Poll: Why can we raise more otb than utg

Poll: Just wondering what most people thought the main reason was

its a combo of both

I raise more from the button because raising with the same range from UTG is more likely to be met with a re-raise that I can't call.

Therefore losing me money.

idk what you are talking about really. i open 4x from UTG and MP, and 3x from CO and BU. the reason i open 3x from the CO and BU is for a defense against 3 betters. the higher stake you go, the more people love to 3 bet you from the bb.

i dont think he meant bet sizes. just raising more hands. and both are reasons why i dont really see what you are asking.

I would say that since its much easier and more profitable to play ip than oop we can open a larger range because our range is much easier and more profitable to play than our opponent's range.

really?

Originally Posted by EzDuzIt

i dont think he meant bet sizes. just raising more hands. and both are reasons why i dont really see what you are asking.

lol, i are smart. in that case yeah those are two pretty important reasons ldo. i dont think asking for justification of opening a wider rang otb than utg is going to stir a very interesting conversation, because 100% of ppl open wider ranges otb than utg? what exactly are you trying to get at with this question?

Sorry it is a bit of a wierd question and I probably didnt explain it very well.

I'm asking why you make more money per hand & can open more hands as you move forward from utg pre-flop.

Why we open a tight range pre-flop utg & very loose range on the button.

Is it mainly because
A) We will have position postflop
(Ie. we are more confident putting money in the pot with a weaker hand because getting to act last post flop will allow us to play a wider range of hands profitably & the blinds will fold alot pre-flop not wanting to play alot of their range oop)

B) There are less random ranges remaining to act (we have a better idea of the likely strength of our hand compared to the 5 others that were dealt)

(Ie. when 3 people have already acted - say everyone folds, we know our A3s otb is likely to be on avg a stronger hand than either of the blinds will have whereas utg with 5 players left to act A3s is unlikely to be the strongest hand on avg.
or if a player is say 16/9 and he limps on the co, the fact that he didnt raise gives us more information otb about his range pre-flop then we would of had acting before him utg+1)

Originally Posted by will641

what exactly are you trying to get at with this question?

Sb is a more profitable position to be in than otb & the big blind is the best & most profitable position (even after you remove + effect of the blinds being folded to you occassionally) if you play properly in 6-max,
(because you have information on all the ranges in the bb pre-flop & dont have to put your hand up against any random ranges)

Im sure no-one in the poker world really agrees with that

I'm surprised someone actually made a coherent poll about something this general.

As people said its both but its probably moreso position. It's important to realize both though.

Originally Posted by noble007

Originally Posted by will641

what exactly are you trying to get at with this question?

Sb is a more profitable position to be in than otb & the big blind is the best & most profitable position (even after you remove + effect of the blinds being folded to you occassionally) if you play properly in 6-max,
(because you have information on all the ranges in the bb pre-flop & dont have to put your hand up against any random ranges)

Im sure no-one in the poker world really agrees with that

This would be true if you weren't forced to ante a sb and bb. You also are forced to play oop postflop almost every pot you play. I don't see how I can agree with any of what you said above.

Originally Posted by noble007

Originally Posted by will641

what exactly are you trying to get at with this question?

Sb is a more profitable position to be in than otb & the big blind is the best & most profitable position (even after you remove + effect of the blinds being folded to you occassionally) if you play properly in 6-max,
(because you have information on all the ranges in the bb pre-flop & dont have to put your hand up against any random ranges)

Im sure no-one in the poker world really agrees with that

This is not great logic. If you took the blinds way sb and bb would be the worst position, the reason they are the most profitable with the blinds is because forcing us to put money in changes what is +EV for us to call and raise preflop and also the ranges we face are significantly looser than the ones we face when we raise.

Don't worry meeloche, I doubt most poker players would be able to agree with what I've stated.

