Strategy vs opener ?

[roy3]

Dear all, I'm quickly discovering new situations that I need to understand better.

When somebody bets preflop - what are decent reraising/calling criteria in POS, and possibly OOP?

I did some simple number crunching (assuming opener needs JJ/AK), coming to the conclusion that calling (4B) with a low pair seldom is justified regardless of position. It just might be against a weakling who could give you his entire deep stack. But a stronger player could simply by refusing to call off his stack to trips make it very much -Ev.

OverCalling (3 way flop) with any pair 55 and up seems OK also OOP.
All other calling hands should be worse. It seems Axs is not that great a holding even in LP - perhaps OK overcalling to make it a 4-way flop!?

Squeezing callers (and the raiser) with a strong reraise in POS also must have its merits. But hardly with anything less than AA/KK?! Or?

But clearly, this is not how the average poker player operates...

What do you TAG and, especially, LAG guys use as criteria preflop with One raiser?
/* I assume no knowledge or solid reads - so no "playing the player" answers please!*/

Also IF you do know (pokertracker etc) that the raiser will open with less than JJ/AK in his current position, how do you modify your strategy?

Grateful for a discussion on strategy against an opener!

/roy3

[Rondavu]

Well, as for calling raises with low pairs, a flopped set isn't going to get sniffed out often enough to give you -EV when you do it against high stacks. People at the final table of the WSOP will even pay that shit off enough to make it worth doing.

I assume no knowledge or solid reads - so no "playing the player" answers please!

You're really skinning the sheep on this one. It has everything to do with playing the player. How else do you know what kind of hands your opponent is willing to raise, and subsequently whether your hand is possibly ahead?

Anyway, if you're playing straight TAGG with no reads than just get a chart and live by it. Only call raises with group 0-2 hands. Never call a raise out of position with less than a group 0 or 1. Never limp in if it's folded to you preflop. Raise or fold. I know that's not exactly classic TAGG, but you gotta mix it up a bit.

I hope I helped a bit. Work on reading people. You can't move up stakes with a chart and no reads.

[Element187]

i play small pairs in or out of position and call standard raises with them.

i dont think position is all that important with small PP because im not going to be doing any kind of decisions on the flop except raise when i hit my set or check/fold when i miss.

when i hit my sets i prefer to act before the preflop raiser so i can bet into him.

[roy3]

OK,
but when you do call with a small PP, you pay like 4BB's to see the flop every time. Over 100 hands - that's 400 BBS as investment.

You make a set or better 12% of the time, and with a proper bluffing ratio, you'll win 12% of the time regardless of how often your opponent - the raiser - will call your bets (assuming he never flops an over-set on you). This can be enuf against a weakling who may hand over all his chips to you when you hit.

BUT, if the raiser gets wise on your play, he'll not pay you off with a full stack with TPTK or 2p.

Say you flop your set and bet into the raiser - and he always folds. You don't get back the 4BB's you pay the other 88% of flops you miss.
Assuming pot-sized betting, and a 50% bluffratio - you'll in this case only win back 18*4BB = 72BB's. After having spent 400 for the provilege...

It does matter if you are in pos or not, assuming raiser always bets the pot if first to act and you reraise with sets and bluffs. Here it'd be something on the order of +180BB's - 400B's, so its better, but still -Ev.

If you always bet out or reraise regardless of what hits - you'll get played back at so often that it's very -Ev.

However, with one more caller - the relative initial investment decreases while the winnings remain the same (since it's always pot-sized bets). So overcalling - or being overcalled - with small pp's will pretty much always be +Ev.

just my two cents

choohowoo

roy3

[sinky]

but when you do call with a small PP, you pay like 4BB's to see the flop every time. Over 100 hands - that's 400 BBS as investment.

Only call the raise if he has the stack to pay off your set.

BUT, if the raiser gets wise on your play, he'll not pay you off with a full stack with TPTK or 2p.

Don't know what stakes you are playing but this rarely happens at lower limits. People seldom fold TPTK and rarely fold 2 pair. Also people come and go so often it is unlikely they will have the read to put you on a set.

I don't have pocker tracker, but I'm sure the guys here who do will tell you that calling raises with pocket pairs is very much +EV

[Rondavu]

Ya you're getting way too wrapped up in theory Roy. Hit a set, get payed off. It's that simple.

If you always bet out or reraise regardless of what hits - you'll get played back at so often that it's very -Ev.

Why the hell would you do that? You're trying to pork your opponent, not yourself. You won't bluff out too many pots with a missed pocket pair. The pots you bluff your opponent out in are going to be ones where weakness is shown. Sometimes that's the case when playing pocket pairs for dollars, but less likely than in other situations.

Say you flop your set and bet into the raiser - and he always folds. You don't get back the 4BB's you pay the other 88% of flops you miss.

Geesh. Talk about worst case scenerio buddy. Hey, if you're uncomfortable with playing pocket pairs for raises then fine. Convince yourself not to do it through pessimistic logic and deny yourself the pot of gold that is implied odds. We know better though, so don't try to convince us.

[DaHorror]

Hell you can even call more than "4xBB" with a lot of pocket pairs.

So what if you miss a lot. Besides the 12% is likely only flopping the set. You've got 2 more cards in a lot of situations where an A or K flops and someone's playing QQ or JJ and they slow up.
Even if you don't hit on the flop in those cases you usually end up with a free card and another +% to hit.

Personally I won't usually call a giant preflop bet with a lower PP unless I have position on the preflop raiser because the odds aren't superb with the lower PP - but when they hit and you have position on the raiser, you're getting paid well.

I have been playing them exactly like Element187 stated - fold if you miss and are bet to - bet/raise respectably if you hit. You really don't want a higher pocket pair drawing out on you.

[ChezJ]

you are failing to account for the times when your set fills up to a boat (or even quads) while your opponents hits trips, a flush, etc. this happens quite a bit and when it does, you get paid off immensely.

not to mention, an overpair to the board (e.g. AA/KK) will pay off a set any day of the week and twice on sunday.