I have heard it mentioned time and time again that you should remain consistent in your hand selection pre-flop and only mix in a few calculated bluffs.

For example, Mike Gano recommends that you only play X hands in Y position and are prepared to 4-bet shove suited aces when in Z situation.

Anyways, over the past few weeks I have formed my own system for what hands to play when. The only problem is I feel like someone else may have already created a system like this that is more effective (+ev).

I have a few little rules like I only play suited aces when I'm opening from the CO (in 6 max games) or better. I only open small pairs from the CO or BTN and never call a raise with them unless I am getting the right implied/pot odds.

Has someone already created a system to maximize EV with your starting selection?

I play NL25 online on Bovada so I am not whatsoever concerned with others picking up tells and an understanding of my range.

Are you taking into consideration the other players at the table when constructing your ranges?

Good question, I would ask the same thing. My hand ranges vary a lot depending on the game as a whole, also who is directly to my left and right and who are in the blinds.

Also, I think it is very dangerous for beginners to concentrate on pre hand ranges and rely on this. It is important to understand your own ranges etc. but it must be elastic to the games.

Plus, winning players make +EV decisions post flop, not just pre. That is where the poker is played. If you are playing short stack that is a different matter altogether, as it is a much more calculated and mathematical game.

Elastic is a good way to describe it - as elastic will return to it's original form after being stretched...and when stretched too far will break.

My range is elastic as you described. But as Stellamoose mentioned, elastic will return to its original form after being stretched. I'm looking to settle on an original form (if that's even possible).

For example, as a general rule of thumb at a table of unknowns ranging form 50-100BB deep, should I be raising 77 UTG? I play on Bovada so I am often in situations like these were I have little to no history on my opponents (40+ hands is a huge privilege).

Not sure about consistency. Player stats tell me what should I raise and I basically open all kinds of hands. But again I play 30/28 and have the HUD and you play on Bovada. All the profit playing LAG comes from post flop play so you can basically justify opening any two depending on the villain.

You have an understanding of position and how your opponents tend to react, if OP is trying to decide whether or not to open 77 UTG, we need to keep that in mind.

I think the common theme though, is that how we play our hand (from any position) is dependent on more than just the basic variable of what 2 cards we are dealt.