Happy to get understanding from an unexpected source

Maybe I just understand the game better than the internet combined

There are bad board textures for every hand. How much pressure are you really expecting in a 10$ sng? OP hand flops reasonably well heads up or multiway even against the tightest ranges on average so I don't understand why you think its a difficult hand to be able to realize your equity. I also disagree with the fact that there are 15-25 bb stacks being a problem in terms of realizing equity. That makes no sense to me. There are players that are playing 40 5 2 in these sngs. You guys are crazy for suggesting a fold here.

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: xxx

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
5%	53.62%	208,080	331,110	23,671	115,997	59,551
ad3d4cjs	46.38%	168,303	245,219	23,671	165,264	59,551

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: xxx

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
10%	32.02%	95,548	186,412	18,276	50,864	113,844
ad3d4cjs	32.64%	104,203	183,677	17,427	78,364	85,799
5%	35.34%	112,123	204,202	17,838	65,166	107,948

AAxx makes up 2.5% of all hands but not all AAxx hands are top 5% hands

I think propokertools has a more complicated ranking system but I’m not sure what it is. I do know that some of the other sites that do hand rankings just run millions of simulations where 6 or 9 random hands go all in preflop and then hands are ranked based on how profitable they were in the simulations. If you want to consider this hand a 15% hand that’s up to you. I wouldn’t expect you to ever admit your wrong anyway.

Would you guys fold AJs here in holdem? It’s a top 5% hand and it only has 35% equity against a 5% range and 45% against a 10% range.

Your argument for playing this hand seems to be players at this stake are bad, not that this is a profitable open vs good players.

As for good flops vs bad flops hu and multiway, that is actually somewhat complicated but i think its fair to say that this hand plays better shorter or deeper because hero does not like being forced to commit with medium strength hand either or both direction at this stack depth.. this is still a low-oriented hand and villains will normally have a stronger hi hand on the flop

My argument is not solely based on the player pool. I would still open this hand from utg if it were a 2k scoop or if it was a 10-20 cash game. The player pool just makes it not even close to a fold. To argue that this is not a top 10% hand at the very least seems crazy to me and I cant think of many successful players who are playing less than 10% of hands in this spot. I mean what type hands would you consider the bottom of your range here if you are folding this?

You are confused as to how hand rankings work. For argument sake let’s rank this as a 10% hand. What that means is that if you were to open the top 10% of your hands this hand would be near the bottom of your range so of course it will not be a favourite against a range of 10% which includes all of the top 10% hands.

I prolly on the loose side but im never ever open folding it here or any spot really and depending on whos 3 betting in this spot I'd be flatting 3 bet a decent % of the time. Suited ace hello!!!

I could list a whole bunch of aggro stars regs(mostly horrid ones admittedly ) that would 4 bet shove it.

Haha ya no way you are folding here Billy. I’m not sure Amok ever actually folds here or not but if his ranges are as bad as they are in NLO8 hyper MTTs he might.

Like UD, not understanding the rank argument here. Point of opening this hand is not to be in great shape the 10% of the time I get 3bet - it’s to be in great shape the 25-50% of the time I get called by worse. Which maybe doesn’t happen in SCOOP or $10/$20 games but happens quite often here.

On a side note, kind of proud that I’ve gone from bad American who limps too much to loose aggro overvaluing hands.

That's why I said AAxx is not huge. Maybe it was a bit unclear.

Yes, I'm sure there are simulations, but they have their weaknesses. For me this is not a 5% hand and that's that. I'm not going to change my mind just because some simulation says it is, so in that way I'm not "admitting I'm wrong". That doesn't mean that I find these hand rankings useless though.

It's not a top 5% hand then. No, I wouldn't, but I don't know anything about holdem so delving into this probably isn't useful.

Again, I don't really think whether you play 10% or 20% UTG is going to have a huge impact on your win rate. Players who fold this probably would play hands that either are better than this or hands that play better than this. I wouldn't fold AQ34s or AJ34ds for example.

Of course not. Just pointing out how poorly the actual hand does against hands that will give you most action and I think that is important. Maybe I am confused or maybe blindly staring at the hand ranking created by a simulation is confusing to some. Attempts to play a GTO-based strategy have had most of the PLO players in a confused state for two years or so.

There are antes in NLO8 MTT, so it's completely different.

