How do I which hands are profitable to open?

Let's say i'm on the button, if I fold, I lose 0.5bb, how do I know which hands will make more than a lose of 0.5bb?

The only way I can think of is if you had a database of hands, you could come to the conclusion that it's probable that "x" hand makes more than a lose of -0.5bb

Obviously you can assume that opening aces is always profitable, so if you start there and you you keep going down the line, KK, AK, A10, K9, Q9, etc...

How do you know where to draw the line?

People often assume it's profitable to open hands such as KQ suited, etc... But how do we KNOW for certain that it's profitable to do so?

My question is, is there a way of KNOWING for certain which hands are profitable to make the risk of opening worth the reward? (The only reward to gain at that moment is the big blind and your small blind, is a risk of at least 1.5bb) And HOW do we know?

In your response, if you decide to respond, could you say for example... "We know it's profitable to open such and such hands, because..." Then showing how we know such and such to be true.

Thank you.

It's impossible to confirm the exact range of hands that would be more profitable than open folding for everyone because it differs for everyone. It depends on your own skill level and your opponent. For example, opponent A has a vpip of 30% in the BB over a large sample. We know for certain that opening 72o is going to be more profitable than folding, but opponent B has a vpip of 65% and a 3bet of 40% we know that opening 72o will be burning money. Also, the more competent you are the higher expectation each hand is likely to have. Ie. Phil Ivey might find j5o a profitable open heads up, but because you don't have the same post flop skills it might be a limp or fold for you.

You will be able to find lots of resources of recommended opening ranges according to population tendencies, but these are reassess only.

I don't agree that you should include only the current money in the middle. You have to consider future chip flow also(implied odds concept). THERE IS THE WAY of KNOWING if hand if more profitable to fold than open - model the situation as probability tree and calculate EV of that summing up all the branches.

I see only two ways:

• Either you get this knowledge from other players who have enough hands under their belt to know which plays are correct.
• Or try to solve it mathematically(altough it can get really complex, because of all possible situations that might arise)

Agree with post above, that most of the time its about how good decisions
can you make postftlop by choosing right timing for bluffing or valuebetting.

I don't think trying to solve the problem is worth the effort and a massive time sink.

I am new to hypers but is there a list of this information somewhere?

Poker is a game of incomplete information and uncertain decisions.

Mersenneary talked consistently about how he worked very hard to figure out which of his hands were more profitable to limp or raise with (or OOP, to call or 3bet with) rather than a fold.

It's a constant effort to do this type of work, but it should pay off. You'll look back and find so many spots where your assumptions were wrong. Best I can say is to work hard to analyze and challenge the weakest of your claims/reasoning, as those are most likely to be wrong.