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Open small pairs everywhere at 6 max???

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  1. #1

    Default Open small pairs everywhere at 6 max???

    For ages I've been hearing it's correct to open pre flop with 22,33,44 and 55 anywhere at 6 max if the pots not been opened. Heard a few of you guys say ito n your vids aswell as jus through loadsa other sources.

    This is a concpet I have trouble agreeing with when it comes to being utg and utg +1. Also i hate it out the small blind if theres been limpers. Really just wondering what the pros of this actually are in these positions cos I just get the feeling its genrally a losing play for me every time I do it so perhaps I'm doing something wrong.

    Problems I have:

    1.They play terribly against 3-bets, there's very little you can do pre flop but give them up OOP, unless you have uber reads.

    2. When I'm c betting them I'm always doing it as a bluff becuase effectively I could have any 2 cards and it'd make no differecne on most boards. If I'm called or riased I still feel the same way about the hand. So my point is would I not be better raisng hands like J,9 off suit UTG as it makes hands and draws that i feel better about playing more often.

    3. Theres no semi bluff situations for counter play in an aggressive game. I don't feel comfortable playing back at known tricky LAGs with these hands like ever!

    4. Theres not enough showdown value to check behind on boards where I could have the best hand and see little use in betting. With these small pairs I still feel inclined to bet because its damn hard to do anything else with the hand excpet turn it into a bluff.

    5. If i get more than one caller things get even worse and i often have to check fold OOP on potentially scary boards.

    6. I'm just spewing way too much by opening these hands in the first 2 seat cos I don't understand the reasons behind it enough - maybe you guys can clear up the merits of doing this.

    And yeah to summarise - I'm not talking especially aggro or passive games jus standard for the $0.50/$1 I play. And also yeah of course theyre good to build a pot with when ur deep and obv theyre v playable in postion and id always comfortably play them on the button etc. i just don't think that the small % of times we makes sets or stack someone makes up for the amount we lose in the 1st 2 positions through there being v little good flops for our hand no semi bluffing oppertunity and no real merit to taking free cards or trying to get a cheap showdown cos we are drawing so thin and really xant make many hero calls at all if we get attacked. So it comes down to spewy c bets that are essentially bluffs i could and prolly do make with any 2 cards so why do i constrcit myself to so few outs in doing so by elceting to raise these these baby pairs over random but not total trash hands.

    That's a bit of a speil but any thoughts on why its commonly adivsed to open them in ALL positions would be much appreciated.
  2. #2
    Pythonic's Avatar
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    I say it all depends on the level you play. 25NL and higher I would definitely open all pairs.
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  3. #3
    I fold 22-55 utg b/c collectively they were losers from that position over ~200k hands.
  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by zook
    I fold 22-55 utg b/c collectively they were losers from that position over ~200k hands.
    hmmm really? This is something I should probably look into on my stats.

    I just feel like if I started folding 22-55 UTG, I'd have an added -ev tilt factor everytime I saw a flop with 2-5 on it!
  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by griffey24
    Quote Originally Posted by zook
    I fold 22-55 utg b/c collectively they were losers from that position over ~200k hands.
    hmmm really?
    Really. Sample size still isn't great with only 200k hands, but I bet you have a lot more. Interesting thing is I just checked out utg+1 and they're losers there when I raise first in too...
  6. #6
    Are they big losers? It's always hard to figure out how much playing other hands making your premium hands win more.
    Is your UTG range just very tight then or do you balance with more SC's?..or more broadways then most?
  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by minSim
    Are they big losers?
    Together 22-55 are -0.43ptbb/hand from just utg, -0.6ptbb/hand from utg & utg+1 which is pretty damn big.

    Quote Originally Posted by minSim
    Is your UTG range just very tight then or do you balance with more SC's?..or more broadways then most?
    I'm pretty tight utg now, 11.5/11.5 (23/18 overall) but I was only 13/13ish before.
  8. #8
    zook, get out of here with your actual evidence, you should raise small pairs from any position so that everyone on the forums will think you're an awesome LAG
  9. #9
    I auto-raised 22+ UTG at FR tables for like 20k hands or so.

    ...eventually I gave up that relatively expensive habit...
  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by zook
    Quote Originally Posted by griffey24
    Quote Originally Posted by zook
    I fold 22-55 utg b/c collectively they were losers from that position over ~200k hands.
    hmmm really?
    Really. Sample size still isn't great with only 200k hands, but I bet you have a lot more. Interesting thing is I just checked out utg+1 and they're losers there when I raise first in too...
    I'm at work now but I should check my stats.

    It's possible that if they aren't profitable, that you're giving up too easily with them? Or it's possible that if they aren't profitable, that you aren't giving up easily enough. hmmm
  11. #11
    As long as we're talking about actual evidence, has anyone studied if raising less in the first two positions costs you any profitability in other positions? i.e. If you get pegged as a nit, isn't it harder to get action when you have the goods?

    I like it when we talk numbers but I am discouraged by too much micro-focusing. There might be a hand that costs me half a big blind every single time I play it, but if I knew it was earning me an extra big blind every time I had AA, it would be doing well for me to keep at it. And this should be measurable (over a large enough sample size that is) but it's a lot harder, since Poker Tracker doesn't do it for you.
  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by dalecooper
    I like it when we talk numbers but I am discouraged by too much micro-focusing. There might be a hand that costs me half a big blind every single time I play it, but if I knew it was earning me an extra big blind every time I had AA, it would be doing well for me to keep at it. And this should be measurable (over a large enough sample size that is) but it's a lot harder, since Poker Tracker doesn't do it for you.
    This is so hard to figure out, and quantify though. How could we really ever know the influence of certain hands on the rest of our range.

