i dont want to hijack spoon's great threads, so i thought i'd post my reaction here. hopefully, to get some feedback, confirmation, criticism, etc.
- its not news, for those that know my posts, that i like more of a 20/10 style in fr. i catch a little flack for that style, but i tend to make better reads when keeping the pot small until I want it to grow with my marginal holdings. much as i like the 20/10, or 2:1 style, i can never open up quite to 20/10...more like 18/10 max. however, spoon's, and everyone else's, theory on "raising limpers" makes me VERY exploitable at times.
- i need to change/increase my aggression if i am to move up levels. taking $$ from limpers, and stealing blinds, is something that i feel i do "ok" with...at MY discretion...picking MY spots. but, moving into more of a mainstream aggressive approach in lp HAS to be more profitable...based on spoon's math alone.
- obviously, we want certain conditions present for the "targets" we are choosing. 1) disparity between vpip and pfr. 2) limp/folding a lot of flops. 3) tighter players in the blinds...and behind us in general. when those conditions are present, we should begin to open up? w/o them, we should stay tighter? or, should we simply open up period? i, also, assume w/o the disparity between vpip/pfr (like 16/13 or 22/17), we should look more at exploitation through 3betting?
- typical UTG ranges run close to 88+,AQs+,AK, right? thats 10 holdings of the 169 unique hands...or 6%. from another post about premiums getting little/no action from ep, we can see that such a tight range is easy to dodge. we can counter-balance by either limp/RRing or "polarizing" that range? since i HATE limping premiums in micro/low stakes, i would prefer polarizing by opening up from the "bottom-up," not the "top-down." top-down would be adding KQs, AJo, or 66 to our range. that, imo, leads to increased domination, and almost becomes a lose/lose situation. opening from the bottom-up, however, would be finding 6-10 holdings from the lower part of our range, but still powerful enough to flop tons of equity against the calling ranges of our villains. balancing with AXs adds 10 holdings (A2-AJ). adding 22-77 brings in 6 more...for a total of 16...or MORE than our premiums. we only want/need 6-10, though, to equally balance our premiums. therefore, we need to cut those holdings in half somehow...
1) one way would be to watch the clock, ala Harrington's books. for the first 30 minutes, we open up. for the last 30 minutes, we close back down.
2) another way would be to play "colors." only red and green AXs, and 22-77 with a red card only.
either of those would cut down our "polarizing" hands to about 8 or so?
- we would now be using around 18 opposite holdings of the 169...running about 10/10 UTG. of course, we do more of the same as our position approaches the button, polarizing a little as we go.
- keep in mind if the previously mentioned table/opponent conditions are NOT present, we might not polarize our range as much, instead we stick to the top portions of our chosen range. (for example, it wouldnt make sense to play the opposite end of our spectrum against loose blinds that tend to call cbets. we would only fire when we connect with the flop in an advantageous way)
- shouldnt this bring us away from the 2:1 vpip to pfr ratio? and, bring us closer to 3:2 or 4:3?
- of course, the next steps are post-flop concepts with a lot of "it depends" type answers...more read dependant.
before i get too deep, in my head, with post-flop continuation with these hands, please feel free to critique, add, suggest anything you see, as i am trying to digest these concepts "out loud." gotta love accountability.
many thanks
