The Cutoff, Part 1
The cutoff is an exponentially tougher position to navigate preflop than both UTG and MP. The ranges become much more dynamic due to the potential preflop action as well as our reads on the button and blinds. Ideally, we want a tight player directly to our left whose button we can steal liberally and thus play ~1/3 of our hands in position.
As a general rule, you don't want to be at a table with an aggressive player on your left. It really shrinks your CO opening range. Refer to my article on
Common uNL Mistakes, Part 1 for more on this.
In fact, even a player two seats to your left, if aggressive, can make your life tough by 3-betting your CO opens and squeezing if the BTN calls. If you have one of those at your table, as with the case above, evaluate the totality of the situation and see if it's still +EV.
Opening Readless from the CO:
It's important to get a sense of how much the button is going to let us raise. For the first 3-4 orbits, open most playable hands and see how he reacts:
Once you get a sense for how loose/tight the button is when you are in the CO, you'll have to adjust your range to target the blinds. I'll discuss what type of ranges will be +EV for opening vs. different type of players in the blinds.
Range vs. Loose/Passives
If one or more players in the blinds is loose/passive and
the BTN is tight (VPIP < 15, 3-bet less than 3%), you'll want to open a range which is very TPGK heavy. Vs. these guys you will get paid by making a pair and having them out-kicked.
So it's possible and profitable to open a hand like Q7o in the CO if the BTN is a nit and folds a lot, but the blinds are calling with hands like T7, J7, 78, 57, 67, etc. This is also why we don't open hands like 57 vs. these guys ourselves - they are calling with hands like J7.
The thing to keep in mind is that pretty hands like 56s can win big pots, but in reality their power comes from potential fold equity. A lot of loose/passive players like to go to showdown, and a hand like Q7o is much more likely to be good at showdown than 56s. This is also why we want to isolate these players with a range similar to the one shown above when they limp instead of popping up hands like 68s (something I used to be guilty of doing).
On the other hand, if the
BTN is loose/passive himself, we'll need to remove a big part of our range since we are likely to be OOP. We'll need to be much stronger:
In
The Cutoff, Part 2, I'll address some modifications to this range when the blinds are nits.
Last edited by udbrky; 02-08-2010 at 12:07 PM.