Avatars91

Preflop openraise sizing vs fish on the BU

1) When we are on the BU and one of the players in the blinds is a fish (let's assume that the other guy is a nit), can we not always choose to raise it to 3BBs with our whole range, even if it's wide?

Generally it is said that the weaker our range is, the smaller our raise size should be. I am not sure it applies to situations vs fish where we have a very big edge. I mean, wouldn't we want to play in as big pots as it is possible IP vs fish? Even with hands such as J8o, T7s with which I've been frequently recommended to use a 2BB openraise size? If a raise is +EV with a hand and villain's range is likely inelastic vs such a small change (small in his eyes), why not increase the size of the pot?

Hey Avatars91,

First of all you have a really healthy attitude. Wondering why are things they are is always a positive thing. I also hated when some used things without really understanding it. I will never forget a sentence that I read on this forum:
''Why do you take such line''
'' Because Veriz told me so!''
Well, lets get to the point. The question is really kinda interesting but I think it this way. First of all what do you mean with wide range from BTN? 70%?
Well, I would assume that my range is actually weaker then his calling range. So our main goal with 2x is to steal from the blinds and we want to make our goal as profitable as possible. Dont forget that besides the fish there is also another player involved.
When you make it 2x what is there reason for your bet?What are the reason for a bet? Value?Bluff? or capitalazing the dead money? Depending on your goal you decide the amount.
Of course you can make it 3x becuase of the fish with any 2 but you dont have to forget that our range is weaker then his and that we have to have a huge skill advantage over him since we are gonna face more marginal but more expensive decisions then if you make it 2x. Also with 3x I kinda have the feeling I overestimated the relative hand strength of my hand. When you open T2s it is not like it is worth 3x. Rather 2x because of our main goal.

That is at least how I see the whole thing. Hoepfully good enough arguments. Good luck at the tables

so this is the avatars random theory discussion thread? ♦ should this work out i'll also post my opinion to see how it fares

i guess that you're saying "other player is a nit" just so that we can ignore him theoretically.
imo there are different types of fish which we should exploit differently.

first we must ask what is it that makes him a fish? usually it's awful starting hand selection and lack of any reasonable hand reading skills, but then what is he doing postflop?
is he folding too much or too little?

where is our edge coming from? that he doesn't really understand what we are doing, that we can range read and as such we are able to get large amounts of money in good.

when we are opening very wide we are very often going to completely miss the flop or hit very weak hands.
that said, it often happens when playing against fish that we have much more control of the SPR, their ranges are somewhat inelastic.

so imo against a standard loose-passive fish that goes a lot to showdown the goal is to see as many cheap flops as possible and take it from there.
we are in position and in control of the pot size, we can valuebet thinly, we can take free cards and when we hit big we can just do something like bet 75%-overbet every street.

against fish that is calling too many hands preflop and folding way too much postflop then we should make it bigger preflop to grab more dead monies.

[edit: improved post quality]

Your advice has been most helpful and I find it hard to disagree at any point, however, there is this one thing that makes me confused:

so imo against a standard loose-passive fish that goes a lot to showdown the goal is to see as many cheap flops as possible and take it from there.

Why do we want to see many cheap flops instead of seeing more expensive one's IP with a wide range vs a loose-passive fish that goes a lot to showdown?

I understand that our range will not hit very often and we'll be in marginal spots aso., but if our preflop raise with a hand is +EV and the opposition's range is rather inelastic, what difference exactly does a smaller raise make?
If the EV behind our openraise of T6s lies in us being able to vBet our 2nd and top pairs, us getting paid off big when we hit big, us sometimes still making the fish fold on the flop, and us being just simply extremely better handreaders, what advantages does a smaller raise size have?

Bigger raise size = bigger pot = bigger vBets with postflop valuehands + bigger pots won.

So, if a bigger raise size is bad vs an inelastic range, why not just fold preflop instead? That's the biggest question I have regarding this matter.

My own "refutation" to some of the abovementioned points:

Well, there are some problems with what I say and these are:

1) We don't hit all that well often enough to take advantage of a loose-passive showdown bound fish's tendency to call. Because we don't hit, we also often find ourselves giving up on the flop.
2) To say that fish's preflop defend range is inelastic might be a serious overstatement

Some sort of a conclusion

Not 100% sure if I am not missing something, but here it goes:

The reason why we want to raise it smaller with a weaker range vs loose-passive-showdown-bound guys preflop is that a smaller raise size not only may weaken our opponent's range (since he may call with a weaker range because of the better odds he gets because our smaller raise size) and thus increase our fold equity and regular equity postflop, but it also saves us money for all the times we don't hit.

