Q&A #98: Talking 6-Max No-Limit Hold’em Out Of Position Preflop Blues

I would personnally widen up my range by raising with small pocket pairs once in a while (about 50 percent of the time I hit a pp with a deep stack)

The reason is so my oponent can never know for sure that i am not sitting on a flopped set.

It is more of a way to prevent them from stacking me when I do have an overpair and they have 2 pair than for the occasionnal profit of flopping a set.

Is that a leak ?

barouh,

I think that is fine logic once your opponents start becoming more perceptive. You have to work harder to get them to make mistakes.

I think that in general, a lot of us play too much out of position. Position is so important in NL.

I have really been tightening up in EP and it has made things much easier on me.

If you check, on the other hand, you ask your floating opponent to make that first bet. If he obliges, that gives you the opportunity to drop the commitment bomb, which can actually tend to neutralize his positional advantage. I checkraise aggressive floaters quite a bit on the flop. I do it with good made hands, with good draws, and sometimes with bad draws or total air.

Very interesting and subtle point. In reading the original question, my intuitive first thought was, “Play tighter but check/raise a lot more.” However, I’d have a hard time articulating why that is. (In particular, someone always points out that I’m bloating the pot for a one-pair hand.) But this is a great explanation, one I’ll need to think over quite a bit more.

Thanks for the reply but hasn’t Dylan got a copyright on that title?

My concern was whether you should attempt to outplay your opponent using the strategies you have mentioned above or just save yourself the headache and not raise from awkward postions. I can see now that it is often better to put that raise in as you may be missing out on a chance to exploit your opponent’s aggression and overplaying of hands.
That check can really nullify unsuspecting opponents positional advantage and make them play their postion badly. I recently checked and called off 70BB with TPTK (AK) versus his 88.

Ed,

So, are you conditionally committed when you are c/r’ing the flop against an aggressive floater. For example, say you have TPTK and c/r an aggressive floater and he 3-bets(or calls). What is your plan from there?

I agree completely that routinely playing suited connectors out of position against good opponents is a bad idea. There was a really good article by Phil Galfond that pointed out that if you never raise suited connectors early its easy for a good player to push you around if the flop comes 567 etc.