NLHE Theory + Practice: Week 8 - Preflop Raise Sizing

This section is an important one and studying the concepts discussed here will add a nice little unexpected boost to your winrate I can assure you. Please read from page 111 to 121 and carefully study what's beingn said. Having read this section, I've concluded that this is actually one of the better more accurate section of the book and one of the most relevant to online games. The author does not tilt me much at all here, so we must be on to a winner imo.

Okay I'm going to kick things off a little differently. Remember those comprehension exercises you got in English class in shcool, where you had to read some boring story about a puppy that wasn't toilet trained or some bs like that and then had to answer questions on said story? Well I'm going to advsie you read these pages and then all have a go at answering the questions about preflop raise sizing spots I'm about to outline. Try not to look at other's answers too much before giving your, own but rather have a go at it and then compare and contrast what you've got to what other's have got. I'll jump back in and have a look at your answers when there's enough.

Also, feel free to talk about other spots, post relevant HHs or jus shoot the shit in general about this topic at the same time.

Preflop Raise Size Quiz

Answer each question in order, and state both what you think is a good raise size and why if applicable. Questions where you shouldn't give an answer in this way are noted with a *. Assume we are 100bb deep unless otherwise stated.

1. Hero is OTB with J7s, the SB is a winning reg who 3 bets 7% out of the blinds and folds his sb to steal 80% of the time. The BB is a nit reg who folds 89% to steals and runs 14/10 at 6 max. It is folded round, action to hero.

2. Hero is utg in a FR game with AKs. The table is fairly soft and consists of a few nitty TAGs and 4 stationy fish. These guys play 54/11 on average and hate to fold preflop. Action to hero.

*3. How can we use preflop sizing to exploit a fish who limp/calls a lot and plays fit or fold postflop?

*4. T or F. We usually shouldn't open hands on the button vs a large fish in the blinds that are behiond his calling range equity wise.

5. Hero is in the CO with KQo in a 6 max game. UTG (a 20/3 passive fish) and MP (a 65/42 maniac tard) both limp. The BU and blinds are all tight players. Action to Hero.

6. Hero is in MP with KK. The same 65/42 maniac, who has just lost his stack to hero in hand no 5 by calling down with tpwk, opens to 4x UTG, Action to hero.

*7. When we are deep (200bbs or more) how should we adjust our BU raise sizing when we have players in the blinds who play much worse than us post flop?

8. Hero is in the CO with 87s in FR game and it fold round to him. The Bu and sb are 10/8 and 7/2 respectivley and just fold a ton. The bb is a short stack with only 25bb, he folds to steals 82% of the time and shoves the rest, he's a multitabling SSer. Action to hero

*9. Villains in front of me are 3 betting me lightly and makling life difficult. I like to open a wide range and so need to adjust my raise size to combat this. What should I do with it and why?

10. Hero is 9,200bb deep in a HU match and is on the BU with AQs. Villain is 96/3, loves to see flops, and calls down far too lightly preflop, and just has trouble folding anything with any sort of remote potential. Action to hero.

Nice post! Here is my stab at the questions.

1. Raise to 3bb. With such a high FTS% from both blinds, trying to steal even if you give up on any raise/call is profitable (+EV by about 1.3bb per attempt).

2. Raise to 6bb. You like your hand, especially against the fish. If you get 2 callers, the pot will already be about 20bb, making it easy to stack at least one of them if you hit your TPTK. Just be careful of the nits.

3. Raise strongly, which will isolate him and cause him to commit more money preflop. Then cbet him with ATC to steal his preflop investment. If he plays back, only continue with very strong hands.

4. False. You don't want to play trash, but some hands that have great implied odds will be behind his calling range (for example, 22).

5. Raise to 7bb. If the passive fish calls, you can control the pot. If the maniac calls and you hit your hand, the flop pot will be large enough that he will stack himself by bluffing his money away or calling your bets.

6. Raise to 18bb. We are way ahead of his range and there is a good chance that he's tilting, so will call with anything or even 4bet us. We would love to get all of the money in immediately.

