I just got the preflop ranges for 100/75/40/25/15 bb from pokercoaching.com and there are some things in there that really, really surprise me!

100bb deep we're limping 48% of hands SB vs BB.
This may be optimal vs good players, but is it a good idea vs the average SSMTT player?

When stacks go from 100bb to 75bb, we open more suited aces UTG?
Why would A4s UTG be a fold with 100bb but an open with 75bb?
Seems like it should be to other way around to me?

At 100bb the UTG opening range is 10%, which seems solid, maybe even a bit wide knowing how many callers you're going to get in these games.
It then goes up to 14% at 75bb, 16% at 40bb, 17% at 25bb and 15bb.
The 25/15bb opening ranges include stuff like T8s, but not KTo, which seems like a better open with 15bb to me?


Is anyone familiar with these ranges/concepts?
Can I use them as a baseline, even though they seem to contain some very strange stuff to me?

Limping sb with 100+ bigs is fine, even against us small stakes peasants. Small stakes players probably won't raise often enough from the big blind, so when you have a monster it isn't as fun. The fun part is VPIPing way more hands at the bottom of our range and maybe even expanding the bottom of our range.

As stacks get bigger, the implications postflop become greater. It seems counter-intuitive, but it makes sense if you think about getting stacks in with a single pair. If you hit top pair with 20 bigs, you're good with getting stacks in. If you hit top pair with 500 bigs, you should never be playing for stacks on the flop. So as your stack dwindles and blinds and antes are coming around, you're just more willing to GII with marginal holdings, and we should be looking for raw equity hands that flop strong pairs.

I can't speak on opening T8s at 15BB unless we're just open ripping, and I don't think we should do that UTG. But I also wouldn't open or shove with KTo UTG at 15BB.

I doubt that.
Limping may be fine, but most players are going to be folding way too often in my experience, so opening would be better against them.

By limping you also put yourself in though spots post-flop OOP.

Yeodan,
Those charts are starting points. If your opponents make mistakes, you should certainly adjust from the chart. The charts from pokercoaching are implementable GTO, but not to be followed in every scenario. I also think they assume that players are reasonably solid post flop.

I'm not sure what you doubt if the next sentence is saying the thing you're doubting.

Limping is just getting into a pot OOP. The tough spots come when you raise a hand you could be limping, get called and miss the flop. Smaller pots are easier to navigate OOP, especially when you have your entire range. Limping range also allows you to play hands that you don't want to play for a raise without the big blind raising your limps indiscriminately.

I get that raising could be higher EV, and I can't speak on how often people fold in your experience. But as I said originally, and you doubted and immediately re-stated, limping is fine.

You are OOP whether you limp or raise. It's more of an equity thing where you have amazing odds with 0.5BB to see a flop and the weak BB will raise like 15-20% of his hands when the correct frequency is way way higher.

As for T8s over KTo, when you have 15BB and get the heads up pot you're just gonna shove flop or give up/slowplay. T8s will flop pairs and good draws more often and makes it worth the price. KTo is more of an early deep stack speculative hand that makes the nuts using cards that connect well with other strong hands. For example, you can probably win a stack with KTo vs QQ when the flop comes A-Q-J. That being said, with a bigger stack stealing from downtown with broadways is ok at the right table.

there are lots of strategies you can employ in the SB including limp everything, limp/raise/fold and raise only. against fun players raise only is probably best and against more experienced players one of the other two is probably more profitable

It seems like the real question is being missed, probably my bad.

I'm just wondering if the ranges provided by pokercoaching.com are solid to use as a base.
Since I'm not very familiar with the site nor it's content.

I've only ever studied 100bb cash game ranges.
I do know the basics on how to adjust to smaller stacks, but I've never studied these.

Jonathan Little, the guy running poker coaching is pretty well respected in the community and the charts are pretty much just the basic GTO charts. So yes they are a decent starting point to build your ranges on.

I haven't personally used pokercoaching.com, but I've only heard good things about Jonathan Little and the free videos I've seen of his have been helpful.