At large effective stacks, 3x against fish who will call a wide range oop anyways. Whenever I play low stakes, I 3x as my standard. Better yet, 3x your big hands and 2x your decent hands against fish who don't notice.

Most of the time, I 2x because most people don't flat a wide range oop to a 3x.

When we're around ~20bb deep, I limp a ton. It's easy to balance/adjust to anything they throw at you really. Gives you plenty of room to play postflop and "forces" your opponent to play oop.

You want the truth? Because the players at the $10 level are awful, and dont really understand bet sizing or the math behind the HU game, if they did, they would be min raising and taking down a lot of the flops, and have already moved up to the $20-$50 level.

Players at the $10 level are usually just learning HU, so they take their bet sizing habits from full ring and 6max and try to apply them to HU. If you move up you will notice a lot less of this.

Because I would like to finish the match at some point today, I limp if villain has some ricdiculous 3bet % but other than that your losing value limping early. I dont understand the rest of what you wrote.

Just realized how late my post was. Now I look ******ed >_<

Here is my issue with the min raise. It is harder to build a pot when you hit a hand.

If villain is playing fit or fold I can still take pots down with c-bets 2x or 3x or 4x ing.

If he's not playing fit or fold you get the villain putting in more money with weak holding out of position. This to me is a solid game plan.

If I do hit an he comes along I can still control the pot size if i want using my position but find it easier to build a pot in position with 3x and 4x bets preflop.

It seems to me that at the level I am playing players 3x because thats what they did in cash games and multis.

It seems like you guys 2x because that what everyone else does around here thinking you are better than your opponents post flop and pot control is the name of the game.

Would it not make sense to get the villain to define his hand and play more straight forward while in position something a 4x bet does very nicely.

What am I missing.

3x has not been the open standard since 2008.

Oddly I draw all the 3x guys at the $10 level.

Seriously, the more i post the more interesting this gets.

Many of the guys I am playing 3x me from the button but everyone on this board believes no-one 3x's anymore.

Top it off no-one has really convinced me of the merits of the min raise which is apparently the state of the art thinking on the topic,

I am not asking someone to re-invent the wheel where can i find quality info on the merits of various pre-flop bet sizing in HU SNG's.

you cannot be convinced. you can only convince yourself.

I get the idea of building pots in position with a 3x/4x raise.

However isn't this somewhat made up for with a 2x that you're going to get so many more calls preflop? From my (limited) experience I'm finding that playing a large number of pots in position seems to outweigh the idea of building pots pre and the steals you get with a larger raise.

Some opponents can't help themselves and call pretty close to 100% OOP to a minraise as they figure they're priced in.

I don't think you're trying very hard to understand what other people are telling you.

That is because you are a renegade genius who will go unappreciated by the fools around him.

OP, it seams u are skeptical by nature, and dont want to take free knowledge=money. It is fine my be, if u want to learn true your own exp. I suggest u play 1000 games and 4 or 5x, 1000 games 3x and 1000 games 2x. Let us know what u find out, if u decide to take this path.

OP, your thinking process needs some work. Sometimes 3xing works better than 2xing. It all depends on the situation. One is not better than the other.

I'll leave it up to you to decide which works better in which situations. There's more than enough info in this topic to find a satisfying answer.

Badger, I don't think anybody believes that people always 2x.

I just think that more pros believe in it and it's probably the first time in their career that they have really thought about their open raise sizing.

At the shorter effective stacks a majority of pros do minraise, but first level, the average player (and probably pro) still 3x. But that's changed from EVERY player either limping or 3xing, it used to be like that.

I like pakpatak's suggestion, except just do the minraise and 3x, no need to 4-5x for this trial. Bump this thread in 2k games.

Thanks for the replies and I think I am understanding the thinking behind the 2x raise that you guys promote compared to the 3x I see often.

This has been very helpful.

Now all opponents are not clueless, I have a decent hand hand want to build a pot. Do i still 2x? Most aware opponents at the $10 level would probably fold to the larger pre-flop bet. How do I build a pot?

Do you 2x guys usually c-bet?
How Much? I assume 1/2 pot is pretty standard but I am not going to assume anything.
Is is min raise and 3 streets of 1/2 pot bets the line to build a pot and to bet for value?

your preflop raise size should be determined by your opponent's oop frequencies (how wide is he flatting, how wide is he 3betting, is he folding to tons of cbets, etc). if you are opening the same size vs everyone, you are doing it wrong.

F for effort but A for hilarity.

i 2.5x 50-75bb and 2x 25-40bb & mostly due to stack size and how they played out for me in ring games.. im not a hu sng pro but looking to be 1 so yea...

3x is std of course. You guys playing these sweet 400 oz BB games too?

OP is a bit skeptical by nature.

What if I found 5X to be the most profitable would it change how you think about the game?

I find your post interesting as well. 4th post on 2+2 and a HUSNG logo. Very interesting post in single digits indeed.

This is a pretty good idea, but I tend to vary my preflop bet sizing, what I am trying to find out is if there is some reason why my opponents 3X often and i am missing something.

+1

Why is 3x so common in my games?

Not why is it optimal or why is 2x so common?

Why do cash game players bring this to there HU game? Is it because they think they are suppose to raise and 3x or as some of you promote 2x it shows aggression and controls the size of the pot? Is it that simple.

because people are bad at adjusting in other formats/game types

Not sure about higher stakes, but in the games <$10BI. the amounts of folds pre and to cbet is so high it's profitable to 3x by a lot. Small sample, but through ~100 games each (200 games total) of 2xing and 3xing, 3x is by far a lot better than 2x in the micros as you either have the player call, then fold to a cbet, or straight out fold like 60% of the times on your button.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Bingo

I see the point of playing pots in position but having the villain call min bets when he would fold for 3X is free money I am willing to take. I don't need superior hand reading skills to have an edge. I also don't need that superior hand reading skill to smell out when villain does hit a pretty random hand.