / stacks).

However, I have a feeling this still might be a little too loose due to the fact we'll be playing postflop OOP, which makes getting paid off postflop *much* more difficult. The other day I flopped an OESD with my junk cards, and ended up check/calling a bet OOP HU, which in the end I decided was highly unlikely to actually be profitable (due to the difficulty of getting paid off OOP).

So basically, the more ******ed your opponents are, the more you can complete a little more loosely. But if none of the limpers are ******ed, you should probably just tighten up and save yourself the completing money.

GcluelesscompletingnoobG

I'll disagree with this. Obviously SB and UTG both have the same postflop problems of being OOP (and I certainly don't want to downplay that, cuz even if we are just ~nutmining postflop it still sucks *so* much to be OOP and trying to get paid off). However, when we limp UTG there is a very good chance one of the 9 players behind us will raise, and we'll have to dump our hand; we can't just be limp/folding constantly in EP or else it will bleed money. The one advantage completing the SB has is that there is just one player behind us that can raise, so we can risk getting into a pot for cheap a little bit more. I complete a crapload of hands in the SB (at an idiot filled table) that I would never consider limping in UTG due to this reason.

ETA: I'm also assuming we don't suck postflop. If we suck postflop, we should probably not play hands OOP.

GimoG

Yea obviously it makes a difference about the quality of your opponents, your reads on them, and being able to throw away junky top pair hands like a pair of Queens with Q8s to aggression OOP. Flopping top pair weak kicker OOP seems to be a pretty sucky spot. I don't think I've been great at playing them in the past. I need to learn to check/fold those hands. Often I may do a small leading out bet to see what happens, but I think that's a bad play too.

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I'll concede that point to you. In general though, hands that suck to play UTG are also going to suck to play in the blinds. Even the whole table agreed not to raise, I still wouldnt limp KT UTG for the same reason I dont complete it in the SB.

Completing in the SB is generally a leak. Most LLSNL players would be more profitable either folding or raising in the SB, not completing for the reasons given above.

The reason is that playing fit or fold oop is unprofitable in all but the softest games. You hit on the flop. If you bet, everyone else with nothing will fold. If you check, you risk it checking around because if you hit the flop hard, it is likely nobody else did. It becomes even more difficult to get paid off on the later streets because the pot stays small.

Online players have an advantage because they can see in their stats where they are losing money over time. Live players forget all the times they folded on the flop. They only remember that they won the hand, not that they didn't win much with it. And the cherish for years the time they did get paid off with boring stories that everyone heard at least 20 times of how they did it.

Are we talking about playing the SB first-in (everybody else already folded) or in the face of several limpers ahead?

If it's the former as I'm assuming, then a huge consideration is the rake. Some casinos won't rake a chopped pot, which makes chopping the most attractive option at 1/2 or 2/5. If they rake anything in a pot where there is pre-flop action, then limping anything in the SB becomes unprofitable because they're taking $1 or $2 out of the pot just to see a flop. There are some casinos that will rake the pot even if you raise the SB and the BB folds. Imagine at 1/2 raising the SB just to try to win half of the BB.

So basically it's an uphill climb to beat the rake in blind battles in a typical raked game. That's why so many people just prefer to chop.

I think we are still talking about a limped pot with a few limpers at a loose passive table. That was my original question anyway.... Good point about the rake though. Completing the SB, being OOP and therefore having trouble building up a big pot, isn't going to be good for reducing the Rake. I guess in capped Rake games you want to play bigger pots less often eh?

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