Since we hit much less often than we don't, a smaller sizing is better also because mathematically we have to win the preflop pot less often (thus decreasing the importance of fold equity postflop). At the same time it still enables us to stick to our wide vBetting strategy if we do hit. And that is where all the value lies.

And while we do want to be in a bigger pot when we have hit, even if it just a 2nd pair, it just does not happen often enough with a weak range. Thus it makes sense to lower the openraise size to accommodate to all the times we miss, which outweigh the times we hit. It is even logical that even such a seemingly small decrease in openraise size makes a difference since the positivness of the EV of the weakest part of our range is marginal anyway.

Lol, I think I answered my own question. I would certainly love to hear feedback on my thought process + conclusions. I hope they make sense.

yeah, i fully agree with your conclusion.

when we are playing a standard tight-aggressive game, besides all the skill advantages, we also have a card advantage (our range is just much stronger). but when we open very wide, ie any suited cards and random connectors, our card advantage goes out of the window.
many times we will be completely hopeless on the flop, or our 2nd pair will be in such a bad shape, that the most +EV play will be to just check/fold.

so why do we open wide at all? the main reason is that because the few times we do hit good hands we should be able to extract good value.
since it's a fish we are in charge of the pot size, just go ahead and bet big which should quickly make up for the -1bb preflop.

at least that's my take on it.

Originally posted by Tomaloc

many times we will be completely hopeless on the flop, or our 2nd pair will be in such a bad shape, that the most +EV play will be to just check/fold.

Could you explain me why this? I Cbet for value my A high hands on T26(FD) so I dont get this.

that is fine but most of our hands won't be A high and we won't be able to bet nor for value nor for fold equity.

often sitting with 9 high or Q2s on AQJ or something

or our 2nd pair will be in such a bad shape, that the most +EV play will be to just check/fold.

I don't quite understand this part. 2nd pairs are always good hands to vBet at least once vs a calling station on the flop both IP and OOP (OOP we even 2nd barrel quite often). Can't imagine myself check folding a hand like that. Have I overlooked the conditions of this situation?

I Cbet for value my A high hands on T26(FD) so I dont get this.

The opposition has to be really bad or you have to have a good kicker in order for your cBet to be classified as a valuebet on the flop (unless you are OOP and he is floating wide on the flop and folding to a 2nd barrel often), and even then it is extremely thin as we are behind every FD and the only hands that we get value from are worse Ax hands and gutshots, provided that we don't get bluffed out of the hand.

so why do we open wide at all? the main reason is that because the few times we do hit good hands we should be able to extract good value.

This actually introduces another topic about which I can't exactly get my head around – choosing a good steal range from the BU with a calling station in the blinds.

With fit/fold type of fish our range is not really an issue – we just want to openraise anything that has any sort of playability. I suppose we could even open any two suited, as long as we have a fit/fold guy and a nit in the blinds.

However, calling stations is a whole different story and there are quite a few complications regarding playing wide ranges vs them.

Do we want to be openraising any two suited cards that have a broadway such as T2s? Do we want to be opening small SCs that often hit very weak pairs such as 45s? What about offsuit Aces? Medium offsuit connectors such as 87o or 98o?

And what do we do postflop when we miss but still have some sort of equity with at least one overcard or a backdoor draw that might justify a cBet?

Do we not get in a lot of marginal "to cBet or not to cBet" situations?

And we don't always get paid off on those rare occasions when we do hit. If we have given up very often before and suddenly start overbetting streets even fish might start noticing that something is odd.

Originally posted by Avatars91

or our 2nd pair will be in such a bad shape, that the most +EV play will be to just check/fold.

I don't quite understand this part. 2nd pairs are always good hands to vBet at least once vs a calling station on the flop both IP and OOP (OOP we even 2nd barrel quite often). Can't imagine myself check folding a hand like that. Have I overlooked the conditions of this situation?

yeah, most of the time we will be betting but ie Q2s on AQJ i don't think that we have 50% vs his calling range. we may want to just bluff induce and call once depending on whether we think he can take stabs...
my point was just that we should always consider board texture.

Originally posted by Avatars91
This actually introduces another topic about which I can't exactly get my head around – choosing a good steal range from the BU with a calling station in the blinds.

nowadays i think a good range is any two cards that can hit something. i really want to play the most amount of hands possible against these guys.

you might be underestimating how light they can call, examples:

most of these hands are pretty old, i picked them randomly from nl25 winners. i didn't open very wide then.
also nowadays i would definitely skip some cbets and change some sizings.

these are also a reminder to me that i should overbet more often against fish. when i moved up i just very rarely overbet against fish for some reason :facepalm: and so many times i felt like i missed tons of value.

the point is - they WILL call if they find any reason to. they just don't like to fold, even if they know they should.
any twopair in a lot of boards can be enough to play for stacks, specially if you "feel" that they have a "good" one pair hand.

now, in all fairness, i am not really sure what's the bottom of "any two cards that can hit something".
we could say, ie, any suited/64o+ (which is what i'm going by)... but the problem with a 62s is that we may face domination by their suited cards, and low offsuit cards are... low... so well...
i don't have a lot of experience and sample to know whether i (or anyone) can open these profitably.

i think J2s+, 97o+ are definite must opens though.

