Lol, yea, okay.

What about someone who check-calls with the second-nuts because he is afraid he might bet-fold?

I guess it went above your head.

Tight passive players are "tight," so your 22 - 55 range is behind their calling range and you end up value owning yourself.

Another thing is they're also "passive," so there is no downside to wait until you improve.

Out of context. Context is that H is OOP.

But if you're referring to V as someone who check/calls IP, then he's a tight passive.

22-55 is behind every calling range. That's not the point of raising those hands.

Then what's YOUR point? Lol.

Please don't tell me it's the same argument as raising with flush draw even when there isn't fold equity, so you'll win a bigger pot when you get there.

Nah, that's a pretty common fallacy though with the small PPs. "I'll build a pot so I can get stacks in when I flop a set."

There are a few reasons you might raise with a small pocket pair. One is a semi-bluff against players who call too wide pre and fold too much postflop. They can even be tight players preflop if they are folding often enough postflop. A player might only call you with AQ+ and pocket pairs and fold without top pair or a set. That is a player you can profitably cbet bluff 100% of flops against despite how strong he is when he calls.

A second reason is, if people aren't 3betting very often as is common in low stakes, it's not a disaster if you get a ton of callers. It's not the desired outcome but getting 4:1 direct odds to flop a set isn't costing you much.

A third reason is that if people are 3betting far too much, a small pocket can be a profitable 4b bluff. This doesn't come up very often.

Yet another reason which I'm not too familiar with is the concept of "board coverage". As I understand it, if you're only raising top x% hands, low boards can cap your range because you can never have a hand that hits it, and a savvy player in position can exploit that in a deep stacked game. So you'd want to shave some hands off the bottom of that top x% range and replace them with hands like low pocket pairs to protect the rest of your range. But I've never thought about this because I tend to avoid games where that might be relevant.

All that said my default is to just fold.

Great, except that you obviously missed the context of my post.

And whaaaaat?

Pretty sure that above is not a reason to open, but rather some sort of "plan B."

Or just called "balancing."


Probably because you don't actually believe any of the fallacies you made up.

SP, I know how much you love to argue, but if you want to disagree, you need to say why.

I thought it's pretty self-explanatory.

And yet that's your reason #2.

How is it a semi-bluff?

The same player is even more likely to fold in a limped pot with an even weaker range.

His calling range is always going to be stronger than his limping range, and he feels even less committed after he limped.

You don't open small PP with intent to 4bet bluff someone who 3bets too often. That makes no logical sense. You can exploit that same person by opening with hands that are more likely ahead of his 3bet range, not behind.

You're overcomplicating a simple concept that is also called "balancing."

Balancing is unnecessary without an established context. If that context exist, then balancing is fine. If that context doesn't exist, balancing is undercutting value (provided that you are a better player).

I take it you're not o/r UTG in a 1/2 game to $6 like SABR42 & are opening with a large enough size to give Vs pause to the fact that you may have a premium hand. Am I correct in my assumption? If so, what is the size of your raise? $17 as a default & adjust to table dynamic?

Well that's only 4 callers. When we flop a set with 44, how often are we going to make 15x what we o/r with? A $15 open would require a $225 return. That doesn't happen often. I find that you need some bad players in the hand with you. Wouldn't you agree?


I understand this line of thinking. However, wouldn't you agree, that often the guy who 3! way too much likes to gamble So, what you run into is: You o/r for $15 & Mr. Gamble 3! to $45 with JT, folded back to you. You 4! $145 [because Mr. Gambolite is gonna' yawn as he tosses another $55 in the pot to call your raise to $100] & he, lookin' at his JTs, which is his favorite gambolite hand, can't fold.

Now the flop comes AQ6. Or K87. Whatcha' gonna' do? Unless you were both deep in a 1/2 game, you don't have but maybe $155 left. I guess this 4! bluff idea would only apply when you're both deep?


I follow you so far. What if you added 98s+ to your o/r range UTG? Would that not help widen your board coverage range some?


This I don't follow. RU saying you remove some of your top 7% of holdings & not raising them, so that you can replace them with low PPs? If so, what are you doin' with those top 7% of holdings that you shaved off of your o/r range UTG? Limping?


