Raise ATC from CO or button?

[Joost1982]

In some posts on this forum I read that some people "do not understand position enough". They get the advice to raise more from the CO and the button with crap hands (ATC). I have a couple of questions about this advice.

(1) Why do you have to raise?

Let's say you raise 4BB with ATC... then you risk 4BB to win 1,5BB. When the blinds fold 75% of the time, then you pick up 3x1,5=4,5BB - 1x4BB = 0,5BB profit. On the limits I play (25NL and sometimes 50NL) people in the blinds tend to call more than 40-50% of the time when you raise. Isn't this going to cost you more than you win then?

(2) What do you do when they "play back at you"?

When they just call and check to you on the flop, you cbet (when you hit nothing) and they call/raise, then it is the end of the hand, right? And when they preflop reraise, you check the odds, but then it is almost also the end of the hand?

I'm just wondering if this ATC raising is really profitable. Maybe I'm not getting it, but I really want to understand the game better, that's why I'm asking this (stupid) question...

[neaera]

like everything in poker nothing is set in stone here. if you see that the 3 guys behind you are all calling stations you obviously shouldn't steal with atc. if you're sitting in front of nits you should. in between it's a judgement call.

also a lot of the money you make from stealing comes from cbetting. as you and your opp don't hit the flop most of the time, it's good to be the aggressor. also you DO hit huge hands sometimes with rag hands, which has massive implied odds.

another good thing of stealing OTB: you're IP for the rest of the hand which is, as you know, a huge advantage. so even if they call you with what you think is a bad hand, you are still in a good position to outplay them.

I personally cut down on the stealing vs. loose guys, especially from the CO. and if you get caught stealing: give up. most ppl don't resteal with [censored].

[EscapePlan9]

I've never read someone here advocating raising ATC from CO/BTN for all micro-limit situations. I think you're misunderstanding. You adjust your ranges depending on the players still to act.

[rjacobs003]

Its also really astonishing how many times people fold to the CB though. I make most of my money this way not so much from the blinds but rather the situations where the blinds call my raise and then fold to the CB. Sure you get the situation where you are check-raised but that's been the exception in most cases making an open-raise from LP really positive EV IMO

[EscapePlan9]

You make most of your money by picking up a bunch of small pots? That's pretty awful.

[Perk76]

Being active from the CO/Btn has a ton of advantages. Obviously you always have position from the players that call from the blinds. If they are constantly calling, they have to over come a disadvantage on all their hands being OOP. If they start playing back at you, you adjust. You have the advantage of taking free cards a large percent of the time if you totally miss or have an odd draw.

As a poster already said, players that are weak that call from the blinds alot will fold to CB's a very large percent of the time.

So in the example of ATC, you might feel like you are just slightly +EV, but in the big picture of things, it is giving you a looser image than you actually have, and people will not give you credit on hands when you actually have them in late position, and more importantly, they start calling looser in generally even when you raise UTG.

[blackize]

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You make most of your money by picking up a bunch of small pots? That's pretty awful.

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This is the way that semi-LAG or LAG poker is played. You pick up lots of small pots and hopefully people start looking you up light in the big pots. Picking up a ton of small pots is very very profitable.

Raising any two from the button is terrible and even more so from the cutoff. You can raise wide from those late positions, but you'll want to tailor how much you do it to your opponents rather than having a set range. If the blinds are super loose preflop and fold to lots of cbets you can raise all kinds of junk(still not 100% mind you, but something like 50% would work against these opponents). You can also raise it up with tons and tons of junk against blinds who are way too tight preflop.

If the blinds are some combination of the above or some other type of player then you obviously adjust your strategy. If the BB is a calling station then quit trying to steal, raise hands that rate to be ahead of his range and then value bet mercilessly.

[rjacobs003]

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You make most of your money by picking up a bunch of small pots? That's pretty awful.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually it's very profitable. Why do you think it's awful??

[EscapePlan9]

I've been under the impression ever since studying poker that you should focus on winning the big pots and not worrying about the small pots as much.

[Profish2285]

Not to quote super system too much but winning the small pots gives you the ability to gamble more in the big pots as well as giving you more of a cushion for those beats. Whats wrong with picking up 2-4 bucks a hand, do that a few times and its the same as winning a big pot without the same risk.