7. If they are fit or fold postflop, raise more pre and then steal postflop. If they are too stationy postflop, raise a little more so that you can get more money in when you have a hand. If they are maniacs/spewy, you don't need to raise any more, because it is more likely they will call raises or raise you at some point in the hand.

8. Raise to 3bb as a pure steal. Get out of the hand if you encounter any resistance. With such high FTS%, it's profitable with ATC unless they adjust.

9. If the villains are not going to notice, you can raise the top of your range more and the bottom of your range less. Then, if they 3bet you, you can call with your value range and make it easier to win their stack since the pot is already bloated on the flop.

10. 9200bb deep? Raise him whatever is the maximum you think he will call, up to 200bb. If you can get him to call 200bb preflop, then you can stack off with 3 pot sized raises.

greaaat post carrots, i love this quiz ordeal, you are the fucking man im sure it took an assload of time to do this, so thanks mane.

Did these without looking at anyone elses answers if there are any. Probably all wrong, please post some answers or critique or something cause there was a couple i had trouble with.

1. 2.5-3bb...these players are folding too much and when we are called we are likely going to be dominated.
2. 5bb.. I was going to lean towards a small raise, but given that the stations hate to fold preflop, i would raise bigger and augment their mistake when they call with their Axs +
3. Raise bigger, he is giving up a lot post flop so by making the preflop raise bigger we are making his limp/call even worse.
4. T...but it depends on the person, if he is folding to cbets enough then its good to raise him preflop no matter what our holding
5. raise bigger like 7 or 8bb, id expect a call from both and you are crushing their range
6. Usually against someone so aggro i would flat and let them hang themselves, but given our recent history, i would be inclined to raise as he is going to spazz a lot.
7. Raise smaller, 2-3bb, in order to encourage a call and allow us to pillage them postflop, also if we get raised we get to throw away a lot of our junk for cheap as opposed to if we had raised large initially
8. well we win 1.5bb 82% of the time, which is like 1.23, so the smallest amount we can raise is goign to yield the highest ev, assuming he is folding to minraises, i like a minraise here
9. This is a tough one (actually i have found all of these suprisingly difficult shows how much i suck). But i would raise the value portion of my range larger and the bluff/semibluff/iso/steal part of my range i would raise less (with some randomization sprinkled in)
10. Raise as big as you possibly can while still getting a call from the majority of his range.

1. 2.5x-3x is plenty. The less you risk when stealing the less you lose when you fail. These guys are folding so much that we can raise J7s and be profitable, however with sb's 3bet percent we want to minimize our loss as much as possible.

2. Standard 4x. We're in ep, ya theres fish but we have 8 ppl behind us who could wake up with something better and crush our soul. Also being oop sucks

*3. Raise significantly larger pre. We can probably cbet small too

*4. False. Exactly what we raise depends on post flop tendencies...but things like JTs are almost always going to be profitable.

5. I like a larger than standard raise. Something like 8x should get calls from da passive fish and maniac and we're way ahead of both their ranges and in position. This should make it fairly easy to stack off post too

6. Hero is in MP with KK. The same 65/42 maniac, who has just lost his stack to hero in hand no 5 by calling down with tpwk, opens to 4x UTG, Action to hero.

This one is pretty tricky imo. Ima go with a 2.5x since i expect him to call with his entire range and stack off with TP or worse again and raise with good hands.

*7. Do we really agree with the author here? He makes an argument for raising 44 larger than AK because when 44 flops a set we want a big pot...and generally a medium pot with TPTK or something. But...this is kinda silly isnt it? Cuz by the same token, we should then also be raising 76s larger than we would raise AKo because we'll flop good draws that we want big pots with as well...but theres certainly no mistake that AKo is a much stronger hand. I guess this is why i suck at deep play.

Ill split it. I want to raise hands that make good draws or TPTK+ fairly large, 6xish, and hands that i intend to steal/bluff with a smaller size. Assuming we play awesome post...i might even raise larger just cuz i can cbet and take it down alot.


8. 3x is plenty...maybe 2.5x again

*9. Raise smaller so that they are forced to 3bet smaller. This will allow us to call more or 4bet and risk less than we normally would, as well as lose less when they 3b and we fold.

