Also note, that this only happens, as I said, occasionally, just to add the element of pre flop unpredictability. It's not like i open 65s every time, maybe just 2/10 times.

Can I ask, do you know what 'balance' is? Strikes me that you're using this ridiculous 'unpredictability' stuff as a proxy for it and doing a whole bunch of unnecessary result as a result.

Also, what site do you beat 200NL on?

Yeah, range balancing is when you play different types of hands (e.g. air, trips)in the same way in order to keep your range wide. Basically, when you c-bet, you do it with air and things like to pair or whatever, or you might check a flop like 448 whether you have a 4 or nothing. However, since we're discussing EP here, I'd like to point out the following. If you've raised from EP, range balancing on a lot of flops is very difficult, because your range is very narrow already. If you take a standard TAG EP range of TT+, AJ+ and KQ, there are not many flops that are bad for that range. Hence, if you c-bet ANY flop, it looks strong to an opponent. This is exactly why you throw in the occasional 44, or 56s or whatever. Because if your opponent knows those hands are in your EP range, a) he's going to be more likely to pay you off when you have the goods, and b) it keeps your range a lot wider.

I'm not suggesting we muck around with all our ranges, MP and LP opening, not suggesting we throw in like 74o into our cutoff raising range, I think this is a tactic that is unique to EP.

Also, I've explained why this stuff actually wins you money. It's not just about winning the most money in the current hand, it's about how you can use your table image to win more money on a consistent basis. Poker is a game about people, primarily, and the very best players play the people. Having a table image that gets people to make crying calls for their stack on the river is way more important to my win rate than sticking to the basics. Because, while what you're suggesting, tight solid ABC poker, is fantastic for 50NL and down, there does need to be another layer after that to your play.

The main point I would make now is that you cannot ever have a set in stone plan when you play poker. you must adjust to the situation, not wait for a situation to come to you. You could have less than ideal cards, but if the situation is perfect, there's no reason not to play, if you evaluate and think it's a money-making situation.

Btw, to the guy who called me spewy, my VPIP for FR games is around 18, hardly spewy?

And i play at Stars, always have done, always will. Best cash game site there is, although I intend to play more live games starting from later this ear when i move to the city because the 1/2 games live are much softer than online.

lol, I'm absolutely not suggesting 'tight solid ABC poker', I just think 'mixing it up' (for instance doing anything involving RFI'ing a non-linear range) is dumb.

Ok, well, you're entitled to your opinion! That's the great thing about poker, you can play lots of different ways and still be successful. I can see that you don't agree with my reasoning for doing this, but in my opinion it works, or at least, it works for me because my game involves lots of bluffing and aggressive play. Interesting discussion though.

no offence I can't see you beating 1/2 nl if you think 1/2 live is worth your time. Theres a deep 1/2 game super softer where I have ~30 hourly atleast right next to my house and I never go because my online hourly is much higher. Yet its still much lower than what a top 1/2 reg makes on stars

True, but I prefer live play so much. I love the social part of the game, actually having chips, I prefer everything about live. But, not much experience of live play yet, so I'm going to start off at 1/2 and work my way up. See where I'm coming from?

Also, never claimed to be a top 1/2 reg. I just moved up a few weeks ago, but I'm beating it for around 3BB / 100 so far

There was actually a fair bit of sense in the last long post, and I feel bad about quibbling over minor issues, but...
The narrower your range, the easier it should be to balance. DUCY?

FWIW, I think you're vastly over-estimating the value of "image", especially online. Besides, if you're only raising some weak hands occasionally, how do you generate an image? Most hands don't reach showdown online, and a villain won't treat you like a LAGfish and pay you off if your overall stats are still reasonable. If I see someone show up with a weird hand despite reasonable stats, I'll take a note, but generally treat it as a pre-flop misclick.

I see what you mean, and that's definitely a valid argument, but I personally think that having a wider range offers more protection from the master hand readers, (who seem to be pretty common at 200NL, probably because there's no 'tells' available.

With image, the player pool at 200NL is fairly small, and most players have HUDS, so the table image comes not from one session, but from the data they collect on me over time. So over months, using the HUD, all the players in a pool get to know each other inside out!

But thanks for saying there was a lot of sense in my arguments, I think there is!

Yes, but how easy it is to hand-read against you has nothing to do with balance per se.

What I mean is that that's how I try to protect myself from people reading my hand I guess.

Why not play a wider range as a default, or understand that ranges in some situations are going to be very tight for both players?

That's what I was saying about adding some things to my opening range from EP, I feel that's a good way to make it more difficult to read my hand