Raising with PP from early and middle position

[Jurrr]

Renton, you are spot on as usual.

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you are going to have a very polar range (that being either a flopped set or a bluff)

[/ QUOTE ]Regarding the polar range, I'm usually only cold-calling with pocket pairs and very rarely with suited connectors, so when cold-calling I will also always have a polar range. Is that very bad? If yes, can you elaborate on the risks?

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Actually, if you get all in with bottom set in a limped pot, chances are your hand is dominated.

[/ QUOTE ]PPs still call our preflop raise so that chance is the same in limped and raised pots, don't you think?

Also, what about people 3-betting us light if they know we raise small PPs preflop?

[Cpt.Spaulding]

Renton, you read my mind. That is how i choose to play as well. One difference i have is raising the off suit broadways utg, particularly ajo and kqo. i would much rather play j9s occasionaly for a raise utg because it will be much easier to play oop. Either way, very nice post.

[raistlinx]

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Well, lets start with your incessant use of pot equity to justify your claims.

Limping in small pairs in early position against decent players CAN work, its just that you need to balance.

I raise a range so wide in early position that the nitty stars regs can't profitably call me with pairs because I don't have an overpair enough on the flop to pay them off.


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Equity calculations show your ownership of the current pot at that point in time. I used them as an example of how marginal these hands are to open with. It was not meant to be an exact number.

I mentioned that in my post

Good players aren't going to call you with a marginal pocket pairs. They will wait until they have a good hand and raise you. This is why an aggressive strategy does not work well against good players. As I said, you can still win money this way against most players playing on the internet since they will play worse than you on later streets but that does not make it "correct".

[jack frost]

I didn't mean to imply that you would only get called by AQ it was just an example. But even if you expand his hands to include ALL broadway (suited or not) your equity remains the same

Yes you did. You specifically said that your only getting called by a-q+ from the blinds.
Your opinion might be that people can't play this way profitably but it's just that YOUR opinion and your wrong.

As Futuredoc said even when you miss you are still winning a fair number of pots c-betting and some of them are when your opponent has the better hand let me see you do that when you open limp with out sticking a bigger portion of your stack by re raising the flop or turn. I don't know about you but I like winning a small pot with the second best hand for only a few bb than winning a med pot and risking a much larger portion of my stack by re raising with the second best hand eh?

[Renton]

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Regarding the polar range, I'm usually only cold-calling with pocket pairs and very rarely with suited connectors, so when cold-calling I will also always have a polar range. Is that very bad? If yes, can you elaborate on the risks?

[/ QUOTE ] Well first you should call with suited connectors a little, particularly when there is a raise + call. Also, you probably oughta coldcall AQ/AK/QQ/KK/AA more than you do. Problem solved [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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PPs still call our preflop raise so that chance is the same in limped and raised pots, don't you think?

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Absolutely not. In the raised pot, because the effect of shallower stacks, more than sets are gonna wanna give us action.

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Also, what about people 3-betting us light if they know we raise small PPs preflop?

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This is the tough part. Basically you just have to tighten up when this happens, or you have to start 4betting or calling and stacking off light. Theres no easy solution for this, my favorite one is to find another table, lol.

[futuredoc85]

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This is why an aggressive strategy does not work well against good players.

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this is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing ive read in this forum that was posted seriously. On what are you basing this statement about what does and does not work against good players?

[Jurrr]

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Also, you probably oughta coldcall AQ/AK/QQ/KK/AA more than you do.

[/ QUOTE ]I don't really want to do that. I 3bet light a bit so I'd rather not be in a situation where I play big pots with weak hands and small pots where villains had set odds with my big hands. AQ/AK I also don't like to play without initiative, they miss flop 70% of time.

Am I completely off here?

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Absolutely not. In the raised pot, because the effect of shallower stacks, more than sets are gonna wanna give us action.

[/ QUOTE ]OK, you're right. I didn't think of it that way.

[raistlinx]

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I didn't mean to imply that you would only get called by AQ it was just an example. But even if you expand his hands to include ALL broadway (suited or not) your equity remains the same

Yes you did. You specifically said that your only getting called by a-q+ from the blinds.
Your opinion might be that people can't play this way profitably but it's just that YOUR opinion and your wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]
For that example. That did not imply in practice that is all they will call you with. They will call you with a wider range and your equity will remain approx the same.

You missed the point however. The real point is that your equity drops extremely fast once you get more callers and you quite often will.

I am glad you know I am wrong, debate is good on the forums. However it would be helpful to the other readers if you (or others) would show some of your math to support your claims. They would be better off for it.

[threads13]

Everyone always gets all worked up over this argument because there is no right answer. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

It depends.

[Renton]

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Also, you probably oughta coldcall AQ/AK/QQ/KK/AA more than you do.

[/ QUOTE ]I don't really want to do that. I 3bet light a bit so I'd rather not be in a situation where I play big pots with weak hands and small pots where villains had set odds with my big hands. AQ/AK I also don't like to play without initiative, they miss flop 70% of time.

Am I completely off here?


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Not completely. I'm actually not the biggest fan of light threebetting in passive full ring games. All it does is fold out value IMO. And fwiw, even though AK misses the flop most of the time, i think you win enough from the times you hit to play plus ev with it vs most players. Not that I play it that way. I like bluff raising flops with missed AK and gutshots and stuff, so the 70% missing problem isn't a big deal to me.