One thing that hasn't been addressed much is opening size. If you open small, you can certainly open more. Of course with my nitty UTG-range I'm opening pot.

That is also an argument I'm willing to buy to some extent. UD says later it's not his argument though.

Exactly. There are many flops that are decent for us but on which we have trouble realizing equity OOP.

Also, just to prove that I play as I preach, UTG stats:

VPIP 13,2
evbb 24,45

Latter is hardly relevant and the sample is small. Would have attached a screenshot, but I'm confused as to how it works.

Yes with antes you should be opening even more yet you still vpip like 10% from utg but what do I know? I’m only the biggest winner in the history of NLO8 hypers

You are ******ed. If you only played 5% from utg you would likely have a high utg ev also. I’m not sure your ev bb/100 utg proves anything or that it is really that impressive. I’m done responding to this thread. Play as you will.

Don't think I'm "vpip like 10% from utg" but what do I know (HEM seems to agree though). Congrats to the winner.

I'm not going to call you a ******, since that might offend people who are actually ******ed.

Not sure if you read my post, but I said "just to show I play like I preach" and that "latter is hardly relevant" (referring to evbb). If you have nothing to say, not responding would be an excellent choice. GL.

Perhaps using the word ******ed was a bit much. Ok one last reply and we can agree to disagree. I was curious as to what my own utg EV BB/100 was so I took a look. I looked at many different formats both PL and NL and in all formats my utg vpip is much higher than what you have said yours is while my EV BB/100 is basically the same on average as you have said yours is so obviously I cannot say that your approach to playing utg does not work for you but given that you are likely a stronger postflop player than I am based on some of your post in other threads I do think your EVBB/100 from utg would be even higher if you played more hands. In reality its hard to prove if this hand is definitely a profitable open from utg due to sample size. Nobody is going to have a huge sample of playing AJ34s utg with these exact or similar stack sizes in PLO8 but it is my opinion based on my knowledge that for most good players it is. If you disagree fine.

So this certainly seems like AJ43 is in your opening range then if you’re at 13%. Or if you maintain it’s 15% in your ranking, what is at the bottom of your 13% range?

I don’t really worry about different opening sizes in these turbos but perhaps that is a leak. Worth considering at the very least.

I tend to open strong A3s-hands UTG, so yes I'd open this, I guess also AJ53, AJ63 maybe not, so around there would be the border for me. But with 100bb it feels easier to open more and I'd think you should open a bit wider in cash vs sng. Maybe I am overstating this difference, I don't know.

Yeah, I don't think it's so important if you understand your strategy and the implications of it.

I agree with everything that you say. Maybe I shouldn't have posted my stats, as you seem to have taken it so that I'm trying to prove that this is the best way to play. I was just trying to point out that this really is how I play. Indeed, we can't prove if I could improve my win rate by opening more hands UTG. I believe it's not a big deal either way, but that is not based on anything scientific, only on experience.

Also, things escalated quite far from what I originally said:
From this to me having to defend my stance that AJ43s is not in top 5% of my ranking. I'm glad to have learned that ppt-rankings value it so highly, something that wouldn't intuitively even have crossed my mind.

This. Idk why there's even much discussion on it. It's anon tables so there's usually even more incentive to lean towards the aggressive side anyway.

With that said though, flipping for stacks at 25/50 isn't exactly something I'd like to do too often. These early rounds are the most different from nlo8(which isn't all that much really) since pot control is sometimes an option.

Flipping against SB's 3b w/reasonable ranges factored in at 10bb, since it's probably the closest one I have for this spot:



Even just suited to the J only is decent enough:

Personally I would limp in pre and call a raise. In the early levels I find I benefit most from seeing cheap flops and trying to hit home runs. Far too often people will call with all sorts of crap and you can't get them off it postflop so doing fancy c-bets with the betting lead doesn't work. You have to show them a hand, so it's more efficient to get in for 1 bb.

When the stacks become shallower in the later levels it becomes a more pressing concern to steal blinds and try to finesse small pots with aggression, but it also becomes easier as play tightens up. If you've not doubled up by 75/150 in a SNG you're getting into that territory where you need to make a move. Whether you make the money or not depends on whether or not you were successful with those moves.

Postflop in this hand I don't think you can get away from it. You're almost sure to be >break even on a call so it has to go in.

So what am I looking at here lotus? Assuming trade secrets but I’m intrigued...