[TheSalche]

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You make most of your money by picking up a bunch of small pots? That's pretty standard for a LAG.

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FYP.

[blackize]

Big pots don't come along very often. You don't worry about the small pots, you let them go if you face resistance or whatever, but you should be actively trying to pick up small pots that others don't seem to want.

[EscapePlan9]

It's obviously fine when you're scooping up the pots. It's not like I'm saying "You're making money? That's bad." But in a vacuum raising pre-flop with a wide range in hopes of taking down another small pot with a cb seems like it'd be leaking money in the long-run.

[rjacobs003]

[ QUOTE ]
It's obviously fine when you're scooping up the pots. It's not like I'm saying "You're making money? That's bad." But in a vacuum raising pre-flop with a wide range in hopes of taking down another small pot with a cb seems like it'd be leaking money in the long-run.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not saying play every marginal hand like this. You need to mix it up just enough to keep people off balance. What I am saying is that raising from LP just opens up so more winning opportunities (btw part of this approach is playing a big hand exactly the same way as a marginal hand open-raise. You either take down the blinds (miniscule money), you take down more money when they fold to your continuation bet (something like 6-7 blinds on average maybe. Sometimes they play back on you via a check-raise but counterbalance that with the situation where you're marginal pre-flop hand turns into a decent hand on the flop. In thsi situation you end up taking down sizeable pots and you tend to get paid off as people think you're just pushing a blind steal too hard. The trick is to know when you need to slow down post-flop. So while I do talk about making money from small pots, what I'm probably trying to say is that its more of a means to an end.

[corsakh]

[ QUOTE ]
You make most of your money by picking up a bunch of small pots? That's pretty awful.

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If you gonna pick up an extra BB say every orbit or so, you likely to double or even triple your winrate.

[Sweir]

Occasionally situations arise when the blinds are both complete nits and very nitty post flop which can make open-raising ATC OTB profitable. However after a while even the nits are likely to adjust so you have to tighten up a bit. This is VERY rare though.

[EscapePlan9]

To me, a good LAG is someone who is excellent at hand-reading and can take away small, medium, and big pots when they find the right situations - even amidst some resistance.

[spivey]

It isn't leaking money, as long as you don't do it with too wide a range.

I think this might be (at least partially) in response to a post I made where someone was talking about their stats and had an attempt to steal blinds below 20.

I don't think anyone is meaning to suggest it should be 75 or something. Then they'll just start calling you down, and will have better hands on average.

[Joost1982]

Thanks for all the responses! I'm still learning more and more from these discussions /images/graemlins/smile.gif .

[pmiranda.pt]

Hi Joost,

Hi know exactly what you mean, as I play in the same limits (NL25).

In my opinion there are two issues in your situation, is there any limper before you or not.
As you know there most surely are, and in that case, even at those limits the 4BB raise followed by a cbet will be +EV for you.
Here is a fantastic explanation of why is that:
http://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/issue29/Streib0507.html

In those situation here there is no limper....and it is you against the blinds...if you raise 4BB you must win about 73% of the time to be profitable [4BB(1-X)-1.5BB(X)>0 => X > 0.72(72)]....but that would be for a pure blind steel and your EV will be even bigger if the blinds where do make cold call with marginal hands. You could lower for 3BB the raise, in that particular situation where you are up against the blinds....and you would only need to win more than 66% of the time for profit... I would choose that up on the kind of blinds that I'm up agains...........if they are tight I would raise 4BB .... but choose wisely my cbets, if they are loose or calling station I would 3BB and cbet more, as someone said it all depends of the players you are up against.
Thats why so many players write that stealing the blinds is not profitable at this levels...it is true.... you should think of that raise as a semi-bluff and not a blind steal and choose your hands according to that.
I'm usually a little tighter if I'm only up against loose blinds that if I have callers behind me as they limp better my odds and I'll make more money from cbetting.

Sure would like to ear about feedback of this way to play from pooh bahs's


Cheers

[Fiksdal]

This is a post by me from another thread about the same subject. Think it covers a lot of it.



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My thoughts on the advantages of playing semi-loose aggressive with a positional awareness:

1. More postflop spots against fishies when you have position. This = sexy time, for obvious reasons. We, as thinking players, have an edge against our opponents post-flop. Every time we play a pot with room for manouvering postflop against these fish, especially when we have position, we have just put ourselves in a profitable situation. Also, playing a lot of hands gets you in a lot of tough spots. Getting experience with tough spots is really crucial.