(A) Regarding the blinds - they're just a fixed/forced charge you have to pay for every 6 hands you get dealt in 6max & the cost of posting the blinds should be averaged across all your positions. (which they are when you look at your final bb/100)

So if you want to see how profitable you are in the sb add .25 (cost of posting sb) to the bbwon/hand in your position stats. (This will give you the same number as diff w/o blind) - this tells you how profitably you are playing in the sb.

You can take this number & compare it to utg/otb etc.

(For the bb add .5 (cost of posting bb) & subtract .15 (doing this takes away the positive effect of having the blinds folded to you occassionally)

Then you can objectively compare how profitable each position is at the moment.

(Your final bb per hand number will be the addition of all these numbers/6 minus the cost of the blinds.)

B) "You also are forced to play oop postflop almost every pot you play"

It depends whether post positional ev (ev gained from having positon post flop) is greater than having the iniative pre flop (being the aggressor.)

Ie. hero has 88 otb villian has 88 in the sb.
hero limps/raises otb villian raises/3bets & Cbets std flop say KT6

Who makes more money in the long run?
Hero with position post flop or the villian with the iniative pre-flop?

I think its likely that as long as you play a style that gives you the iniative (ie. raise/3bet) you can generally make more money with the same hand in the bb than someone just calling your raise or 3bet in position.

Originally Posted by noble007

Don't worry meeloche, I doubt most poker players would be able to agree with what I've stated.

(A) Regarding the blinds - they're just a fixed/forced charge you have to pay for every 6 hands you get dealt in 6max & the cost of posting the blinds should be averaged across all your positions. (which they are when you look at your final bb/100)

So if you want to see how profitable you are in the sb add .25 (cost of posting sb) to the bbwon/hand in your position stats. (This will give you the same number as diff w/o blind) - this tells you how profitably you are playing in the sb.

You can take this number & compare it to utg/otb etc.

(For the bb add .5 (cost of posting bb) & subtract .15 (doing this takes away the positive effect of having the blinds folded to you occassionally)

Then you can objectively compare how profitable each position is at the moment.

(Your final bb per hand number will be the addition of all these numbers/6 minus the cost of the blinds.)

B) "You also are forced to play oop postflop almost every pot you play"

It depends whether post positional ev (ev gained from having positon post flop) is greater than having the iniative pre flop (being the aggressor.)

Ie. hero has 88 otb villian has 88 in the sb.
hero limps/raises otb villian raises/3bets & Cbets std flop say KT6

Who makes more money in the long run?
Hero with position post flop or the villian with the iniative pre-flop?

I think its likely that as long as you play a style that gives you the iniative (ie. raise/3bet) you can generally make more money with the same hand in the bb than someone just calling your raise or 3bet in position.

Very interesting perspective. Is poker tracker wrong then when it gives you the difference without blind net amount?

No poker-tracker is right.

I mean all you are really doing for the sb is taking your "difference without the blind" $ number and turning into a bb.won per hand so you can compare it to other positions.
You can also just take that dollar number "difference without blind" & compare it to other positions if you've played a similiar amount of hands in that pos.

if you are referring to the - 0.15 adjustment I made in the big blind its because that dollar number you see in "difference without the blind" is slightly higher than it should be, because you have made some money "unfairly" - when everyone folds you pick up the blinds with ATC,
so if we want to do a fair comparison of our profitability based on position we have to take away not only the negative effect/cost of posting the blind but also the positive effect/profit we get when the blinds are folded to us occassionally.

(hence the 0.15 which is fairly accurate & I can explain if needed.)

Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

This is not great logic. If you took the blinds way sb and bb would be the worst position, the reason they are the most profitable with the blinds is because forcing us to put money in changes what is +EV for us to call and raise preflop.

Yeah you're right I might be misunderstanding a big part of the effect of pot-odds etc in these positions.

no.

