22-44 early position
Posted by Pot Repot
Posted by
Pot Repot
posted in
Low Stakes
22-44 early position
Lot of MTT books/videos suggest to remove 22-44 from your early position opening range.
I would like to understand how are 22-44 any different from 55, 66:
1) Mostly you're going to flop two or three over cards with both 22-44 and 55, 66. You'll take a stab on flop and give up on turn.
2) Your chances of hitting a set are same with both. And you're hardly ever continuing on turn without a set.
3) If you get 3bet pre flop, your counter - strategy is same with both. You either call to hit a set if you're getting the right implied odds, or you fold. If you think villain is 3betting you light, you can 4bet shove with both (he's not going to call with A5 or A6).
I can understand why removing hands like AT and KJ from early position opening range is good - you can value own yourself to a better A or K if you hit top pair. But with small pairs, you know when you're good and when you're not.
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I would disagree with those videos that suggest that. Firstly, we need to consider what our stack size and what sort of hands are we open/folding or just open jamming based on our stack size.
I think it's pretty good opening all pocket pairs in any position when folded to because it will balance our opening range from EP or MP. It's especially good for deception in early position because usually our opponents will give us a very strong range.
The only problem I see with opening 22-55 in EP is around the middle stage of an MTT. Usually when we flop 3 overcards OTF I think it's -EV for us to be stabbing or cbetting a high frequency. Essentially 22-88 flop really poorly when called so it's extremely hard to play them out of position.
Also, it seems like your strategy is to call all 3bets with 22-44 which I think is quite bad. Yes we do have implied odds when we hit a set but most of the time we will be behind and fold to cbets. I guess it is situational but I just think calling 3bets out of position with 22-44 is terrible.
Doesn't it really depend on how deep we are? If we are 100bb or more there is no issue with opening 22-44. Table dynamics are also a consideration. If we have a couple of aggressive players behind us we are just lighting chips on fire by open folding to a 3bet. Flopping sets are also more profitable when played IP instead of OOP. Meaning you can call a 3bet from either blind as long as we are last to act. Otherwise we are just open folding way too much for this to be a profitable play over time.
Hey,
I think you can make the same argument about a hand as strong as 1010 UTG. More often than not 1010 is 2nd or 3rd pair so you are still guessing a lot of the times. Would you fold 1010 UTG?
GL at the tables.
Do you think TT and 22 are even strength hands? UTG less than 100bb you should only be opening 7% of hands. Is 22-44 in that range?
Of course I don't think that. I'm just saying that 1010 plays similar to 22 on for example an AJ6 board. 3rd pair and you're unsure whether your hand is good.
I wouldn't raise 1010 UTG, 100BB deep, I would rather limp call, as I want to see the flop. (I would probably limp call with all the PPs, given the price is right of course, especially if its multiway).
I don't want to raise with 1010, get 3-bet and have to potentially play a big pot OOP.
Hey iPokerr
I think you are looking at this incorrectly. It seems you are looking at hand vs range instead of range vs range. If we are opening UTG and get 3bet and we decide to flat, the AJ6 board smashes our flatting range. I would be happy to x/c and get free showdown.
Also if we were 100B I don't understand why we would open limp TT. 100B deep (assuming we are chip leader on the table) I would open all my pocket pairs UTG. I would however implement a limp strategy with 22-66 UTG if I was short stacked and there were potential jamming stacks on our left.
Smalltimeplayer,
Looking at a 100BB stack in an MTT we are normally talking about early stage play (it's not very often we get the luxury of a 100BB stack in middle to late stages) where I don't really want to tangle in big pots with 1010.
Of course if we had 100BB and chip lead I'm opening any pair UTG.
I am probably looking at it wrong as you say, but also it does have a lot to do with table dynamics, your image etc.
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