Ok, here are the Raise First In frequencies were are trying to achieve:
UTG: 15%
MP: 20%
CO: 25%
BTN: 40%
(not touching blinds this time)
Now when we know the frequencies, the harder part is to find what is in those ranges. It's quite common that the percentage is right but the content is not. ProPokerTools has hand ranking from 1 to 100, which is decent starting point. The system slightly overvalues higher pairs and cards and undervalues smaller cards and playability. It's more based on preflop equity than postflop playability. To get closer to correct ranges we can use PokerJuice ranges.
Creators of PokerJuice looked a LOT of hands from regs and constructed average ranges for different frequencies. Those are better than ProPokerTools ranking. Now when solvers are more common, we will see revolution of preflop ranges durig 2018, but it's quite good starting point to use PokerJuice ranges.
To practice those you need ProPokerTools desktop software called Odds Oracle. Full version costs money but you can download trial from HERE. After this you need to import PokerJuice ranges to Odds Oracle. You need csv-file for that, and I have made that for you. Download it HERE.
After that, open Odds Oracle and go to File -> Preferences. Find "Custom Range Macros" and select that csv-file to that.
Now you have PokerJuice ranges in Odds Oracle. To use the macros, for Raise First In you should use $FI. Like $FI20 means "Raise First In 20%". You can see the ranges IN HERE.
Next you have to create Questions. Remember to change game format to Omaha High. Press "+" button:
Then select "How often", "PLAYER 1" and "Match hand range of". Repeat this four times. Odds Oracle might put AK to the last box, don't mind that. After that, it should look like this:
Those four lines are four positions, UTG, MP, CO and BTN. Now we add corresponding ranges to the boxes. $FI15, $FI20, $FI30 and $FI50.
If the macro is red, there is something wrong and it doesn't work. Either you have typo or the Custom Range Macros is not set up correctly.
After you have done all that, you can write an Omaha hand to Player 1 box and pressing "Start" Odds Oracle will tell you how often that hand is an open from those positions. If you put an exact hand, the result is either 0% or 100%. Either it is an open or it isn't. In PokerJuice ranges, all the later position ranges include all the earlier position ranges too. So there isn't a hand that is an open from UTG but would be a fold from MP. Therefore we can always ask ourself with a hand "what is the earliest position I would open this hand?". And by pressing "Start" we can see if we were right.
You can either make up hands from your head, or you can use random.org. From there select "Games" from the top and then "Playing Card Shuffler". Select 4 cards from single deck:
From bottom press "Draw Cards" and it will give you an Omaha hand!
Now you can think which is the earliest position you would open the hand. Put it to Odds Oracle and check the results:
As all positions show 0%, this hand is not an open from any of those. You can press "Again!" to get a new hand.
This way learning the opening ranges is easy and fun. To make it better, you can always think also "how to improve this hand so it would be open from earlier position?" Or you can think how to make it worse so it wouldn't be an open. To help you even more you can check what ProPokerTools ranking gives for the hand.
Lets use that 7c9c2dQd as an example:
From Odds Oracle you select "Tools" and then "Range Explorer". For 6max PLO you see six handed line:
You can see that in PPT ranking the hand is at 55, so barely outside top50%. Probably we don't have to improve the hand a lot to make it BTN open. With trying and checking Odds Oracle questions we can see that when we change the 2d to 4d the hand becomes a BTN open:
The more you play with this, the more you gain understanding of the ranges and what improves a hand or makes it worse.
Have fun!