10. This one stumps me. I find it hard to believe we can shove and get called by his 96% of hands, and likewise hard to beleive we can just bet like 100bb or something. I open to like 10x and over bet the pot when i hit

Originally Posted by JKDS

*9. Raise smaller so that they are forced to 3bet smaller. This will allow us to call more or 4bet and risk less than we normally would, as well as lose less when they 3b and we fold.

if there 3 betting lite I wouldnt think theyd necessarily 3b smaller. I dont have the book with me, if this is from the book, but it doesnt rly make sense to me...unless were playing pl or something...not trying to hate, justwondering.

If these villains are regs that 3 bet light, the chances are they will adjust their 3 bet sizing based on the size of our open. If they didn't however, and continued to 3 bet to 11bb after we reduced our open from 3.5bb to 2.5bb, they'd just be risking far more than they'd need to to win our open and we would be able to fold a fair amount and still make their 3 bets a mistake due to their poor risk reward ratio. This is a great situation for us if the villains are this bad. This does not mean to say we have to fold all the time that we don't have a defendable hand. If they are 3 betting overly large, we can pick hands with blockers to their nut combos like A4 for example and make a small 4 bet when IP, getting a pretty good price on them folding, this works well espeically if we are a little deeper than normal since we have room to 4 bet a little more to ensure they can't flat profitably and also make it a bigger mistake for them to 5 bet jam light since they will need more equity vs our calling range than they will 100bb deep. Just food for thought.

FWIW I'm not actually taking each question straight out of the book, I'm just asking about content relevant to this chapter and asking you to think for yourself in some questions.

Thanks for the replies so far. Feel free to critique each other's answers or whatever. Once we have had a few more responses, I'll post my own answers.

ok one question, in number one say we have KK instead of j7s....do we still want to bet the same amount, obviously we want them to call more if they do call, but we risk giving away information on our hand strength if we bet more when we have kings and less when its j7s or w/e

Originally Posted by Carroters

If these villains are regs that 3 bet light, the chances are they will adjust their 3 bet sizing based on the size of our open. If they didn't however, and continued to 3 bet to 11bb after we reduced our open from 3.5bb to 2.5bb, they'd just be risking far more than they'd need to to win our open and we would be able to fold a fair amount and still make their 3 bets a mistake due to their poor risk reward ratio. This is a great situation for us if the villains are this bad. This does not mean to say we have to fold all the time that we don't have a defendable hand. If they are 3 betting overly large, we can pick hands with blockers to their nut combos like A4 for example and make a small 4 bet when IP, getting a pretty good price on them folding, this works well espeically if we are a little deeper than normal since we have room to 4 bet a little more to ensure they can't flat profitably and also make it a bigger mistake for them to 5 bet jam light since they will need more equity vs our calling range than they will 100bb deep. Just food for thought.
.

Ok cool. so basically we want to open smaller when in these situations (like JKDS said) and looks for nice little spots, when ip, to 4 bet lite, particularly if villain is 3b'ing too large (and we know hes 3betting lite in general.)

I typed up my responses, but firefox decided to be gay and crash so thats cool. Ill prolly retype it later. But I was kinda confused about the last question.. like if we raise pre huge vs this guy, is his calling range really gunna behind? I would think he would be calling with mostly pp's which were slightly behind pre, then he could also be calling with suited dominated aces so idk/semi-meaningless ramble.

Originally Posted by philly and the phanatics

ok one question, in number one say we have KK instead of j7s....do we still want to bet the same amount, obviously we want them to call more if they do call, but we risk giving away information on our hand strength if we bet more when we have kings and less when its j7s or w/e

In most games i dont expect anyone to catch on, so ill just bet more and target the range that calls/3bets as opposed to the range that folds when we held j7s.

In tougher games, i used to be under the assumption that we'd want to bet our whole range the same to avoid giving away information. ie, we'd bet our whole range like 2.5x-3x here. However, the author makes a good point in that all we have to do is occasionally vary our play so that we raise a little larger with bluffs sometimes and a little smaller than normal with value hands sometimes and he wont be able to tell the difference while also making it profitable for us.

