preflop frequencies

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preflop frequencies

Hi I'm new to PLO and have absolutely no clue about preflop frequencies. I have no idea what % we should be opening in each position, what % we should be 3 betting, what % we should fold to 3 bets, and also how wide we need to defend our big blind vs steals. Can someone point me in the right direction?

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jonna102 9 years, 6 months ago

For low stakes you can go with something like UTG:15% MP:20% CO:30% BN:65% SB:50% and you won't go too wrong. You'll be playing a bit too tight, but it won't be too bad. For 3-betting, just pick really strong hands, be careful with middling rundowns, and avoid disconnected double suited 3-bets, and you'll be absolutely fine. It's less critical to build the pot preflop with marginal hands against really weak players, as they will happily put their money in bad postflop anyway. And then, if you're opening this tight a range, you probably won't want to be folding too much to 3-bets regardless of position. Don't overcall 3-bets though. Unless you don't like money and want to play a losing strategy.

You also don't need to defend your blinds all that wide at all. Rake hurts that strategy quite a bit. This changes when stakes are higher and rake lower (relatively), but I still think higher stakes players have taken it too far when they defend 100% of their range. Playing some HU will make you more comfortable playing pots OOP and can allow you to defend a bit wider.

At the end of the day though, you're really asking the wrong question. There are no frequency targets that you're supposed to hit. But using the above as a starting guideline will allow you to start getting some experience, and then I'm sure you'll figure it out on your own. Hope that helps :)

AceKingSuited18 9 years, 6 months ago

Thanks that makes a lot of sense. I've been playing way too nitty then my VPIP and PFR are like 22/16. Both my EP/MP RFI were below 15 since I open fold marginal hands like KKT7 single suited in those positions. When you play nittier in PLO than you do in NL something has to be wrong lol...

Pokerlogical 9 years, 6 months ago

I have created a similiar thread here.
So basically I came to the conclusion that you can openraise in UTG from 12-26%.
In MP u want to openraise up to 29% I guess.
In CO u want to openraise 32%.
In BU probably 60%.
In SB 38%.

I don't know if these numbers are the optimal ones for readless play, they could be a good starting point tho.

For 3betting you want a Total 3bet of 5-6% however 8% 3bet style is probably possible too.
Remember that position is really important in PLO therefore 3betting lighter in position is no bad idea at all.

Against 3bets you want to fold arond 20% in position and 30% out of position.
Usually you don't want to defend paired hands vs 3bets and Axxx because they have poor equity against AAxx.
But I guess if your opponent is 3betting rundowns too and good double suited stuff then you can defend more Axxx. However you still don't want to defend paired hands like 6675ss

AceKingSuited18 9 years, 6 months ago

Where did you get such specific numbers for opening? For example how do you go from 12-26 in EP all the way to 29% in MP and only 3% looser in the CO? Also if you're defending 80% of your range on the BTN vs a 3 bet how do you play such trashy hands? That's a 48% total range you're defending and I'm guessing that would include some hands like T754 single suited or worse.

Btw do you know of a free program that tells you what a top x% hand looks like? Basically like a PLO version of Equilab.

Pokerlogical 9 years, 6 months ago

I read somewhere that defending 50% vs BU steal in BB is considered tight so maybe u could be defending that?
However defending the BB has a lot to do with how big the openraise was.

U can probably defend the most BB vs SB :) :) ... but I can't tell u the correct numbers.
Usually when I play I try to figure out how good my price is to defend and also how my hand is doing vs his potential hands.

I would ask myself questions like: Is my hand dominated by his range of hands?, how well do I flop?

z3vl0ve.x 9 years, 6 months ago

I think instead of aiming to hit certain frequencies the better approach is to figure out what characteristics (polarity,raw equity, nuttiness etc.) a hand has and how to play it accordingly. Then all the frequencies will fall into place.

Kyyberi 9 years, 6 months ago

People love set numbers or hand charts, as it is easier than learning the hard way. But in PLO there are a lot of things that affect our preflop hand selection. UTG is probably the easiest spot as the situation we are facing is always the same in terms of villains actions. But when we go to MP, it affects if UTG has opened or not. In CO it affects if UTG and/or MP has opened/called or not. In BTN... You get the idea. Some hands work better in multiway pots, some work better HU.

All the information we have on our opponents affects too, and stack sizes.

One thing that people often forget is that our postflop skills affect it too. If we force ourselves to play 50% of hands it contains a lot of marginal hands, which leads to tricky postflop situations. Now if our postflop skills are not yet good enough to handle those, we will lose a lot of money. That's why I often advice to start playing tight and it will naturally loosen up as you will be able to spot the situations where you can play with wider ranges.

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