Heya guys,

I had great success in the 2.20 BI MTTs on stars lately. Now I want to losen up to prepare myself for better levels of play, because

1) Assuming somebody pays any attention at all, I should be really easy to read.
2) I think, I'm leaving chips on the table, by folding too many decent hands.
3) I want to improve my postflop play in general.


I will list the hands that I play below. My actual questions are:

If we assume an average stacksize of 30BB in a 6maxx NLO8 tournament, then

- Do you see any glaring weaknesses with this range?
- Which handtypes could/should I add, considering I am somewhere between beginning and intermediate level of play?


UTG + MP:
* AAww, AAwX ss
* A2ww ss, A2wB ss, A2BB ss, A2XX ds

CO:
additionally
* A3BB suited to the Ace
* A3XX double suited (1 suit to the Ace) and XX somewhat connected.

BTTN:
additionally
* ABBw ss
* TJQK+ ds
* AAXX, KKww ds
* 23w6 ss, if it's not 3bet and there are at least two people before me in the pot
* 23XX ds, if XX has some potential and the blinds play passive
* Any suited Ace, if two limpers before me and raise behind me not likely

SB: Same as UTG
BB: Same as CO.

I don't know if it's that useful to think about the average stack size when effective stack size is what matters. Also, you don't mention what size you are opening (or if you open limp some part of your range). There should also be an effective stack size below which you play push or fold which also should affect your range.

Overall the ranges seem very nitty, considering there are antes and there is no rake from the pot.

I'm a little ashamed to admit, that I didn't know what effective stacksize is (looked it up now), but that's actually, what I wanted to express. I was assuming I have an effective stacksize of 30BB with most people at the table.

Under normal circumstances I openraise 2,5 BB with all of my hands and only ever 3bet Aces-
If it's down to 10 players or less, I start openlimping with some hands of the A2ww and 23w6 types.
If people isolate raise me, I openlimp some of my best Aces aswell.
I also start 3betting some double suited A2Bw and A2QQ+ hands.

I play push or fold, between an effective stacksize of 15-20 BB. 20 BB, if getting called is not very likely, 15BB if there is somebody who calls with any 4 cards.
* Makes me wonder, if this is actually a mistake.

When playing push or fold mode, it depends a little bit on the action before me. If there is a lot of limping, I will push any double suited hand with two wheel cards from late position for example.


I thought so. I kinda stuck with what worked.

I'd consider open shoving in some spots up to at least 30bb effective. You mention that you open UTG/MP "AAww, AAwX ss". Does this mean that you are folding many AA-combos? I'm pretty sure they are very very +ev to just ship in. In many spots, any AK2x ds is clearly +ev to 3-bet jam.

I think a lot of stuff can work at this level and some things may exploit their tendencies better than a pre-flop equity-oriented approach. Anyway I don't think there is that much relevant post-flop play when effective stacks are say less than 30bb. If you want to learn how to play post-flop, play 100bb deep cash.

I'd think about your rationale for doing this.

Interesting. Yes, I do fold lots of AA combos. My thoughtprocess and experience was, that it's not worth it to risk my tourneylife in something like a 55/45% preflop situation against players, that I can outplay postflop. (Not saying that I'm supergreat myself, just the field is weak overall).

However a frequent situation is: We are in the money, I have somewhere between 50-100 BB and there are several shortstacks between 5 and 15 BB at the table. Here I'm not risking my tourney-life. So I should be open-shoving those afformentioned AA-combos, right?
Never really thought about that, unless its SB vs BB, but essentially, it doesn't matter, if I'm shortstacked or the others are, the effective stacksize is push or fold range.

Another point is: If I play a tournament where the field is better than me, than this also doesn't really apply and I might even get folds from players having the same thoughts, I guess.

Will do.
And thanks once more for taking the time to write down your high quality answers in this forum.

Yeah, I kinda wondered about that myself, when I wrote it down.
And well, the simple answer is: I want them to stop folding and play pots with me.

Ok, that's not all. I also want to be able to trap, if that does make sense?
When we are playing say 4 handed at the final table bubble, people start paying attention to what you are doing and it would be kinda weird, if I never limped a hand and then suddenly limped and answered a raise with a shove or something.
Also since I'm playing nitty, people fold to my raises in this situation often and it seems to me like wasting a hand.

[edit] It is probably better to just have wider opening ranges and simply raise more hands. That's what I'm trying to work on here.

I wouldn't. There are few greater things than a final table bubble when the other guys just fold, fold, fold. You are printing money then.

You could fix this by not having a limping range 4 handed (or 6 handed for that matter).

+1

UTG folding AA6x ds seems too tight to me but I am also new to the game.

Yeah, I tried to play a little loser. So far, it didn't work out for me, but a sample of two tourneys hardly says anything.

If you also play micros, maybe you can share your ranges, so we can compare?

Meanwhile, I sat down at the 0.01/0.02 cash tables and played nearly every hand for something like 6 hours straight, interestingly I only lost half a BI, but I did have very big swings.

What I gathered from this
* "Bad" rundowntype hands like 4567+ are much stronger than I initially thought. This maybe specific to micros, because people call regularly on the river with sets, small straights and no lo at all.
* Even very small flushdraws are king in headsup pots
* Position isn't nearly as important as I thought. When in doubt, call from the Big Blind.
* Normally, I almost never bluff, but since this was experimental, I tried to live up to the maniac image. What can I say... the regs fold pretty big hands regularly (after a while they started showing), even though most of the time nobody seems to have much of anything.
* I really have trouble playing AK2x on AKw flops. It extends to smiliar situations with AQ2x and so forth.
In summary: What do you do, if you flopped top two, no significant redraws and there is a couple of straight and lodraws present?

i 3bet or push that all the time.It doesn´t even has to be ds for me, but i´m not very good ,drink a lot and have never won a single flip against Bob or Juicy

Well, I adjusted my play and pushed a lot more with the AA combos, that I omitted originally. I also push a lot more, when there are shortstacks behind me now.

It's still not a really big sample size, but... before, I usually didn't cash at all or got to the Final table. Now I see myself mincashing more, while still getting to the Final Table at the same rate.

What do you guys think about High only Aces, like for instance (AK)AQ or something?

Are we calling or raising? High only are clear calls with deep stacks if not raised. Would think a q 10 5 is Solid hand I might raise small with. Remember, ace goes both ways. Having a single ave plus a broadway and low card is like having five cards against 4. And pushing against short stacks is a sound tournament strategy. Works in most forms of tourney poker once you have base understanding of hand values.

Ok, I should have specified. In Cashgames, I routinely call with nice High hands and position.
Here I was more thinking about a tournament situation, say effective stacksize between 30-50 BB and it's folded to us.
And also what's their value, if we get shorter?

What's a "q 10 5" ?
Yes. However, I find it hard to play those well postflop.
Often times, they make hands like two pair + marginal low, while straights/flushes/trips are possible.
So I think, their value goes up in headsup pots and down rapidly, when it's multiway.

Ace queen ten five is a good ha d to raise late in a tournament assuming a raise usually takes pit there or gets you heads up.