what you think about this chart?

[spigge]

flop 3.51
turn 2.57
river 2.15

[spigge]

guess I am too afraid to defend blinds. What you do when you defend and flop misses you? against aggressive opponent?

[spigge]

this chart is from 1/2

I guess I'll bail out too much but somehow it's hard for me to decide when to enter pot when I know there are decent players acting after me

I might be too afraid about monsters under the bed

[k000k]

[ QUOTE ]
guess I am too afraid to defend blinds. What you do when you defend and flop misses you? against aggressive opponent?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, the SB is easy to let go, I don't defend that with much.. QT, QJ is about as low as I'll go. The BB is still there and could 3bet or fold, you dont know what odds you're getting, etc.

The BB, I'll defend that with any better than average hand.. Certainly any ace, most kings.. I'll 3bet almost any PP, I read most button/CO 1st in raises as steal attempts, not legit good hands. I dont have a definate cutoff, but Id sometimes defend with Q8, J9, T9, T8, 98,etc.. Being suited helps. Usually if I have 2 cards 8+ I'll defend the BB.

Defend with a little more than the hands I'd attempt to steal with. If you're the stealER, then you dont know if youre gonna get 1 caller or 2, or even raised.. Defending the BB, you're closing the action and you know if it'll be HU or 3-way.

Against LAGs, I'll see a flop more often, if I hit, I'll stick it to him hard.. Pairs are very strong HU. If I don't I might call one SB on the flop getting 5:1, if the board's not full of broadway cards..

If the SB calls, then I'll stick around with more suited cards. Blind stealing/defense is very read dependent and very tricky. You're basically playing HU at that point, which is a totally different game. WHO you're playing is more important than WHAT you're playing.

[spigge]

And to add those steal too much on the button and beeing first in 4% of time statements in your text go hand in hand.

when hand is checked to me I try to steal most of the time with any pair or any two high cards. Quite few hands is checked thru to BB which I think if it was ok to stay out of pot.

[Andy Ross]

I don't agree at all that the VPIP numbers should be constant over the different positions. There should be a definite slope upwards as our position improves.

Playing 16.2% of hands from UTG is very loose, and playing 17.5% of hands from the button is unbelievably tight. Playing too tight in early position is far less damaging than playing too tight in late position. You're basically saying that only an additional 1% of hands becomes playable by the time we hit the button. It is far, far more than this: position is one of our strongest weapons, and having the button means that we can play a large variety of hands.

I play 29% of hands from the button, but only 8% from UTG.

In loose passive games, limping UTG with any PP and ATo etc. is fine, but if most pots are being raised and contested, then it's not going to show a profit. It's not always easy to find such a good table at 1/2 (his level) and above.

Also, he definitely isn't stealing too much. His PFR from the button is only 9%, so he's only raising something like AJo and better.

[spigge]

What kind of hands you play on button if you play 29% of hands?
high end off suite connectors, high end suited one cap?
how much you try to steal from button?

[bottomset]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, the SB is easy to let go, I don't defend that with much.. QT, QJ is about as low as I'll go. The BB is still there and could 3bet or fold, you dont know what odds you're getting, etc.

The BB, I'll defend that with any better than average hand.. Certainly any ace, most kings.. I'll 3bet almost any PP, I read most button/CO 1st in raises as steal attempts, not legit good hands. I dont have a definate cutoff, but Id sometimes defend with Q8, J9, T9, T8, 98,etc.. Being suited helps. Usually if I have 2 cards 8+ I'll defend the BB.

Defend with a little more than the hands I'd attempt to steal with. If you're the stealER, then you dont know if youre gonna get 1 caller or 2, or even raised.. Defending the BB, you're closing the action and you know if it'll be HU or 3-way.

Against LAGs, I'll see a flop more often, if I hit, I'll stick it to him hard.. Pairs are very strong HU. If I don't I might call one SB on the flop getting 5:1, if the board's not full of broadway cards..

If the SB calls, then I'll stick around with more suited cards. Blind stealing/defense is very read dependent and very tricky. You're basically playing HU at that point, which is a totally different game. WHO you're playing is more important than WHAT you're playing.



[/ QUOTE ]

you should be 3betting almost all the time that you defend out of the SB, in order to drive out the BB

you should also be playing more than 17.5% of your hands on the button, I play a ton of 6max so I don't have a good range for this, since I'm in steal situations more often, but I'd estimate something like 21-23% is the area you want to be in.

OP: your ASB should be in the 30's, prob in the 35-40% range, its one of the most profitable positions in all of HE, you make a rediculous amount of money stealing blinds, those .75BB add up fast, as do the 1.25BB ones when the BB folds to the flop bet.

[k000k]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't agree at all that the VPIP numbers should be constant over the different positions. There should be a definite slope upwards as our position improves.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I agree there should be some slope to the line. 28%-9% sounds steep but it might work for 1/2, but it should probably be somewhat flatter for .5/1. Games are fishier, so in EP, I can raise AJo/KQo/KJs etc UTG, limp suited aces, limp any PP, whatever.. It's all good in .5/1. On the button, after 4 players are already in, I don't like raising QT any more. 1/2 full ring games sux, if I'm playing 1/2 or higher, it's HU/5max/6max only.

About the blind stealing, I was trying to make some sense of the 4% first-in-raise rate, since I dont think you're 1st in on the button 4% of the time TOTAL, much less with cards you'd wanna raise a buncha limpers with, in .5/1 anyway. I guess that shoulda been a giveaway we weren't talking about .5/1.

[Andy Ross]

[ QUOTE ]
Games are fishier, so in EP, I can raise AJo/KQo/KJs etc UTG, limp suited aces, limp any PP, whatever.

[/ QUOTE ]

The corollary to this is that the games are fishier, so you can play more hands from late position.

I just don't understand why you aren't finding more hands that you can play when you're at or near the button. What hands are you happy to play from late position that you wouldn't play UTG? My list is long.