You're correct. In trying to answer a question about what the PFR stat meant in Pokertracker, I inadvertently turned the discussion into the defination of the difference between pre-flop raising and open-raising. I was slow to catch on to this because I thought we were all still talking about the PFR stat in pokertracker (which would include any and all pre-flop raises regardless of whether you are first in the pot or act after multiple limpers). I hope you have all learned from my mistake and everyone is clear on this matter so we can put it to bed.

To sum up:

A pre-flop raise is simply when you raise by any amount pre-flop.

An open-raise is, more specifically, when you are the first one to open the pot and you raise.

Both actions will count towards your PFR percentage in Pokertracker.

the bolded statement should never happen.

Anyway, SnG's are different. Its not raise or fold. Its just fold. Just keep folding. I know a lot of SnG players who play like TT+/AK early in SnG's. Play tight and shvoe later.

WCG post stats of your big 1k day at 25 NL or whatever and end thread please.

I appreciate your thoughts and sharing information, please continue to do that, but don't waste your time with these fools.

And thanks for making me realize I don't 3bet enough.

In early SNG play, pocket pairs below QQ should not be played for a raise, and neither should AK. Perhaps calling a small raise to try and flop sets/TPTK (also, early play should including over-limping SCs from BTN and CO), but other than that, ultra-tight is better than tight in early play.

this is the kind of small stakes info I wish cardrunners had more of. (not that fruitypro,etc. aren't awesome- but it's nice to have variety).

good info Doug.

That's crazy, as I thought I was way too tight already. I guess I was doing something right afterall. Will take head to what you have said and tighten up even further.

Quit defending your blinds. It's not a tournament, it's not worth it. If you have a real hand then play it like you would normally.

The money you have put in the pot as a blind is no longer yours, it belongs to the pot. Squabbling over blinds is a very silly play unless you can absolutely dominate you're opp. post flop, and I'm guessing that you can't at this point in you're poker career.

Now at some point you're gonna need to make a stand if SB steals when folded around like 5x or more, but in an online session this will rarely be the case.

Okay, so what about a tournament then? Should I simply let them go early on but then fight aggressively later on when they start to really mean something in terms of percentage of my stack (along with antes, etc)? Hope so, because that's generally what I do, I'll just fold early on, unless I have a real hand, in which case I re-raise. Then later when they mean more, and antes are involved, I'll put up more of a fight.

Early stages is for loose gamblers who will either double up or bust out. Doubling your stack does not double your chances of making the money. Middle stages is for chip accumulation. I played a lot of SNGs in my early bankroll-building days. Whenever I was faced with a tough near-middle stages/middle stages decision, I would ask myself, "Do I have to make a hand to win the pot? Will it be easier to blind-steal later, or easier to hit a flop I like with my current hand?" A lot of the times, blind stealing is a far easier and safer way to build your stack. According to SNG Strategy, the only hands you should be willing to get AIPF with in early stages are AA and KK.

Someone with more SNG experience correct me if I'm wrong.

+1

Blinds aren't worth it. It's so nice that online sites leave the chips in front of the blinds instead of putting them in the middle of the table right away. People think those blinds still belong to them and fight for them which is really nice. Almost as nice as the new ghost cards that Stars has implemented to remind you what you had - better play that 74o next time lol would have flopped a fullhouse.

Play the blinds as if those chips are gone and you're UTG-1 and UTG-2, which should be just as tight as your UTG range unless your in a SB steal situation.

i like the name. From now on, SB and BB are UTG-1 and UTG-2.

If I'm on the button, I'll call a MP raise with high suited connectors. Or if I'm UTG or UTG+1 on super aggressive board with high pockets I'll limp then reraise but that's all play based on the hand and table at that time.

I agree, too many times I see players limping or calling. As Harrington says, don't limp into a pot. You need a Strong hand to raise and enter the pot, but you need an even stronger one to call that raise.

A lot of player seem to think there A8o is awesome and deserves 3BB raise PF. Put them to 7BB's and watch them fold when neither the Ace or 7 hit.

ghost cards are my downfall

I am wondering what are the good cards to call in a multiway pot that has been reraised .
For exemple I play NL5, BTN with T9s (or JTs), three limpers before me, I call (multiway pot), the BB raise to 3BB (0.15), the three limpers call the small raise, the pot is now 0.15x4 + 0.05 = 0.65 and I need 10 to call.

