Cold call % from button?

[djshawk]

Hi Guys,

I'm just going through my PT stats and looking in particular at the positional stuff. My vpip increases as I get toward the button but my button vpip is still only 19.5%. I'm currently playing 50nl and have really cut back recently on any kind of bluffing, this includes blind steals with the more marginal holdings because I'm constantly getting calls from the looser blinds. It seems to be working pretty well at the moment.

The number I'm not too sure about though is the cold call %, at the moment I'm cold calling about 2% from the button which I think may be a little nitty. When I've got a full stack and am facing a raise from a full stack with say a caller or two, should I really be opening up my range? At the moment I only really call big suited and pps, and a lot of the time I'll even fold big suited.

I know once I get to higher levels I should be 3 betting more than cold calling but at 50nl taking a passive line seems to be working better since you still get paid off when you hit and a lot of the time 3 betting won't thin the field.

So I guess my question is what kind of hands/situations do you cold call from button/co and how frequently does this come up.

Cheers.

[4CardStraight]

This is a situation that really depends on the players that are opening.

What we are looking for is anyone that will stack off with TPTK or something. We are looking for players that overvalue their hands post flop. In NL this is a serious error, where in limit it ends up costing us a bb or two. In NL we can end up losing our whole stack with TPTK if we overvalue it.

If a player will stack off with TP or MP or even two pair, I will play them with almost every suited ace or suited connector from the button, possibly even offsuited connectors if we are deep stacked enough. How deep? Well if we are putting in less than 6-10% of our stack preflop we can call with any pocket pair from the button, if we are putting in less than 4-6% of our stack then we should call with suited aces and suited connectors, if we are putting in less than 2-5% of our stack then we can call with any two. The range depends on the quality of the players in the pot, and how likely they are to overvalue their hands postflop.

And of course we should have a 3bet range as well, and the percentages assume that the raisers are playing as deep as we are. For a starting point tho, this is the size of the preflop range compared to how deep we are playing for a cold calling action from the button where we are looking to get paid on two pair or better hands that the raiser simply will not expect we have, when they have a quality hand they will overvalue. The tighter their opening range the better, actually.

4Card

[diebitter]

when you raise the button and loose blinds call, you really need to start c-betting the flop with a reasonable frequency. Oh and raise the button and c-bet with good hands too.