1. min raise
2. make it big
3. isolate him alot, and make it big
4. false
5. 4-5bbs
6. 3bet, size depends on effective stacks
7. raise big
8. min raise
9. you don't HAVE to adjust raise sizing but it is an adjustment, 2.5x seems reasonable or just min raise.
10. lol, something very huge seems reasonable.

1. Minraise
2. 6-7x all day
3. Just make it as big as you possibly can to still get him to continue with a weak range unless regs are giving you lots of trouble, obviously this sizing may deteer them though until they realize wtf is up.
4. F
5. If he's a maniac tard I'd probably make it like 3x and be willing to flat 3bs.
6. 3bing small here, probably like 8x since it'll keep every single hand in his range and I don't really care about giving shit like T7o implied odds since he's going to go bonkers w/ retarded shit anyway postflop when he misses completely.
7. This depends on if we are changing their pre-flop tendencies by raising larger or smaller. If they call lots pre just go bigger. If they play poorly post but are still kind of tight minraise and just give them a hard time with their weaker range.
8. lol minraise
9. limp or minraise
10. anywhere from 200x to 600x depending on how much we've experimented w/ our raise sizing

1. Hero is OTB with J7s, the SB is a winning reg who 3 bets 7% out of the blinds and folds his sb to steal 80% of the time. The BB is a nit reg who folds 89% to steals and runs 14/10 at 6 max. It is folded round, action to hero.
Raise 2.5x. Nit on BB should fold to most cbets. If SB calls depends more on flop.
2. Hero is utg in a FR game with AKs. The table is fairly soft and consists of a few nitty TAGs and 4 stationy fish. These guys play 54/11 on average and hate to fold preflop. Action to hero.
Raise 6.5x. Fold to TAG 3bet.

*3. How can we use preflop sizing to exploit a fish who limp/calls a lot and plays fit or fold postflop?
Raise more pre with good and bad, cbet often to take a bigger pot.

*4. T or F. We usually shouldn't open hands on the button vs a large fish in the blinds that are behiond his calling range equity wise.
False in you can open these hands and vbet anything, but True in that you could just wait for a better hand...

5. Hero is in the CO with KQo in a 6 max game. UTG (a 20/3 passive fish) and MP (a 65/42 maniac tard) both limp. The BU and blinds are all tight players. Action to Hero.
Make it 6BB and fold to a limp-reraise. On the flop value bet top pair 85% pot but check back a low/middly board.

6. Hero is in MP with KK. The same 65/42 maniac, who has just lost his stack to hero in hand no 5 by calling down with tpwk, opens to 4x UTG, Action to hero.
Make it 18BB, hope for a tilt shove, or a call will build a big pot on flop so we can get it in.

*7. When we are deep (200bbs or more) how should we adjust our BU raise sizing when we have players in the blinds who play much worse than us post flop?
Typically open smaller pre so that we've got more chips and breathing space in which to play on the flop.

8. Hero is in the CO with 87s in FR game and it fold round to him. The Bu and sb are 10/8 and 7/2 respectivley and just fold a ton. The bb is a short stack with only 25bb, he folds to steals 82% of the time and shoves the rest, he's a multitabling SSer. Action to hero
Fold it. Any realistic sized raise is open to a shove from the 25bb stack. The nits won't be flatting a raise much, meaning we're either folding to their 3bet or going to end up in a pot with just the SS in which we'd have no implied odds.

*9. Villains in front of me are 3 betting me lightly and makling life difficult. I like to open a wide range and so need to adjust my raise size to combat this. What should I do with it and why?
Stop opening a wide range... but if you insist, open smaller and 4bet a couple of times a size which they can't casually call.

