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

Ed,

Your button suggestions seem to be different from those laid out in Theory and Practice. There you (and David Sklansky) said that it is okay to limp first in on the button, here you say almost always open-raise. Also, against a raise, the TAP suggestions have you flat calling a lot of hands on the button, even as strong as QQ and AK. Here you say reraise your strong hands most of the time. What say you?

I think this is has a lot to do with stack depth. Deeper stacked NL poker as described in NLTAP is more conducive to open-limping and button smooth calling. I think this series or articles is geared more towards typical lower limit and internet games which are typically midstack games at 100BB or so. In those games the stack structures make open limping and not re-raising your stronger hands less optimal.

I was going to ask a similar question.

What specifically are the mechanics of a deeper stack game that lends itself more to open limping? Or for that matter what is it about a 100BB game that does not? Is it because of the large implied odds/semi bluff potential that suited connectors have in the deeper games? What about big cards and pairs?

I sometimes open limp 100BB games with big card hands in the hope of inducing a little action from hands that some blinds may fold to a raise (Ax, Kx, etc). Thoughts on this?

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.

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).

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.

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.

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

“The next installment covers playing from the blinds.”

Will this ever be published???