Originally posted by Avatars91

I Cbet for value my A high hands on T26(FD) so I dont get this.

The opposition has to be really bad or you have to have a good kicker in order for your cBet to be classified as a valuebet on the flop (unless you are OOP and he is floating wide on the flop and folding to a 2nd barrel often), and even then it is extremely thin as we are behind every FD and the only hands that we get value from are worse Ax hands and gutshots, provided that we don't get bluffed out of the hand.

I thought we are talikng about bad stations

Tomaloc guess yor kinda really like T9 at least since cooperating with Veriz I guess
Btw. nice hands ♦

thanks ♦

yah i really like T9, but my favourite is QJs even though T9 has earned me more ♦
also i don't like KQs for some reason.

here is an example of recent missed value:

i would play this so much better in the nl25 days, ie bet turn bigger and as played overbet shove the river.
bet pot good? NOOO! if he calls pot he calls an overbet shove there.

i don't know why i stopped overbet shoving "often". i really miss it

yeah, most of the time we will be betting but ie Q2s on AQJ i don't think that we have 50% vs his calling range. we may want to just bluff induce and call once depending on whether we think he can take stabs...

Do we need 50% vs his calling range in order to bet? If we cBet 2/3 of the pot we need to win the hand 40% of all times. Against his potential calling range we get ~27% equity and the rest should be obtained from fold equity:

Board: A♣Q♦J♥
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    27.58%  25.72%   1.85% { Qs2s }
MP3    72.42%  70.57%   1.85% { QQ-JJ, A2s+, K9s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 98s, A2o+, KTo+, QTo+, JTo, T9o }

I am not 100% sure but I don't see betting the flop as a mistake since there are still quite a few hands that we can get value from + sometimes we hit trips or a 2 and then the bigger pot is somewhat of an advantage because our vBets are going to be bigger.

I suppose though that OOP vs very passive guys it makes sense to still check on blank turns after betting the flop as they will just happily check behind any hand that we beat anyway, and depending on his looseness postflop they might even fold their weaker hands vs a turn bet + after we have folded out his air range on the flop our bet on the turn is no longer as +EV overall (less fold equity).
But I don't mind checking it already on the flop either. It's not that there is a ton of value anyway. Vs aggressive guys definitely check/calling once.
Overall I would imagine that check/calling is more +EV than betting. But then again, I don't think it is a great idea to get into such spots with a weak hand OOP vs calling stations in the first place. Most of my Qx hands there would have at least a gutshot to go with it.

IP though I think it totally makes sense to bet once vs loose passive guys to get value from Jx + gutshots + fold out hands that still have some equity. We are checking behind the turn+river for pot control and are easily check/folding vs any notable bets. Vs aggressive guys I suppose we should just indeed check the flop for bluff inducing.

I would die to hear what Veriz has to say about this spot though. I just wish he appeared

I thought you re whole question was more refered to the fact playing the BTN against a loose passive opponent. Because this way I might thing rather that it comes to mighty poker answer ''it depends''.
For the given example and assuming it is BTNvsBB(or SB) and that our opponent is loose passive I would bet the flop for value(1/2~2/5) targeting the bottom part of his range. The same I would do for most blank turns(1/3~1/4) to secure myself a free showdown since I wouldnt expect such an opponent to donk a river after my 2 bets.On the other hand I have to secure that he isnt capable of raising my weak bets.

And I guess Veriz is gonna join as soon enough.

1) When we are on the BU and one of the players in the blinds is a fish (let's assume that the other guy is a nit), can we not always choose to raise it to 3BBs with our whole range, even if it's wide?

No point to raise your whole range 3bb, especially if you are raising very loose you want to save some money in long run. Raising for value 3bb is pretty standard. As long the fish doesn't adjust with weaker holdings we rather want to raise to 2bb/2,5bb. It also allows us to create a plan postflop and make it even cheaper to CB. Whilst being IP we will also have bigger affect into the game while having more fold equity + can always decide what to do on further streets.

Generally it is said that the weaker our range is, the smaller our raise size should be. I am not sure it applies to situations vs fish where we have a very big edge. I mean, wouldn't we want to play in as big pots as it is possible IP vs fish? Even with hands such as J8o, T7s with which I've been frequently recommended to use a 2BB openraise size? If a raise is +EV with a hand and villain's range is likely inelastic vs such a small change (small in his eyes), why not increase the size of the pot?

