Message Board : Low Limit NLHE Tournament: Starting Hands

Most of my online play is restricted to low-limit NLH Sit-n-go’s… typically in the $20 entry range.  I’ve recently changed my pre-flop starting hand strategy (now that I think of it, partly as a result of PNLHE)… since then I’ve seen rather dramatic improvement in my results, however I’m not sure if this is just short term variance or a legitimate improvement in my play.  Seeing as how Ed is giving us his starting hand series, this seems an ideal time to discuss my adjustment…

As we all know, most of these tournaments start with $1500 and blinds $15/$30 or $25/$50.  The skill of play varies widely, but on the whole is pretty poor.  During the early levels before the M’s drop, I would play very tight in early positions (I would fold low PP’s unless pre-flop play was very passive, which I notice Ed says I should play).  I’d loosen up in later positions, and be raising with approximately 1/3 of my hands on the button or one off the button.  I would raise in the blinds only with a real powerhouse, AA-JJ and AK.  Most of my raises would be in the 2.5-3.5x BB range.  If someone raised in front of me or there were limpers, obviously my play would change, but all in all my pre-flop play was pretty much your standard ABC tight game…

My performace over time was good but not great, and I certainly wasn’t winning as much as I thought I should be.  Analyzing my play, I noticed alot of times I was getting involved in pre-flop pots with low SPR’s and not alot of room to maneuver.  I consider myself a pretty good hand reader and post-flop player, certainly better than my competition at that level, but there’s simply not enough play in these games to exploit that.

My new strategy boils down to this: try to see the flop as cheaply as possible against no more than three other players.  The exception would be the powerhouse hands, AA-JJ and *sometimes* AK, where I’m raising to isolate down to one.  This involves reading the table pretty quickly… if it’s pretty tight/passive pre-flop I’ll often come in early with just a limp.  When near the button with a one limper or small raise in front of me I’ll just call where formerly I may have raised (with AQ-A9s and the like).  I’ve also stayed very tight in early position, but opened up somewhat in late position.   Finally, in the blinds I’ve also started squeezing more often with some of my crap hands if there are plenty of limpers or the first to raise appears a light raiser.

The net result has been the pots on the flop have been much smaller.  This has allowed for more play to the river.  It seems that my steal percentage has gone up.  I do lose some equity when my hands make it, but to compensate more hands that I would have driven out preflop (like J-9, K-x, etc.) will sometimes make top pair with me and overvalue their weak kicker.  Serial bluffers still get an opportunity to make mistakes against me as well…

It strikes me that what I’m doing by keeping the SPR high is letting my post-flop advantage more room to work for me.  It’s worked out so far (coming in first on the last 3 of 5 and placing second in another).  But by moving away from the "ABC" pre-flop play am I losing out on more equity than I realize?

- HJ