What sizes do you open from different positions?
Posted by darren2607
Posted by
darren2607
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Low Stakes
What sizes do you open from different positions?
I have been opening 3BB UTG, 2.5BB in HJ/CO and then 2.25BB on BTN. My thinking is to make it unattractive for people to play me when I am out of position, and give me a cheap price on the steal.
However I see that MMAsherdog does the opposite, opening smaller UTG and larger on the BTN. His thinking is to reduce pot size when he's OOP and build pot when he's in position
Which approach is preferable?
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There is a lot of discussion about this and you already pointed out why. Therefore on lower stakes a lot of players tend to 3B or fold from most positions it makes some sense to raise larger in LP. But thats not some rule. Im opening 2.5 from every position and 3x from BU/SB. This gives also some less incentive for the BB to defend (if he recognizes this). But this could also be good or bad (esp. when opening BU) depending on the Villain.
But from my experience the difference between both schools is kind of marginal (played bigger raises in EP for several years as well) as the impact to your winrate shouldnt be huge anyways.
You could also simplify this and raise the same amount from any posistion (maybe SB should be the exception)
This generally is how people think but is incorrect in theory.
You have a stronger range the earlier you open. So when you open a bigger size then people defend less often. Which means they also will have a stronger range when they get involved into the pot. You want to go smaller to incentivize them to get into the pot with a weaker holding.
When you open later position your range will be wider and weaker. You want to incentivize them folding a bit more. This is the theory ofcourse. It is likely that your opponents will be overfolding against a small size anyway and you can get away with it.
Not that easy imo.
If im having the superior range, i shouldnt really have a big problem with strenghening the range of my opponent as im still winning a bigger pot on average (esp. ip).
vice versa for the LP smaller open:
im happy to play my weak range ip vs another weak range and im also able to defend a bigger part of my range vs 3bets (as the SPR will be higher after the 3bet).
So i would say that even the thoery about this has pros and cons....
It's a question of range elasticity here then. We all need to look at our data.
Straight from the Grinder's Manual...3.5-4BB UTG, 3 from MP/CO, 2.5 from BT, 2 from SB. The idea is you are opening much stronger ranges from UTG compared to BT, and therefore can begin to build larger pots. Also, since your playing OOP, you will realize more fold equity when sizing up earlier. Peter Clark explains that this has an effect on your long run EV. Ive used this and have become quite comfortable with it and although in a vacuum it is extremely small added EV, I think it has built up noticeably for me in the long run.
I think the theory behind this is wrong. In practice in loose games it may be a reasonable exploit though.
Our range is tightest from UTG almost entirely because of the probability of running into strong hands from the rest of the table and only secondarily because we might play OOP. If it were solely due to being OOP, we would see a much tighter opening range be optimal from the SB. After all at equilibrium there is minimal flatting by anyone but BB preflop.
So investing more from UTG discourages the most like kept caller from defending with his weaker range while simultaneously losing more money to the rest of the table when they wake up with a hand.
Brett Banks I see where youre coming from. I also agree with Mudkip that it doesn't matter as long as your ranges are constructed appropriately to size. The strategy I outlined also helps keep me disciplined by eliminating some "good looking" hands from my UTG opening range since I dont want to invest 4BB on what is a weaker hand in reality. Like while I would definitely open 56s for 2.5BB from the button, I dont want to open that hand for 4BB from UTG.
Also, by raising larger in earlier position, I grab some fold equity and find myself heads up more often rather than multiway, which Im far more comfortable playing heads up, especially OOP.
And to your point that under those guidelines the SB should have the tightest range, Peter Clark does outline a "3-bet or fold" strategy from the SB so it does end up being our tightest range.
Look, if you build ranges properly according to sizes, you'll be fine with any option. Think you should look at each position separately if you want to figure out opening sizes/ranges and not think about what you're doing from other positions.
darren2607 Have you played any significant samples where you have played a specific raise size strategy? Like Min Raising BTN's or 4x'ing UTG? Do you play Zone/Zoom/Fast or Regular speed tables?
I checked the last 100,000 hands of Zone vs Regular Speed Tables to check a few things. A notepad screenshot is below:
As you can see, there is a drastic difference between the Steal Success in Zone vs Regular. This manifests itself in the calls. The 3b% is very symmetrical.
Mudkip covered it quite well in his post. You can probably come up with any reasonable sizing strategy if your ranges are close to spot on (I have used 3x from every position, I have tried 4x utg, 3x mp, 2.5x CO, 2x BTN, 3x SB, I have tried min open from all positions other than SB, etc.). I would load up PT4 and look at Holdem Hand Range Visualizer and look at the stuff on the fringe that you are raising from each position and try to tweak that part of my range and base it on whatever strategy I settled upon.
The best way to figure this is out is have the data. If you were opening 3x OTB and you play a significant sample and try 2x, you will have the data. You might find that they are somewhat inelastic and don't adjust properly and offer a similar amount of folds at the 2x size vs the 3x size. If this were to be the case, I would settle on the 2x size. The drawback comes when you get action (calls/3b's) with the value portion of your range and would like to have used a larger size. The advantage comes from getting a similar % of folds for a better price on your bluff.
I'm not so sure it's as black and white as calling ranges are inelastic so steal the blinds as cheaply as possible. People play poorly postflop too, overfolding to cbets while also calling down too light. Having a larger pot means you win more in all of those instances.
Anyway I think the biggest takeaway is that your preflop strategy is rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Get solves for your chosen size and employ that strat as a baseline. Tighten up and raise larger in games with loose players and high rake. Raise smaller against nits that won't adjust defense freqs.
It's really easy to waste a lot of time trying to get preflop exactly perfect which is likely going to mean a tiny improvement to your winrate. Instead you could focus more on postflop play in common spots where you can make strategy changes that will be worth an order of magnitude more to your bottom line.
these data are impressive.
its utterly nuts that steals are more successful from the SB than the btn. It's better to play IP with a weak range than oop with a weak range. i'm guessing the reason for this is bc BTN is opening smaller than SB, so giving BB better odds to call and they perceive SB to be opening a strong range.
I think the main reason steals are so effective from the SB is that there are a lot of players, regs and recs alike, that are fast folding lots of really junky hands that would be a defend only against a SB open.
Can you open fold on fast tables? I can't on stars, I think it's just bad BB play
Yeah on bovada you can hit check/fold now and it moves you to the next table
I guess people just hate money
I mostly do what you do but am downsizing more because I just don't like big pots OOP position anymore. I think it invites loose players to actually play correctly and bluff more with their wide ranges in large pots.
I am more and more thinking frankx99x has it right. If there's more regs, go smaller. If there's more fun players, go bigger. I may start a big experiment. I label well so it should be easy to do.
definitely get back to us on this
I base my opening amount on who I'm up against in the blinds. I was doing 3x if either was a rec and 2.5x if both are regs. Lately I began experimenting with basing my opening amt solely on the BB. One thing I like about this approach is that aware players cannot put me on any sort of range of hands. A little GTO in my mostly exploitative style
So is this discussion settled?
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