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 Originally Posted by Fnord
9 handed .5/1NL with $100 effective stacks.
A player is opening 20% of his hands for 6xbb (or more) pre- flop. How many hands do you need to play to beat this game? Is it ever correct to just call the opener?
Ripptyde should pay attention to the answer to this one...
Why do I have the feeling that I'm about to learn something here (don't get me wrong, that's a good thing as always).
That's obviously a pretty wide opening range and and how the table overall is responding will be key. So, my answer to your question will vary with how the rest of the table is responding to this overly loose aggro. It will also vary with how this guy's play is post-flop.
My simple answer to your question is .... (I tend to over-analyze for those of you that are too thick to see the blatently obvious ) ... that you can beat 'this game' by playing relatively few hands, and playing them relatively passively (assuming that the villian will carry forward his pre-flop aggression into post-flop).
If the rest of the table (read as: 3 or more on average) is calling this guy's openers with a wide range, my first statement would be that this is the kind of game that I find difficult to play in (read as: while playing my normal LAG style). In this kind of game, my experience is that you have to tighten up considerably and generally only re-raise to isolate when you have very good hands and otherwise fold alot. If you get in there and gamble with the rest of the table you are going on a chip roller-coaster ride and will be at the mercy of the deck; profitable when you hitting and bank roll draining when you are not. I don't like this variance and playing against wide hand ranges in multi-way pots forces you to play str8-forwardly and show down winners. I'd be more inclined to selectively get in there and gamble if the players at the table are very terrible, but along with that comes the huge challenge of putting people on hands when by the very nature of their play they have a wide range and play many of the hands in that range in a wild and unpredictable way. Plus, the money isn't that deep. When I find myself if one of these games I tend to get frustrated and usually end up moving tables because even though I know I'm looking at a potentially very profitable situation, many of my 'weapons' are blunted and I have to play ABC-poker which to me is quite boring.
Now, if the table is generally backing down to this guy's pre-flop aggression and most of the pots end up 2 or 3 way at the most, my counter strategy would have to be different. With position I'd be inclided to call or re-raise many of his openers with a wider range, and let him bluff/semi-bluff $$ off to me in the right spots. OOP I'd narrow that range considerably, but I'd still play more hands than in the above multi-way pots scenario. And yes, I do think just calling can be correct so that you disguise the strength of your monsters for example.
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