- no reads on players
- favorable pot odds : call
- i have position on the players : call
- players in the pot before the raise : 3 - he must have good cards to put raise here (but on the other hand, he put a small raise)

>> I would call, would you do the same ?

2/ I am wondering if some hands exists with which you would advise to min-raise with a lot of limpers before you in order to make the pot bigger without scaring players (I am understood).

Thank you in advance

Very good post WCG

Some of this is so wrong. I understand the point you're trying to get at, and I completely agree that many uNL players limp too much, call too much, or generally play too many hands. But advocating a 3-bet/fold strategy is not the way to get decent at poker. Yes, there are a ton of marginally winning MSNL regulars who play such a style, but they're marginally winning for a reason.

I agree with your statement about the PT stats though. If you're playing something like a 30/10 style, then you're basically one of the loose/passive fish that we all so eagerly seek. Because not only does that imply that you're calling too much preflop, it also implies that you're likely open-limping a lot too. Now, if you're stats are more like 22/11, then my immediate assumption would be that you're not open-limping preflop, but you're still calling too much. So while I agree with that part of the post, I think giving general advice like "don't call so much" is not going to be very helpful to these posters. Actually, not only will it not be too helpful, I think it may actually become harmful if interpreted incorrectly.

I think a lot of beginners rank hands in the following fashion. Since they view raise > call > fold, in terms of how much "strength" the action shows, then they believe hands are ranked similarly. This is just not true.

As an example, this could be one player's view of hands from strongest to weakest (when facing a raise):
Good enough to 3-bet: hands like AA, AK, ...
Good enough to call: hands like 88, T9s, ...
Bad enough to fold: obvious trash, 72o, J5o, ...

Given that a lot of uNL players probably view hand strengths in this manner, you're basically advocating that they push the top of the "call" range into the "3-bet" range, and push the rest into the fold range. I strongly disagree with this and I'll give an example.

Let's take a situation where hero is in the BB and villain is open-raising from the SB. Now, let's take a look 2 hands that you might 3-bet light: T9s, T7s. I could also add a "strong" hand like AA to the range, but let's say for now that I always want to 3-bet AA. For T9s, I think we can all agree that calling here is (generally) +EV, and 3-betting here is (generally) +EV as well. As to which option is more +EV, well I can't give you empirical evidence for one side or the other. If you don't believe me, well, study the game a little more.

For a player following your strategy, he might 3-bet T9s 100% of the time and fold T7s 100% of the time. Or another option would be that he 3-bets T9s 50% of the time and 3-bets T7s 50% of the time, while folding the rest. But if you're going to follow the second strategy, then, then it's basically always better to just 3-bet T9s 100% of the time and fold T7s 100% of the time.

But what if we did the following. Instead of 3-betting T9s and folding T7s, we called T9s (which is +EV) and 3-bet T7s. This would yield around the same frequency for 3-betting light, but now we have the EV from the times we call T9s. The only way this strategy is worse than the previous one is if:
EV(3-betting T9s) - EV(3-betting T7s) > EV(calling T9s)

Unfortunately, there's no way for me to prove this, but the difference in EV from 3-betting hands like T9s and T7s is not going to be that much, whereas calling with a solid hand like T9s, in position, is going to be worth much more. If the above equation is false, then my strategy of calling T9s and 3-betting T7s is almost always better than 3-betting T9s and folding T7s.

As a counter, you could argue that 3-betting both T9s and T7s > 3-betting just T9s. But if you're 3-betting T7s 100% of the time, then you're also 3-betting T8s, 97s, 98s, 87s, etc etc 100% of the time as well and now you're falling into over-aggression.

You'll notice that the examples I've given so far have been preflop situations. I do this because it's easier to get my point across using preflop rather than postflop examples. Also, you may notice that I specifically picked examples where I was in position, rather than OOP. This is because I'm an advocate of avoiding marginal situations while OOP, especially if you're a beginner. For my above example, yes I would call T9s in the BB vs an SB open. But if I was in the BB vs a BTN open, I would be more likely to 3-bet or fold.

I look at hands more like this (this is an over-simplified summary, of course):
Hands that are good enough to 3-bet for value
Hands that are good enough to call (sometimes 3-bet)
Hands that are good enough to 3-bet occasionally, but not good enough to call
Hands that are bad enough to fold

Namely, I've inserted an extra set of hands that I feel are good enough to 3-bet occasionally, but I would never call with them. I think this is a concept that many uNL and SSNL players don't understand correctly.

