I've been faced with the same situation a lot recently. I'm confused because I have no defaults here. I want to develop some.

I'm in SB in 6-max .50-1 online and there is an unkknown limper in the HJ or CO or But. I have Q9o, or A4o, or 86s, or KTo and I'm not quite sure what to do. I don't like folding, I don't like raising and I don't really like calling (completing).

I've decided to at least develop some completing defaults.

Stox suggest you need 35% equity against another's range to defend a steal when you're in the BB. This is an overlay - you are getting 3.5-1 to complete so you would really only need to win 1 in 4.5 to break even, but you are OOP so you need better than 22.2 (2/9).

That said I suggest you need like 25% equity against the BB and limpers range. Can someone pokerstove what equity you have with Q9o, QTo, QJo, K9o, A3o, etc. against a BB that has the full range of hands, and 1 limper that say limps with 45% of hands??

If you can't do this can you at least tell me your gut on this situation with the following hands - fold, raise, call?

QTo?
A2o?
A7o?
K9o?
86s?
J9s?

Thank you very much for thoughts....

This depends quite a bit on the other players here. If the BB is raising a lot I'm probably folding A2o and calling anything else. If BB and the limper are both horrible I'm calling all of these and quite a few other hands since I think I'll get paid a lot when I hit. As a default I'm calling all of the hands you've listed here though, I might raise A7o if I think I can fold out BB and create dead money in the pot.

Given that late p openlimpers tend to suck postflop I limp all of those except the KTo and A7o which I might raise. I'm pretty sure you can profit even if you only continue when you flop a pair.

Hot-and-cold equity isn't everything in these spots because:

-You are OOP
-A late openlimper probably sucks and has a weak hand

EDIT: Given that this is .5/1 I'm assuming the BB isn't tough enough to take advantage of you here. I have over 4500 hands at the stars .5/1 from last month and that was basically always the case.

pokerstoving won't be helpful, since you have no idea what equity you need. the best way to know what to complete is from your own and other people's experience/PT data.

if an unknown co limps, my defaults for completing the sb in a 1/2 structure are:

any suited, A2o, K5o, Q7o, J7o, T7o, 97o, 87o, 76o

Your idea of 25% equity is wrong. The implied odds are very important in a small pot. You can't avoid a lot of mistakes with a bad postion and a hand with RIO like A2o.

If you can get a fold of BB and/or win the pot on the UI by raising, you can raise with QTo or J9s.

I'm not a big fan of raising A7o. You can win the pot on the flop, but in this case you had already the best hand. If you flop an ace you will get action only when you are beat. On the other hand if you just complete pf, you have good implied odds, you can often c/r a flop with an ace. It is true you can fold the best hand quite often, but the pot is small and your hand is very vulnerable.

doesn't Stox make an approximation about what equity you need from the the BB against a "steal" as 35%? this is where I got the idea from.

thank you for your comment/defaults.

The 35% is just a guideline. It is an empirical result with a database of more than 1000000 hands. You don't have such db. Moreover the implied odds are more important by far in a 3sb pot 3 way than in a 4.5 sb pot HU (they are still an important factor in this case).

This may be a function of limit. I wouldn't trust two .5/1 opponents to bet my hand for me here, especially given the assumed passiveness of a late openlimper.

Someone out there please engage with me on this .

I'm not sure I'm following what you are saying about implied odds being more important in a 3-handed 3sb pot? Do you mean that since there are more people to potentially pay you off you can more likely justify playing a "drawing" type of hand like J9s?

Yes, the 35% is just a guideline. But I want to try to come up with a guideline from the SB in this spot. If 25% isn't good please tell me what you think is and why?

Here's how I came up with 25%. I tried to make the situtation proportional to the BB situation. In the BB situation vs. a steal you are facing 3.5-1 to complete. So if you win 1 in 4.5 times you will break even. I.E. if you win if 22% of the time you will break even. Because you are out of position, and you will get paid off less when you win, and pay off more when you lose, you obviously need more than just the 22% for it to be a +EV play. Stox uses his empirical data to estimate the number to be 35% to be good. 35% is a 59% increase on 22%.

So, in the SB you are looking at 5-1 to complete. You have to win 1 in 6 times, or 16% to break even. But again you are out of position and you will win less when you win, and lose more when you lose. Moreover, the BB may raise if you complete. So you need an overlay on the 16%. A proportional increase to what Stox did in the BB would be a 59% increase which gives you (16 + 9.4) approximately 25%. Maybe the number should be more like 27% to account for those times the BB raises.

My point is there probably is a number for this situation in the SB. And if someone could pokerstove how you are doing against the BB range (all 169 starting hands) and the limpers range (estimate the top 45% of starting hands) I'm curious if Q9o, and A2o and 86s give you this much equity....

once you get more multiway, implied odds take a proportionally larger role in the value of your hand (of course). To that end, it is very difficult to estimate an equity percentage (in fact it is difficult to even do it in HU pots).

I would say the most important factor here is how strong your opponents play post-flop. larger differences in here should translate into large differences in starting hand value.

I really appreciate your reply.

Ok, I understand that the strength of my opponents is key. But you come up against so so many unknowns online. I liked how you picked a number in your book for the BB situation (35%). Obviously there is no perfect number, and every situation is different, but at some point its nice to throw a number out there.

I think defaults are invaluable as "tilt protection". At the end of the day, if you are running bad and don't know which way is up, at least if you are following a default that you concluded on in a clear-headed time, there is likely some reasonableness to your decision.

Given that IO are more important maybe I'll start with a percentage (say 25%) and then decide it is ok for 23% or greater for suited/and or connected cards.

Is 25% reasonable to you? I.e. if you had to stick to a portfolio of hands that you could not deviate from over your next 1 million hands in the discussed situation what would you pick? Just throw something out

Thank you for your thoughts.

the biggest problem with hot and cold analysis is that it of course overestimates current potsize and underestomates future action.

One way to approach it would be to estimate average future action in a situation and take a weighted average for what you need between 33% of future action and the lower percent of current odds you are getting. Even that has problems though because is 33% the right amount to shoot for for future action?

25% seems l like a reasonable estimate, but i have NOT done any work on it. does 25% get you a super wide range wehre you will often have NEGATIVE implied odds post-flop?

anyways, this is a pretty big topic and hopefully i've given some pertinent thoughts on it.