What kind of table dynamic are you seeking?


That's my default.

I wouldn't be opening to $17 in a 1/2 game with small pockets. If a $17 raise gets called then our EP range should just be pure value.

The point about sets, I meant to say that it's bad if we get called a bunch of ways, it's not what we want, but if we do, we don't lose as much money as we would with a hand like 76s that we would often be giving up with even having flopped a piece.

About 4betting -- of course you're looking for 3b/f's. Don't 4bet mr. gamble. Like I said I don't think this spot comes up often. I can count on one hand the number of times I've ever 4bet bluffed.

You're right about small suited connectors serving the same purpose for "board coverage" and I think people do use those hands as well.

7% is a lot, I was thinking more like 2%. So maybe you would fold AJo or KQo but you would then raise {22-66} with 50% frequency and {54s-98s} with 50% frequency. Maybe someone smarter could chime in because that's not a concept I'm very familiar with.

I try to find a table where players are predictable, and have lots of leaks. Players who won't adjust or punish me for playing exploitatively. If I actually have to worry about my perceived range I can probably find a better game.

Naturally we want fewer opponents than more, but unless the idea is to manipulate raise size, getting called in more than few spots should be expected.

I don't see how above statement makes sense.

How is this comment still within the context of "whether to open with 22-55 UTG?"

the games are tougher in vegas - so it was a mix. Depending on a variety of factors I would either raise or fold and never limp. These games the thinking etc is very different and was curious to hear others thoughts. I have seldom been folding them from ep

I usually o/r UTG to $13-$16 because a $6/$8 raise is gonna' get you 4+ callers most of the time. Sometimes, the tables will be so juicy that you can o/r to $20 UTG & get 3 callers. In those cases, I o/r in EP only with JJ+. Those games are kinda' rare though.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I take that to mean that when you flop a set on a coordinated board, that it's hard to let the set go, but with 76s it isn't when you only got a small piece of it. PLUS, with more opponents vs. your set on a coordinated board, the more likely someone has a really good piece of it?

I didn't mean fold 7% of your opening range. I meant if you o/r UTG with say a 10% range & drop a few hands out of the top 7% of all starting hands.

I don't play AJo & KQo UTG & UTG+1. Maybe UTG+2 at the right tables. I guess I'm a nit.

Thanks!

-1

We lose money set mining small pairs OOP for a raise. Has nothing to do with suboptimal postflop play. Just that we are not getting enough value post to make up for that $xx preflop.

To be clear -- we don't raise because of the possibility we can get called by the whole world. That is a BAD THING. But it will happen some percentage of the time, and the fact that having a pp then is less -EV than having some other weak hand is good. It is as good as making more profit from the good spots.

Folding AJ and KQ in EP is fine, probably correct in general.

Please don't speak it as if it's some sort of fact.

It is not true.

We can easily set mine and be profitable - end of story.

There's always such possibility, but clearly there's also a "range" of possibility. We don't raise anticipating the best and we shouldn't do so anticipating the worst either.

Again, you can't just make these comments without any sort of support.

I seriously don't see how you can even connect the two together and form one thought.

Again, another really biased opinion that has no value. How on earth is folding AJ and KQ correct and how is it not correct?

LOL, my end of story comment is basically the same thing as what you said.

Anyhow, my point was that whether setmining is profitable isn't a black or white thing. It isn't always profitable nor it is always unprofitable.

except you wrote this in the same post

We can easily set mine and be profitable - end of story.

you also criticised DK for making comments without any support but didn't offer any yourself.

Didn't I just admit to it? This is a discussion, please leave your petty non-sense out.

I'm just interested in understanding your point given you play a lot of poker and seem to be successful

are you saying we can easily set mine and be profitable?

and if so, what is your support?

LOL, ok. Whatever buddy.

I'm sorry if I offended you. It's just that your entire posting style under this and your previous screen names has been to break down the arguments and point out the inconsistencies of other posters approaches and then to demand clarification and explanation from them.

I just assumed that you would be OK with being held to the same standard.