Comments on: Building a No-Limit Hold’em Starting Hand Chart – The Button

By: Ed Miller

Ed Miller — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:21:25 +0000

Sorry guys… next installment is forthcoming. I took a two week trip after I posted this one, and I’m still trying to catch up on all my work.

By: William Newton

William Newton — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 04:48:40 +0000

“The next installment covers playing from the blinds.”

Will this ever be published???

By: QTip

QTip — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:56:25 +0000

I’d like to bring up a trend that I see so often on 1/2 PS. This has to do with raising otb with 100x stacks. AT PS 1/2, it’s very rare that someone actually calls the raise in the blinds. Better than 90% of the time, it’s not a call, it’s a raise. Sometimes it’s a light 3 bet too. This sucks for the hands that we want to see a flop with.

I’ve thought about minraising for this reason so that a 3bet isn’t as expensive for me to see a flop. The thing I didin’t like about it was the pot we steal is smaller…however, this isn’t happening often anyway.

Just wanted to throw that out there for thoughts.

Thx,

QTip

By: Ed Miller

Ed Miller — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:28:21 +0000

Shelby,

It’s no conspiracy… blind play is the next post. It should be written and up here fairly soon.

By: Shelby

Shelby — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:17:43 +0000

Ed – I am curious why you are not addressing the blind play for NL and would like to know what your recommendations are since that is where the money is lost.

By: Shelby

Shelby — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:17:25 +0000

Ed – I am curious why you are not addressing the blind play for NL and would like to know your recommendations are since that is where the money is lost.

By: Ed Miller

Ed Miller — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:30:33 +0000

NLTAP absolutely doesn’t say never to open-limp. In fact, IIRC, it specifically states that open-raising will usually be best. (I don’t remember if it says it, but David and I definitely discussed it while we were writing.)

There are a lot of advantages to open-raising. I think David’s main goal was to point out that open-limping is sometimes as good or better and to contrast that with limit hold’em (where open limping the button almost never has anything going for it).

By: threads13

threads13 — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:23:08 +0000

Does the stuff in NLTAP specifically say not to open-raise on the button? I think it is left a little more open than that. I think it just shows the benefits of open-limping and what you should be considering when deciding which is better(raise or limp).

By: Ed Miller

Ed Miller — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:35:31 +0000

Open limping makes sense sometimes if your opponents are very loose preflop and postflop. For instance, say you have J9s, and if you make a “standard” raise on the button, the blind is nearly guaranteed to call. In addition, this player is likely to go off for a large amount with top pair or a weak two pair if you make a big hand. In that case, open limping can be better than raising preflop because it gives you more flexibility, and there’s little benefit to “sweetening” the pot since you’re likely to win a big pot whether you raise preflop or not.

I recommend raising in general because most players will give you a shot to steal the blinds (particularly in small games online), and most will lose more out of position in a raised pot than out of position in an unraised pot.

By: Todd

Todd — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:14:33 +0000

I’m no great expert in deep stack games, but I believe it has a lot to do with SPR’s. In 100BB games, you can drive the pot to build SP’s below 10 quite easily with bigger raises and re-raises. Your big A’s and overpairs play well if you end up all-in on the flop with top pair with an SPR between 4 and 10 depending on the competition, the strength of your hand, etc. For most online competition, if you always ended up all in with an overpair or a strong TPTK in pots with an SPR of 5 or less, you would most likely be a winning player. In a midstack game, many big pots revolve around 1 pair hands. The magnitude of mistakes you can make in 3-bet pots isn’t all that large.

With deeper stacks, more raising and re-raising leads to SPR’s that are in the 10+ range and often in the 13+ range. 1 pair hands don’t play well at all in that range, particularly out of position. So, there is no great incentive to build a pre-flop pot with an overpair or a hand likely to make a 1 pair hand. Big pots revolve around straights, sets and flushes.

That doesn’t mean you should never re-raise, but it does alter the criteria you use to re-raise. Position and your opponents playing style now takes on greater significance in choosing to re-raise.

Here’s a hand that I turned up on 2+2 that I really like for a couple of reasons. I love the way Tommy Angelo writes. It is a good example of decision making when you know, KNOW both players are conservative. And, I love the comments from Strasser and Durr about how they are thinking about the hand, especially this from Durr:

…snip…
does he get his stack in on a turn 2/3/5?
…snip…

If you read about and think about the hand, think about how this player is attacking an incredibly strong hand from position. The threat of a big pot in position is huge.