2. Active image. I promise, this gets you tons of action. The fish get angry. They want to see a cheap flop all the time, and especially if you start using your BTN to raise over their limps, they get really frustrated. So this gives you the ability to felt like TPGK frequently and still be nicely ahead of the ranges that the angry fish are going to the felt against you with. "OMG THIS SUCKER RAISES ALL THE [censored] TIME AND ALWAYS BETS THE FLOP, I KNOW HE HAS NOTHING, I HAVE A PAIR AND I'M ALL-IN. Fish love convinving themselves that the big turn PSB, and the river shove, are also bluffs. I play a really active game, and you have no idea how often this has happened to me. Angry fish who I have been raising over the limps of and cbetting out, eventually stacking off with second pair when I decide to put 100bb in with tptk or whatever qualifies to valuetown him with.

3. (connects with 2) Fish usually know very little about position and why it is important. If you've been raising a lot from the BTN and CO, they usually don't understand that you will be more careful UTG. So when you raise from UTG with AA and an active image, an angry fish sitting in the BB with KTs will typically call because "this guy could have ANYTHING!! I just saw him raising with SEVEN JACK! NOT EVEN SUITED!!" Of course he deoesn't realize that that was from the button, and this time you are under the gun. Anyway, then he will usually proceed to stack off on K/T-high flops. Imagine, I'm pretty sure some of the fish have notes on me saying "raised with 74s and bluffed on the flop." Then they are in a spot against me where I shove with the best hand on the river for a big PSB, and they see that player note and decide to call, cuz "they know I'm crazy." Most of you have seen these fish on the tables, and know how studpid they are. Imagine what you can convince them to think if you try. You will see a whole new level of stupidity.

4. Straight forward fold equity. You steal blinds. A lot of people don't see the value in this, but if you do this enough and successfully, it actually helps your winrate a lot. Also cbetting is +EV just in itself usually.

5. People won't be able to setmine or play for implied odds againt you profitably. Here is an example hand.

Hero in MP (100bb)
Villain in BB (100bb)

Villain has 22.

UTG folds, Hero raises to 4bb, 3 folds, Villain...

Imagine hero is 13/9/4. His range from the MP here is actually pretty strong. Villain can very profitably call with his pair, because hero is likely to be strong and pay him off when he flops a set. Not every time of course, but fairly often given his strong range.

On the other hand, imagine if hero is 27/24/3. This is a totally different situation! Clearly the EV of villain calling is now drastically lower! Hero could have all kinds of stuff here. All the pairs, suited connectors, lots of broadway combinations, suited aces maybe, stuff like that. If villain flops a set, most of the time all he will make is the contiuniation bet! Of course some of the time hero will have AA and stack off when villain flops a set, but the strong pairs are such a tiny part of heros range. I'm guessing calling with the intention of playing back at hero on the flop has a higher EV than calling for set value. In fact I'm not sure if calling for set value is +EV at all, cuz most of the time villain misses and donates 4bb to hero. The times he hit a set, he is unlikely to win a big pot.

Think about these things. Before your next session, set PA hud to display how the players respond to cbets (fold%, call%, raise%). Then play a maximum of 4 tables (8 tabling sucks, DUCY) and try opening up your game. I think this is what a lot of you losing uNL players are missing.

[holdme]

*grunch*
youre really negative

[hanover]

[ QUOTE ]
*grunch*
youre really negative

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think so. The OP isn't willing to just blindly follow the accepted strategy and instead is asking well thought-out and reasonable questions looking for an explanation. Now he has some answers.

Good for the OP.

[Fiksdal]

OP got the accepted strategy wrong though. You shouldn't raise ATC from the button: Every situation is unique. If the blinds are loose calling stations, obv tighten up your range. If you have a crazy table image at the moment, slow down for a couple of orbits. The situation I'll raise ATC from the BTN is usually when blinds have low VPIPs or high folded blind to steal numbers, or when they fold a lot to cbets.

[TheSalche]

I consider myself sLAG, and I can certainly go towards TAG or LAGtard at times, but I've rarely found myself raising ATC on the button or CO, only when I had two nits (VP$IP < 10) in the blinds.

Open your range up to suited kings, any connectors, suited one gappers, etc.