I had a conversation once with a guy I know who plays uNL. He told me he started widening his 3-betting range to something like AQ+/99+ (it might have been vs a UTG open, I can't remember). I asked why he's 3-betting hands like TT/99. And his reasoning (which is the exact reasoning you don't want to use) was that 99 is too good just to call and it's decent against the villain's opening range. Ok, first of all, you don't determine your 3-betting range by opening PokerStove and saying "Ah ha! 99 has 60% equity vs this guy's range, therefore I 3-bet".

Later he went on to say something like "except when I'm in trouble when I get called" or something to that extent. Like he's not in a great situation when he's called or he's uncomfortable in that situation. That's funny, because that's the exact reason why I don't 3-bet 99 in that situation. If you're "in trouble when you're called", that means that you feel his calling range is stronger than your hand, so you can't be 3-betting for value. Therefore you are 3-betting as a bluff, even if that's not how you see it. If you're going to 3-bet 99 as a bluff, it's much better to call for set value and 3-bet 87s in the same situation as a bluff.

This seems like a very simple, and yet very important concept to me, but I have never successfully explained this to any of my SSNL/uNL friends. It's very possible that I'm just poor at explaining poker concepts, but I'd like to think it's more of my friends' inability to break out of the box that they've stuck themselves in. Yeah, they're not very good players if you haven't guessed. So, I will try to explain this again with another example and hopefully someone will get what I'm trying to say.

I raise AJ UTG and the board is J98 two tone. My opponent donks into me. He has a wide range of hands here. It could be anything like a pair + draw, two pair, set, draw, lesser 1-pair hands, and some air. Given that range calling here is obviously +EV, so folding is not an option. Now the question is whether to call or raise.

A lot of poor players will think something like:
"Oh, my hand is too good to call so I raise!"
"I need to protect my hand so I raise!"
"I want to see where I'm at so I raise!" (God, this and the previous one tilt me like crazy.)
"Oh, I'm ahead of most of his range so I RAISE!"
But this logic is incorrect. If I raise here, it will be difficult for my opponent to call with many worse hands than mine, but I never expect him to fold a better one.

So basically from my point of view, if I raise, he calls with all hands > AJ and folds most hands < AJ. In this case I'd be better off raising with a draw like KT or even air like AK. Since I never expect to be ahead when I raise, then the fact that I have TPTK is irrelevant. But the players I mentioned above think (incorrectly) only in terms of their own hand.

Applying the same concept back to the previous preflop examples. If I never expect to be ahead when 3-betting a hand like T9s or 99, but I also feel it's +EV to call with those hands, I am much better off 3-betting a trashier hand (which is still in ok shape when called) like T7s or 87s, and calling with the medium strength hand instead.

Sorry for the rambling, and I'm sure most of this post may have turned out to be pretty incoherent, but if even a couple posters are able to learn something from this, then it was well worth my time to type it out.

1) I wouldn't limp in the first place (it's not bad but I prefer raising), very easy call once you already have though.

2) No, absolutely no hands exist which fit this criteria.

If you were opening from the BTN with nits in the blinds then you could make a case for min raising if they were going to 3bet or fold regardless of your raise size, not really applicable that often at 5nl and definitely not something you should be concerning yourself with at this point.

Dazarath,

Really good post.

I'm not sure about the AJ example though. I think there's a lot of worse stuff a donk puts it in with or calls a raise and multiple streets with; all sorts of draws or pair + draws, even top pair good kicker. I agree with the point you're trying to make though.

I think WCG's point is that micro stakes players aren't able to coldcall T9s profitably so a mantra of raise or fold is a safe one. As they improve they can learn the exceptions to the rules. There's lots of other examples of this like "a turn raise is always the nuts"; this is a good rule until you can work out the exceptions.

EDIT: Or the other stupid "rule" that Harrington on Cash has started making popular of not building a big pot with TPTK or an overpair. I can see that really stunting a lot of players developments.

In a 10 handed cash game played by non senile players, this is actually very good advice. TPTK/over pair is very rarely good in these games in huge pots. This is not to say that you shouldn't be betting these hands when you have the lead, but you shouldn't be trying to get a huge amount of money in the pot.