10. Hero is 9,200bb deep in a HU match and is on the BU with AQs. Villain is 96/3, loves to see flops, and calls down far too lightly preflop, and just has trouble folding anything with any sort of remote potential. Action to hero.
fold

1) minraise
2) 7x and fold to almost all 3bets
3) make it big preflop assuming no heavy 3bettors on your left, smaller cbets as well.
4) false
5) 4BB if the maniac will spite raise us
6) 3betting to 9BB
7) make it smaller to widen the range of hands they play if they are tight
8) probably minraise
9) 2.5x
10) make it huge

In Q6 I'm assuming 100BB effective stacks.
You guys have generally posted that a small 3bet is better but thats going to leave a pot of roughly 20BB and both players having 80BB behind. Ok so he'll call the 3bet with everything, but you justify that sizing on the assumption he's a maniac who will stack for 4x the pot on the flop with tpwk. If the assumption is that he's this bad, then I prefer making it 18x pre, as it's not going to take that much out of his range, and stacking him on the flop if he calls and hits is said and done - then there's the idea he'll tiltbluff shove utg a lot.

Originally Posted by Carroters

Preflop Raise Size Quiz

[B
1. Hero is OTB with J7s, the SB is a winning reg who 3 bets 7% out of the blinds and folds his sb to steal 80% of the time. The BB is a nit reg who folds 89% to steals and runs 14/10 at 6 max. It is folded round, action to hero.


4xbb BTN raise, because the sb&bb fold to a steal over 60%


2. Hero is utg in a FR game with AKs. The table is fairly soft and consists of a few nitty TAGs and 4 stationy fish. These guys play 54/11 on average and hate to fold preflop. Action to her0.

Im can see arguments not sure is its a 4xbb raise or higher or even a fold. Ill sit on the fence on this

*3. How can we use preflop sizing to exploit a fish who limp/calls a lot and plays fit or fold postflop?

3/4 + betsizes

*4. T or F. We usually shouldn't open hands on the button vs a large fish in the blinds that are behiond his calling range equity wise.

Not suree what T or F means

5. Hero is in the CO with KQo in a 6 max game. UTG (a 20/3 passive fish) and MP (a 65/42 maniac tard) both limp. The BU and blinds are all tight players. Action to Hero.

4xbb + 1bb for each limper

6. Hero is in MP with KK. The same 65/42 maniac, who has just lost his stack to hero in hand no 5 by calling down with tpwk, opens to 4x UTG, Action to hero.

A like this one, its tempting to flat call, but oh no, 3 bet.


*7. When we are deep (200bbs or more) how should we adjust our BU raise sizing when we have players in the blinds who play much worse than us post flop?

Pass

8. Hero is in the CO with 87s in FR game and it fold round to him. The Bu and sb are 10/8 and 7/2 respectivley and just fold a ton. The bb is a short stack with only 25bb, he folds to steals 82% of the time and shoves the rest, he's a multitabling SSer. Action to hero

pass

*9. Villains in front of me are 3 betting me lightly and makling life difficult. I like to open a wide range and so need to adjust my raise size to combat this. What should I do with it and why?

pass

10. Hero is 9,200bb deep in a HU match and is on the BU with AQs. Villain is 96/3, loves to see flops, and calls down far too lightly preflop, and just has trouble folding anything with any sort of remote potential. Action to hero.
[/B]

dont know

I dont have the book , but wanted to take part.Looking forward to other BC answers

Originally Posted by parislad

10. Hero is 9,200bb deep in a HU match and is on the BU with AQs. Villain is 96/3, loves to see flops, and calls down far too lightly preflop, and just has trouble folding anything with any sort of remote potential. Action to hero.
fold

What?! Care to explain why you're folding AQs on the button to a 96/3 station?

Originally Posted by NightGizmo

What?! Care to explain why you're folding AQs on the button to a 96/3 station?

Well, you see....the reciprocal of condensation multiplied by the photovoltaic interger, provides a numeric expression that we can logically deduce.....

TO BE SARCASM.

Originally Posted by 6spark6

Well, you see....the reciprocal of condensation multiplied by the photovoltaic interger, provides a numeric expression that we can logically deduce.....

TO BE SARCASM.

