Quote Originally Posted by mcatdog
What I am saying is that for questions to which the answer is easily determined by statistical evidence, we should answer the question based those statistics, not by normative analysis like yours above. I could easily write an argument for why it's bad to open small pairs UTG -- you'll be OOP most of the time, it's hard to get to a cheap showdown with marginal hands when you're OOP, you have very poor barreling equity -- and my reasons would be no more or less valid than yours. The way to know who is right is for people to open their databases and see if they're making money with these hands UTG.
How many (total) hands would one have to play to get a statistically valid EV quantification of a specific situation like open-raising specifically 33 UTG in a 6-handed game?

Take my current database which has about 33,000 hands-- all at 6-max. Sometimes the games run 2-5 handed as well. I've gotten 33 UTG a whopping *drum roll*......... 12 times. 33 OTB, 29 times.

To do what you are saying people should do, they'd have to have literally millions of hands in their DB. And then the games have evolved greatly in that stretch and there'd be different situations for all the hands.... and we're back to verbal masturbation as opposed to statistical analysis, at least to some degree. Both have their merits.

OP, try something simple.. e.g. normal is to raise all pairs in all positions. Say UTG though you have 22 and there's a tough player on the button, fold it. Ditto if there are a couple shortstacks or other comparable table dynamics that decrease the value of IO hands.