In general is this right? AA in MP3

this is one of the few instances at the micros where i think playing a very strong hand passively is good. the strongest hand he can have is 44 (unlikely) followed by KK,QQ,JJ etc. not many of these can stand a raise and you have the deck utterly crippled. because villain is short-stacked, and thus your SPR is low, i really like how you played the hand, basically giving villain a rope to hang himself by not raising him out of the pot (which is what is likely to happen because we KNOW his range is weak) while still allowing stacks to go in by the river. only minor fault i can see is that you are probably better off opening for 4 or 5bb preflop at 2nl beause your open raising range will be pretty strong and thus, you will want to be building pots when you raise preflop.

Originally Posted by rpm

this is one of the few instances at the micros where i think playing a very strong hand passively is good. the strongest hand he can have is 44 (unlikely) followed by KK,QQ,JJ etc. not many of these can stand a raise and you have the deck utterly crippled. because villain is short-stacked, and thus your SPR is low, i really like how you played the hand, basically giving villain a rope to hang himself by not raising him out of the pot (which is what is likely to happen because we KNOW his range is weak) while still allowing stacks to go in by the river. only minor fault i can see is that you are probably better off opening for 4 or 5bb preflop at 2nl beause your open raising range will be pretty strong and thus, you will want to be building pots when you raise preflop.

Ahh thank you, this is helpful, I have been wondering about my preflop raising at 2nl.. I kept my basic tourney betting sizing for this, which is typically 3bb + 1 for each limper, adjusting if I know they are going to call more. Think I should keep something like this but maybe more like 5bb +1x or 4bb +1.5x, since people will tend to call more?

Originally Posted by sven00100

Ahh thank you, this is helpful, I have been wondering about my preflop raising at 2nl.. I kept my basic tourney betting sizing for this, which is typically 3bb + 1 for each limper, adjusting if I know they are going to call more. Think I should keep something like this but maybe more like 5bb +1x or 4bb +1.5x, since people will tend to call more?

basically, i think most 2nl villains fall under the "if i know they are going to call more" category you used to differentiate between opponents in tourneys. i used 4bb+1 per limper when i played 2nl pretty much purely because i read it somewhere on these forums. you may be able to get more value in the broader scheme of things with 5bb+1 - i've never tried it. however, i think you will definitely get more value, if you are raising a strong value range, from raising 4bb than 3bb at 2nl.
as an example, pretend that every time you are "value betting" postflop streets (which is what you are most likely to be doing when you are opening a strong range preflop and playing against calling stations), you bet 8/10 pot, and for simplicity, you win 100% of pots in which your hand is strong enough for you to "value bet"

3bb preflop raise HU (blinds folded) =
preflop pot - 7.5
flop pot - 19.5
turn pot - 50.7
river pot - 131.82

4bb preflop raise HU (blinds folded) =
preflop pot - 9.5
flop pot - 24.7
turn pot - 64.22
river pot - 166.972

i'm shit at maths so i may have messed the calculations up at some point, but the important thing is to realise how bets are typically relative to the potsize. so a 1bb difference in preflop raise size becomes a far bigger pot by the river, which, assuming you are value betting in the right spots, translates to a higher winrate. you probably knew all this but meh, maybe it'll be helpful to someone