Commendable Analysis.

bump

digest imo

1)open 3x b/c we lose less when sb 3bets us, and neither of them are calling and c/f'ing the flop too often to justify betting more because of the dead money.
2)open 4-5x b/c im assuming the nits are going to fold too often pre(they should be calling a widish range if theres a raise and 4 callers that are stations). If the nits were going to call with usually margional hands like suited 2 gappers, I'd want to raise more so that they would be making a mistake in doing so.
3)raise moar pre plz
4)F assuming we don't suck at poker
5)6x because we're going to be ahead of the 20/3's calling range, way ahead of the maniac, and usually be playing IP on the flop.
6)raise to 12bb's, still not really sure about the reasoning behind how we size our 3b's though
7)like 7x if they're passive so we can pot pot shove 200bb's, if they're aggressive we can probably raise less because it will be easier to get the money in
8)minraise to lose less when shortstacker 3b's
9)minraise so that they are going to have to risk more to win less, or keep their 3b size the same ratio of my open, so i can call with a wider part of my range.
10)is it too unreasonable to just limp and like shove for like a mirrion times the pot when we haz made hand

Too tired to play poker today now so going through some old threads for some practice and bumpage:

Doing this without looking at other posters answers:

1.) Minraise - 2bb/(2bb + 1.5bb) = 57% they need to fold.
Combined they fold .89*.80 = 71% of the time.
29% of the time they 3bet or call and we lose 2bb = .58bb
71% of the time they fold and we net 3.5bb = 2.49bb
Total EV of 1.91bb per raise attempt.

2.) I'm raising as much as I can before fish start to fold. The TAGs aren't going to present much in the way of resistance, and when they do we can find out very quickly where we stand PF or OTF. Vs the fish we're trying to maximize as much value as humanly possible while they're willing to put money in and we're crushing their calling ranges. I'm making it at least 6bb, and steadily increasing my raise sizes til I found out where they won't call as liberally.

3.) Preferably we have position in this scenario. Regardless, we manipulate this fish's tendency to call a lot PF and fold too much postflop by raising more hands than normal, for a larger raise size than normal and cbet with a higher frequency than normal.

4.) False. Fish isn't going to be able to exploit his card advantage from OOP to a superior player enough to keep me from raising shitty hands. We exploit him by being in better position, with a better skill advantage. These two outweigh his card advantage when he calls. Being able to handread helps. :3

5.) We want to get enough money in from the 20/3 passive, but not expose ourselves to too much risk vs the 65/42 tard. Unless of course we have some sort of read that says he l/jams like 22+ and broadways or something along those lines. I'd raise to ~5-7bb. Big enough to create a good sized pot postflop if we choose to, small enough that we can fold w/o losing too much when MP spazztards on us.

6.) I'd do something to incite the tard's rage, like insta-minraising. Whether or not he 4bets, the pot is built PF, he doesn't have much of an inkling that he's crush, and we get to value town him a looooot. Ofc the times he 4bets and doesn't jam, we get to ship it in his face.

7.) Make our raises larger than normal w/ hands we are comfortable playing a big pot with. Raise smaller when stealing to keep pot smaller post and control its size. We want to dictate the size of the pot and the action postflop when we're deep and in position.

8.) Assuming the BTN and SB only call the frequency of their VPIP, they all need to fold 68% of the time for it to be breakeven. We could raise 3x here and show a (slight) profit. Might as well minraise or 2.5x to get that much more bbs.

9.) I'd rather adjust my range for raising rather than my sizing per se, but I guess if we were 4x'ing, make it a 3x, if we were 3x'ing make it 2x? Idk this question is meh.

10.) I'm raising to like, 50bb and value betting relentlessly when I get a piece.

Originally Posted by Carroters

1. Hero is OTB with J7s, the SB is a winning reg who 3 bets 7% out of the blinds and folds his sb to steal 80% of the time. The BB is a nit reg who folds 89% to steals and runs 14/10 at 6 max. It is folded round, action to hero.

I probably min open 100% of my range here assuming that neither player has adjusted much to this yet. I definitely don't go any bigger than 2.5BBs like ever here. There are times I'm unbalanced with my sizing and make it min with the shittier end of my range and the part of my range I don't mind playing postflop with (like this one) and 2.5xs open hands that I don't want to see a flop with and hands that villain has implied odds against.

Originally Posted by Carroters

2. Hero is utg in a FR game with AKs. The table is fairly soft and consists of a few nitty TAGs and 4 stationy fish. These guys play 54/11 on average and hate to fold preflop. Action to hero.

