How you can randomise your preflop betting/range

[diebitter]

Many players have pretty solid and unmoving preflop hands that they always play a certain way in certain positions. This is fine at low limits and maybe for tight multitablers, but in poker, deception can be very +E$, and sometimes you would be wise to raise hands you may sometimes call or even fold, or call with hands you usually raise with. This allows you to be way less readable, to extract more monies when the flop bring a little something that favours the cards you hold and which would have been much less EV if you'd have bet the usual way with them.

What you need to do is decide what frequencies you want to apply to the hand your holding in terms of raising instead of calling (and vice versa), and sometimes calling/raising instead of folding (and vice versa).

Typically, when playing in a game where I feel the need to randomise (which is usually any 100BB game where there's no obvious mark at the table I'm targetting for stacking, and at least 1 obviously good player), I may do the following. Where I feel a loose game is appropriate, I'm playing 30%+ hands preflop, and need to randomise the frequencies of raising/calling the drawing hands vs the big hands. Where a tight game is appropriate, I'll be raising almost all hands I play in EP/MP, so it's deciding a frequency to add in some deceptive drawing hands to extract value from the table's tightness and sometimes flop a great hand that will stack any tighties sticking around (eg I might want to raise 10%, fold 90% of Axs in EP/MP for example).



I use 2 main methods for randomisation, the clock and the cards I'm dealt.

1) The clock - I got this from HoHv1, and you basically decide your percentage, and use the second hand on your watch. If you want 10% raising, 90% folding SC in EP/MP in a tight game for example, if it's 0-6 seconds when you check, you raise, else you fold. Very simple, and the one I use for the less frequent postflop randomisation decisions I make. I also use it if the percentage I want to use is far away from 50%, 25% or 12.5%, which I often use in card-based randomisation (see next part).

2) Cards - When I sit down, I pick a suit randomly. It could be the suit of the card I am first dealt, that's fine. Say it's a heart. Then as I assess the nature of the game and whether I need to randomise, I will assess what frequencies to randomise with. I don't want to reveal too much about my game, but let's say I decide to play AA in different ways UTG, and 54s+, and AQo in different ways.


AA UTG
------

i) I want to raise/call 50/50: I raise whenever the cards are the same color, call if they are different colors
ii) I want to raise/call 75/25: I call whenever there's two aces the colour of the suit I decided on, else I raise. I decided on hearts in this case, so whenever I land AhAd, I call, else raise
iii) I want to raise/call 87.5/12.5: I call whenever the first card is the suit I nominated, and the other is the same color,else raise. So only if it is first card Ah, second card Ad, would I call, else I raise.



54s UTG
-------
i) raise/fold (50/50): If the higher card is your first card, raise, else fold.
ii) raise/fold (75/25): raise if hearts, else fold
iii) raise/fold (87.5/12.5): raise if hearts and higher card first, else fold.

AQo UTG
=======
i) raise/fold (50/50): If the higher card is your first card, raise, else fold.
ii) raise/fold (75/25): If the first card is a heart, raise, else fold.
iii) raise/fold (87.5/12.5): If the higher card is your first card and is a heart, raise, else fold.


Typically and realistically, you might think 'okay, I'll raise AA-JJ,AK in EP 70%, call 30% of the time, and raise TT-22 30% of the time, call 70% of the time', so this thinking tends to be about ranges of hands.


Basically, randomisation should be in your toolbox if you aren't playing too many tables and you aren't a preflop nitty TAG, and you need to figure out how to fit it in with the lay of the games you play. Above are suggestions to implement the percentages you settle on, and are NOT suggestions for what percentages suit your game.


I hope this provides one more step on the road to Shania for you.

[BlueBear]

A useful post. You can also use the digits in your table bankroll to decide. eg. You call aces UTG if two particular digits are odd (raise/call = 75/25).

[threads13]

Nice post. I tend to use randomization in the same ways you do.

[Mike Kelley]

Any suggestions for playing our set mining pairs like made sets when they miss?

[AceHigh]

Do you ever use your table image to determine your randomization?

For example - say I'm getting good starting hands and raising far more than most players at the table or whatever. I might just call with a hand I would normally raise. Since I think some players might start to get ready to make a stand against me, I limp and then fold my weaker hands, or trap with my strong hands.