I think the AJ / J98 texture is a great example of a pot where you are probably ahead and can bet the early streets for value, but you really need to be a good hand-reader (and in my case body language reader) on the later streets.

I'm not a 6-max/shorthanded specialist, so my comments don't apply to those games.

I agree the AJ example wasn't the best. That's another reason why I generally don't like giving postflop examples, as they are so dependent on the villain's range, and players' postflop ranges vary so much more than preflop ranges. But if we change the example to QT on a T87tt board, I think the point holds. Of course, the example changes when you hold JT and especially T9, because first, you're now ahead of less hands, but second, you have much more equity when called.

My guess is that players want to "protect their hand" (or some bull**** like that) or they feel that TPGK is "too good to just call". But it's more like this. When I raise and they fold, it's irrelevant whether I have TPGK or 5-high. But when I'm called, if I'm always crushed, then it's also irrelevant whether I have TPGK or 5-high. So if my options are raise and take down the pot X% of the time vs raise and get called (with me having very low equity) 100-X% of the time, then because my cards are irrelevant in those situations, I should be doing it with air and trying to get my marginal hands to showdown instead.

Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that uNLers should all start going nuts and raising AK on J98 flops or 3-betting T7s all over the place. My point is that IF (keyword: if) you're going to be raising marginal hands in the above situations, then you're generally better off raising worse hands instead and calling with the marginal ones. I would actually advocate a playstyle with much less bluffing than maybe a lot of 2+2ers would, since even 1/2 is beatable with an ABC style.

nice posts Dazarath very informative. I only recently started playing and I'm playing at 25nl now I still notice that quite a few players will still call me with marginal hands when I raise on a flop with Axx but I quess it's all player dependant.

Good post!

I've personally always hated such poker axioms and I especially can't stand it when people use them as the sole reason behind a particular action they take. Now, I understand that people need to learn to walk before they run. It would be a bit much to expect a new player to immediately jump into the thought process of a high or even mid-stakes regular. But I often think people take those axioms as lines from the bible and don't try to understand the reasoning behind them or what they're supposed to simplify.

The following are probably the two that I see people abuse the most.

Example 1: Don't go broke in limped pots.

In limped pots, people have wider preflop ranges, so their ranges include nut-type hands that wouldn't normally show up in raised pots. Also, you're getting worse odds on your money since the pot is very small, so putting in your entire stack requires that you have much more equity vs their shoving range (which I've already stated includes more nut-type hands) for it to be profitable. So while your 87s may look pretty good on a J87 flop in a raised pot and definitely in a 3-bet pot, it's not nearly as good in a 5-way limped pot.

Once someone understands this, then it's fine to use it as a guideline. But to follow it like it's some set-in-stone golden rule is just going to stunt the development of a lot of players.

Example 2: Baluga Theorem - If you get raised on the turn, 1-pair is no good (or something like that).

If you have no idea what your opponent's range might be, then maybe this is a decent rule to use. But you shouldn't be satisfied that you made the correct fold because Baluga said so. You should be asking yourself, "why can't I accurately put villain on a hand range?" and you should put in extra effort to better your hand reading skills. Basically Baluga Theorem is saying if you accurately put your opponent on a hand range for a turn raise, it will generally contain hands > 1-pair.

I see a lot of hand posts where some will just respond with "Fold. Baluga Theorem." or "Don't go broke in raised pots." That's not a good reasoning for why someone should fold. That's a guideline for what to generally do in situations when you're not sure. But that's also an indicator that you should work even more on your game, so that you can reach the point where you do not have to follow those axioms any longer.

You'll notice that I use the word "generally" a lot when making a statement. The first reason for this is because I've never been good at writing. If my posts hurt your brain due to their poor structure and vocabulary choice, feel free to not read them. But the second (and more important) reason is because I'm very anal about not saying such and such is always true or never true. For a lot of the things I've said above, I can give counter-examples for when they're not true. But this would just bloat the post with a lot of useless exceptions. The same goes for those poker axioms. They are not correct in 100% of situations. That's why I'm trying to encourage the readers of this thread to learn for themselves the real thought process behind a poker hand. Those axioms are just heuristics that we use (and poor ones at that).

This really is an excellent and constructive thread. Good work op & everyone else.

Completely agree with you Dazarath.