Quote:
Originally Posted by damienthierry
Thanks for your answer.
About post #489.
What does "a lot of hands" means exactly please ? I find it hard to know what players limps. (Except for the ones on wish I have a descent number of hands.)
My PFR at BB is 7.9 but it's certainly way higher if you only count for hands when the SB open limp. Is there any way to know what is my % (when the BB open limp) with HEM ? In your opinion, what would be a descent % please ?
The thinking behind raising a lot of hands is basically that the limpers are announcing they have a crappy hand, not much better than a random hand, so if there is one limper and the SB completes, it is not unreasonable to think that any top 1/3 hand is the favorite. But, in reality, people are not limping
purely random hands, they are limping hands such as ragged aces, suited and offsuit, they are limping small pockets they don't have the stones to raise, and they are limping suited and off suit connectors, and they are limping suited hands with a high card--Q4s, K5s, etc. So you should be raising hands that match up well against these ranges--you should at least consider raising A8 and A9, you should raise AT+, you should be raising hands that will dominate their limping range, such as KT and KJ, and QT and QJ. I often, but not always, raise my middle suited connectors in this spot, 98s, T9s and the like, figuring that against most of a limper's range on most flops I don't need to make a hand to get 22-55 or Ax to fold to a c-bet.
A lot of this depends on the limper's range, though, so you have to pay attention to his stats. nitty players are, in general, easier to play against, in my opinion. So if a 10/4/1 limps in LP, I'll raise him and bet most flops, expecting him to fold if he doesn't make his set. But basically I think of myself as bluffing a 10/4 when I raise and then c-bet, say, AT unimproved, but I usually assume I am value betting it against a 42/9.
"A lot" is pretty much the best I can do as guidance for a %--mine is 30% but it is going to vary based on, among other things, your stakes and your table selecting criteria.
When the small blind open limps, a decent % to be raising would be somewhere between 40 and 100% Think of it this way: people open limp all sorts of trash in the small blind--J7o, 95s, etc. Their hand is almost completely random. So, given that everybody else folded (weighting their hands toward the trash hands of opening hands), any top 40% hand or so is going to be a favorite, and a raise is actually a value raise. But you also have a positional advantage, which justifies raising lighter; so if you add even only 15% steals to your 40% value raising range, you are raising 55% of the time.
I don't recommend jumping right from whatever your pfr% is now to 55% or more. Ease into it. Start raising lighter, see how it goes. If it is gong well, add more hands. If that goes well, keep adding lighter and lighter hands.
Your actual pfr against open limpers in the small blind is easy to find. Click on filters/edit. In the main filters page that appears, select your position as BB (this is actually unnecessary). Uncheck all the "preflop actions facing player" other than "one limper." Then, in the category below, "position of 1st limper," click the check box for the small blind. This will bring up a report of your stats in hands where the sb open limped. Your VPIP and PFR will be the same, obviously.