A Discussion of PF LAG play using Andy Bloch's pf raising theory

[mwalsh2020]

I promise this is different than the million posts saying "zomg whats the best stats to win monies?!?!?"

I've been thinking a lot about optimal pf play, especially after reading andy bloch's chapter in the full tilt tournament guide.

If you use his guidelines for the last four spots in a non-ante tournament you get a 30vpip with a pfr that i would estimate to be somewhere between 20-25 depending on your preferences between coldcalling and reraising.

Interestingly, this 30/20-25 style is employed by some successful LAGs but is definitely not the 2p2 "ideal" 22/18 unexploitable TAG pf strategy.

Specifically, his guidelines say to play:

UTG: 19%
MP: 24%
CO: 31%
B: 45%

My first thought was: wow that's a TON of hands, there's no way this can be right. Then I realized that maybe 45 percent of your hands on the button (being the first one in obviously) is right because with only two other players left you will have the best hand 33 percent of the time. Your VPIP should be at least 33 when you are facing two random hands. The fact that you have positional advantage throughout the hand makes it even more clear that 45 percent probably isn't a crazy number for opening from the button.

One area where I do disagree with Andy is in his selection of hand rankings because he tends to overvalue "showdown" type hands over hands that play well post flop in NLH such as small pocket pairs and low suited connectors. Obviously such hands aren't monsters but in a lot of cases they are better than K9o and other such garbage hands.

Anyhow on to the fun part. I used Pokerstove to translate the percentages into actual ranges of hands.
I would like some feedback on these ranges

UTG (19%): 22+, JTs+, ATo+, KJo+, 76s+, 97s+, A2s+

these hands certainly aren't the most robust in terms of their showdown percentages but they play well post flop and have deceptive value. That was my main reasoning for including a hand like 79s over KTo/QJo. To be honest, I'm kind of skeptical about ATo and KJo being included in the UTG range and could easily be persuaded to replace them with 86s, 75s, and 54s

MP (24%): add JTo+, 64s+, 54s+

Again, I am unsure of the addition of QTo specifically here... this hand is just so BAD... I'm really tempted to replace it with Q9s and J8s and like half a combination of T7s or maybe K9s. What are thoughts on this? Also should I be giving more credit to hands like A9o and lower at this point? I've always had a hatred of ace-rag and wasn't planning on including anything lower than AT until the CO

CO (31%): add A8o+, K8s+, 96s+, 53s+, 98o+, J9o, 43s+

Again I think i'm probably giving too much credit to suited cards and not enough to rag aces and unsuited medium cards/connectors like 87o, Q9o and K9o. Any input here is really appreciated. 43s probably doesn't deserve to make the cut here.

Button (45%): add A2o+, K7o+, K2s+, 63s+, 87o+

Well, there it is, and its certainly not perfect. Given the end goal of a 30/20-25 LAG who absolutely crushes the 100nl+ on stars (wouldn't it be nice), I'm sure there is a lot of work in dealing with how we will counterattack the constant 3betting that such a strategy will face. It will certainly be higher variance than a 20/16 tag game but I think from a mathematical perspective this may be a very strong pf strategy.

I look forward to hearing what you guys think. Specifically, if you think a certain hand should be included in lieu of another or if you simply disagree with Andy Bloch's percentages all together. Thanks in advance for reading such a long post and thanks in advance for your input.