    I can raise 22 utg and triple barrel bluff OOP and stack off for 100bb's. That'll have a big negative influence on my winrate with 22, and it's probably impossible to tell how much more action that got me.
  13. #13
    It is practically impossible, but not totally, given the right experimental mindset. We could take any high volume, multi-tabling reg and ask him to perform an experiment on it: phase 1, raise 22-55 in UTG and UTG+1 for 100,000 hands; phase 2, fold the same hands in the same positions for another 100,000 hands; then analyze the hands and see how the data looks. Of course there can still be some variability and it's not exactly proof. But it's some kind of start.

    Or if we don't want to do that, let's just say that image plays a role against opponents who are observant enough to know what your image is, and especially against anybody playing with a HUD. So making seemingly profitable decisions like tightening or loosening up in position X with hand Z might actually not be the insta-profit tweak in your game that you think it is. To cite another (and to me more likely) example, button-raising past a certain percentage is likely to turn back around on you and lose some of the big blinds you are stealing. There's probably a sweet spot for most players that aren't wildly talented at post-flop poker. And the same might be true of early position raising. I know if someone raises UTG and my HUD tells me he's an early position nit, I'm not giving him action, like, ever - except to set hunt.

    At the same time, I don't want this to be perceived as an excuse for not tightening leaks. Far from it. I just think it's worth considering before we all convert to UTG rocks.
  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by griffey24
    It's possible that if they aren't profitable, that you're giving up too easily with them? Or it's possible that if they aren't profitable, that you aren't giving up easily enough. hmmm
    It's also possible that they're not profitable because:

    1) You start out pretty far behind your opps range when called.
    2) You're usually oop for the hand.
    3) Pots are often multi-way.
    4) It's hard to get your sets paid when they already think overpairs and tptk make up a large part of your range.
    5) You lose most times both of you flop a set.

    Quote Originally Posted by dalecooper
    There might be a hand that costs me half a big blind every single time I play it, but if I knew it was earning me an extra big blind every time I had AA, it would be doing well for me to keep at it.
    There are no opponents keeping close enough watch on you that a few hands or a few percentage points will make any difference. I think I could announce to every table that I'm not raising 22-55 utg and it would be meaningless to my winrate. I'll paraphrase some high-stakes regular on 2p2, krantz maybe... balancing your play is important against good, hand-reading players who are paying attention, but the majority of your opponents at small and medium-stakes are none of those things.
  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by zook
    I'll paraphrase some high-stakes regular on 2p2, krantz maybe... balancing your play is important against good, hand-reading players who are paying attention, but the majority of your opponents at small and medium-stakes are none of those things.
    That's reasonable.
  16. #16
    So basically I'm to assume that the open all pairs in all positions advice is a bit of an automatic rule that really has no relevance and infact costs us money? Noones came up with the positive reasons of why its good to open 22-55 UTG yet so in an avergae game where you cant bully the table and run everyone over - its a mistake right?

    Surely all those bad points outweigh the good. Still be interested to know what the good are, or if im missing some value on them them post flop by feeling the need to compensate for the shit potential of the hand with spewy c bet rates and aggression...
  17. #17
    mixchange's Avatar
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    what level would you stop raising 22-55 utg? 400nl?
  18. #18
    Ragnar4's Avatar
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    Is it possible 22-55 are simply losers at 6-max because they only seem to win when they hit a set, AND they never seem to get their 10 X the raise when they do hit?
    The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes
  19. #19
    bjsaust's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dalecooper
    Quote Originally Posted by zook
    I'll paraphrase some high-stakes regular on 2p2, krantz maybe... balancing your play is important against good, hand-reading players who are paying attention, but the majority of your opponents at small and medium-stakes are none of those things.
    That's reasonable.
    Thats pretty much why I do very little balancing UTG and UTG+1 at 25 and 50nl. I rarely play 22-44 from those positions now, but of course there are always exceptions.
    Just dipping my toes back in.
  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by zook
    4) It's hard to get your sets paid when they already think overpairs and tptk make up a large part of your range.
    Yah I think this is one of the big reasons for not getting paid. It's assumed our range is already strong, so we're really only gonna get paid when villain flops some hand that beats our perceived overpair, so our set vs their two pair etc.
  21. #21
    Fnord's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mixchange
    what level would you stop raising 22-55 utg? 400nl?
    It's more of a table texture thing. Certainly it's a good adjustment at the 100NL level.
  22. #22
    Always raising is certainly questionable, especially from UTG. But I'd think always folding is pretty bad too. At least based on my experience up to 100NL.
  23. #23
    Ragnar4's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by reprisal
    Always raising is certainly questionable, especially from UTG. But I'd think always folding is pretty bad too. At least based on my experience up to 100NL.
    But that leaves us with the stack-a-donk line that is pretty silly also.. open limp, call the raise, call the flop, try to get it in on the turn is soooo last year.... it's also sooooo Daniel Negraneau.
    The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes
  24. #24
    Just raise them when your in the right situations.

    1. When the table is very tight or you are otherwise getting too much respect from EP.
    2. A good amount of the players at your table respect your c-bets
    3. The button(especially) & CO aren't lags or otherwise tough players
    4. There are calling station fish to pay off your sets anywhere on the table
    5. There are Aggro-donks or spew monkeys at the table(especially in the blinds)
    6. Theres no rabid 3-betters


    I'm sure theres more good reasons. Its pretty easy to see how these situations will arise less as you move up. Also, know when to check fold
  25. #25
    Halv's Avatar
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    No hindsight for the blind.
    Funny, in the last 6 months worth of my 400NL hands 22-55 have only been profitable from UTG and from the blinds. Triple the sample size and they've been profitable from all positions, though surprisingly they were still most profitable from the blinds for me. (analyzing data this old is pretty much useless though - my game has changed too much during the sample).
  26. #26
    stfu halv

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