Once you hit big you can still get value from the fish, no need to use 3bb raise. Especially if the fish doesn't even have a full stack. If you don't want to use 2bb then use 2,5bb.

Do we want to be openraising any two suited cards that have a broadway such as T2s? Do we want to be opening small SCs that often hit very weak pairs such as 45s? What about offsuit Aces? Medium offsuit connectors such as 87o or 98o?

Yeah, any suited hands can be raised vs a fish and a bad player. Vs smaller stacks we might adjust to the range which also has decent equity cause it will be difficult to overplay him postflop.

And what do we do postflop when we miss but still have some sort of equity with at least one overcard or a backdoor draw that might justify a cBet?

CB of course, especially if we have equity in our hand + being IP which will affect also towards bigger fold equity.

Do we not get in a lot of marginal "to cBet or not to cBet" situations?

Depends again on the fish, sometimes we might even skip the CB though with equity in the hand or some draws ourselves I simply don't see why you would be Checking and giving up.

Raising for value 3bb is pretty standard.

I find it difficult to decide whether or not to keep my openraise size balanced on the BU with a loose fish + a reg in the blinds. On the one hand I want to raise my AA to 3BBs and my J2s to 2BBs in that spot because I likely don't have to worry about balancing vs the fish. On the other hand – it's quite readable and the reg might pick a read – though I'm not sure how capable the average NL25 reg is at noticing this exploitable tendency.

For that reason, what I do is – if I don't have any history with the reg and it is the start of the session where I have not opened from the BU before, I just open my value hands to 3BBs and I stick to this raise size with all of my other value holdings until I get a weak yet playable hand – then I immediately switch to a 2BB openraise size and stick to it to the whole session unless the reg leaves – then I adapt my strategy according to the next player that is going to take his position in the blinds vs me in the BU.

The advantage of this strategy is that I think that the regs on that limit on average do not really know that much about openraise size theory from what I have seen thus far and they thus are likely to have relatively inelastic ranges vs a 3BB openraise size (though a case may be made that some would be more willing to identify a 2BB raise as a more weaker range but the difference shouldn't be that big) – thus I can just raise it to 3BBs and get more money into the pot vs the fish.

Of course, if my first hand of the session is a weaker one – I just minraise it and then keep my BU value range size consistent with my wide stealing range size – just 2 BBs.

I think this approach makes sense. But I would very much appreciate if you were able to criticize it as harshly as humanly possible

I do think, however, that on higher limits (NL100+?) it would make sense to modify the strategy so that I raise even with my valuerange to 2.5BBs because on average I suppose that the opposition might be too good for a very wide overall BU range to be the most profitable choice, thus balancing my valuerange with my semi-wide steal range according its overall strength ought to make sense.

Once you hit big you can still get value from the fish, no need to use 3bb raise. Especially if the fish doesn't even have a full stack. If you don't want to use 2bb then use 2,5bb.

May we raise it to 3BB's with our whole wide range vs a fish if he is folding a lot postflop, i.e., is playing pretty much fit/fold? He then keeps folding in bigger pots and we don't have to worry about saving any money because the weakness of our range is not that big an issue vs a frequent folder.

Yeah, any suited hands can be raised vs a fish and a bad player. Vs smaller stacks we might adjust to the range which also has decent equity cause it will be difficult to overplay him postflop.

Even hands such as 95s, 72s, and, God forbid, 23s vs full-stacked calling stations?

Of course, with the EV of these hands lying in our huge implied odds when we hit big, since we can overbet on a lot of streets with our monsters and expect to still get paid off pretty well and often? + there would be nothing wrong in giving up on such flops as KsTs2h, 3hTd9d or even 2c7s9d with 8h3h vs such guys since the EV in the openraise comes mainly from our vBets and we don't necessarily have to overexaggerate the profitability of cBetting somewhat coordinated and wet flops with rather weak backdoors?

Am I rationalizing correctly?

I think this approach makes sense. But I would very much appreciate if you were able to criticize it as harshly as humanly possible

There is not much to comment cause it's pretty logical stuff.

I do think, however, that on higher limits (NL100+?) it would make sense to modify the strategy so that I raise even with my valuerange to 2.5BBs because on average I suppose that the opposition might be too good for a very wide overall BU range to be the most profitable choice, thus balancing my valuerange with my semi-wide steal range according its overall strength ought to make sense.

Well, I do raise my value-range even with just 2bb. Depends really on the limits, depends on your opening range, depends on your postflop skill, depends against whom you playing. There are too many factors to pay attention on.