4bbs at the very very least. I pretty much always open 4bbs UTG at a table where I'll never be opening UTG without a big hand. Depending on where the nits are at the table, there's a good chance that the only times I'll ever be opening at this table is when I'm iso'ing or when I have a big preflop hand so I might be opening as big as like 6bbs.

Originally Posted by Carroters

*3. How can we use preflop sizing to exploit a fish who limp/calls a lot and plays fit or fold postflop?

I try to open big but not huge in this spot and cbet small but not tiny. The idea is to exploit this tendency as hard as you can without actually changing their ranges, which can be a tough guessing game. My standard is to iso 5bbs and cbet 1/2 pot when I whiff, but that's subject to change.

Originally Posted by Carroters

*4. T or F. We usually shouldn't open hands on the button vs a large fish in the blinds that are behiond his calling range equity wise.

This seems like quite a massive it depends for me because I'm not quite as concerned about preflop equity as I am about playability. I would say the answer's false, though, because I still open like 50% (any two cards 7 or higher, any A, any pair, any semi-connected suited cards) for 3bbs. Even if he calls a massive %age of the time like 50%, he's still folding half the time, and we should be able to exploit him hard postflop.

Originally Posted by Carroters

5. Hero is in the CO with KQo in a 6 max game. UTG (a 20/3 passive fish) and MP (a 65/42 maniac tard) both limp. The BU and blinds are all tight players. Action to Hero.

Ah, and now we've reaches the spr portion of the discussion. I open big here, like 7+bbs. It's just an absolute dream to get to the flop with like a 4.5:1 spr when both call or even a 6:1 spr when only the lagg calls and we can just get it in on two or three streets of betting. When we leave a ton of money behind against the lagg fish and we hit TP2K and we have to raise two streets to get it all in before the river and all that, we just end up narrowing his range down a lot more and give him more chances to fold all those parts of his range he loves to spazz with.

Originally Posted by Carroters

6. Hero is in MP with KK. The same 65/42 maniac, who has just lost his stack to hero in hand no 5 by calling down with tpwk, opens to 4x UTG, Action to hero.

~16bb. Just tryin to make it as big as I can get away with.

Originally Posted by Carroters

*7. When we are deep (200bbs or more) how should we adjust our BU raise sizing when we have players in the blinds who play much worse than us post flop?

Min open the button 100% is the short answer. Adjust according to the situation (make it bigger with good hands against fish for example) but for the most part you want to make it a mistake for them to not see a flop against you and you want to keep the spr as massive as possible to take advantage of you postflop advantage.

Originally Posted by Carroters

8. Hero is in the CO with 87s in FR game and it fold round to him. The Bu and sb are 10/8 and 7/2 respectivley and just fold a ton. The bb is a short stack with only 25bb, he folds to steals 82% of the time and shoves the rest, he's a multitabling SSer. Action to hero

2.5bbs. If we had like KTo then it might depend on how active the BU is and we might make it 3bbs in spots where we can't open in front of him too light, but with this hand I pretty much won't open for any more than the minimum I can get away with given the blinds.
[QUOTE=Carroters;1962542]
*9. Villains in front of me are 3 betting me lightly and makling life difficult. I like to open a wide range and so need to adjust my raise size to combat this. What should I do with it and why?

Well I guess the answer in your pocket is to open smaller, but I have two alternative solutions: 1) change tables 2) only open a very strong range and open big, sometimes as big as 4bbs from MP. Opening marginal hands only go fold them to 3bs you can't play back at is burning money.

Originally Posted by Carroters

10. Hero is 9,200bb deep in a HU match and is on the BU with AQs. Villain is 96/3, loves to see flops, and calls down far too lightly preflop, and just has trouble folding anything with any sort of remote potential. Action to hero.

3bbs. I'd like to open huge, but I can't do so with a balanced range (though maybe I should just be opening everything huge to make it an even bigger mistake for him to keep calling and making nothing but shitty decisions postflop?). Obviously spr is like always effectively infinite so we don't need to adjust our sizing in order to leave as much money behind for postflop exploiting.