The SB and BB are what they are. FORCED bets. You don't take that money and average it out to all the positions. Those bets come with the position. The BB is the worst position, and the SB is the second worst (assuming 3+ players).

other observations:

1. I think you overestimate how often people fold around to the BB.
2. I have no idea where you came up with the logic that you could take the initial sb/bb antes and average them out to all positions to come up with the idea that they are the best positions, when they are the worst.
3. I don't know.

about the original question, there are a lot of reasons why we raise more (often) OTB than UTG. The most overlooked by far, IMO, is that we win the pot preflop so often. Being in position and vs two random ranges are both tied into this....

Originally Posted by Lukie

no.

The SB and BB are what they are. FORCED bets. You don't take that money and average it out to all the positions. Those bets come with the position. The BB is the worst position, and the SB is the second worst (assuming 3+ players).

Ok , Lukie do you agree that

- if you folded every single hand in the sb
your ev would be - 0.25 (the cost of posting the small blind)

-if you folded every hand utg it would 0.00
(you never played a hand & there are no forced blinds.)

So when it actually shows say - .16 in the sb can you see that you are making 0.09 bb/hand or 9bb/100 more in that position than had you folded every hand?

so I am simply removing/averaging out the cost of the blinds to enable a comparison of profitability between positions.

b) " I think you overestimate how often people fold around to the BB."

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Holdem-...-6-Players.php

Maybe but on this poker hand chart I referenced below, the worst hands converged at -.25bb (the cost of blind) in the sb but they converged at about -.36 in the bb (where it should be - 0.5 if the hands are rarely/never played but the -.36 indicates sometimes the blinds are folded to them for a positive effect of +- 0.14bb per hand)

this may be slightly innacurate but if i have over-estimated the number it only means I make even more legitimate ev in the bb then I previously thought.

wtf

Does this mean if you were playing HU you'd want to play in the sb?
No of course not, Im simply saying you should just be taking more advantage of having better position & info pre-flop.
In 6max where you can see what all 5 people have already done in the bb, & therefore put your hand up against actual and not random ranges it allows you to play your hand alot more profitably than people realise.

I looked at a holdem ev poker hand chart - 6 players
http://www.flopturnriver.com/Holdem-...-6-Players.php

I looked at the top 25 hands in ev.... from three pos UTG, OTB & the SB...

(Note for sb anything above - 0.25bb per hand on the chart is actually profit. - because had you folded your ev would be - 0.25 so I've compensated for that in the results below. You can verify this by looking at the worst hands on the chart 42o,72o etc. - the ones not many people play & you will see they converge around -0.25 (the cost of posting blind).)

______UTG OTB SB
1.AA 2.05, 2.38, 2.87
2.KK 1.63, 1.81, 1.53 .
3.QQ 1.26, 1.39, 1.48
4.JJ .69 , 1.03, 1.02
5.AKs .77 , 1.00, 0.95
6.AQs 60, 1.04, 1.10
7.1010 0.56, 0.87, 0.65
8.AK 0.52, 0.67, 0.67
9.AJs 0.33, 0.42, 0.77
10.KQs 0.62, 0.30 , 0.92
11.99 0.26, 0.39, 0.39
12.AQ 0.38, 0.35, 0.48
13.KJs 0.19, 0.27, 0.49
14.QJs 0.15, 0.52, 0.47
15.A10s 0.27, 0.38, 0.57
16.88 0.26, 0.13, 0.28
17.A9s 0.14, 0.42, 0.28
18.KQ 0.11, 0.25, 0.36
19.KTs 0.20, 0.38, 0.44
20.AJ 0.22, 0.37, 0.31
21.Q10s 0.40, 0.23, 0.41
22.KJ 0.04, 0.30, 0.20
23.K9s -0.01, 0.09,0.28
24.J10s 0.13, 0.17, 0.28
25.T9s 0.13, 0.46, 0.13

When the negative effect of paying the small blind is taken into account 17 out of the top 25 hands have their highest ev in th SB.

(You will find that they actually have their highest ev in the big blind of course - the best position pre-flop (once you compensate for negative effect of posting big blind & positive effect of having blinds folded to you occasionally, but I wanted to keep above example as simple as possible.)

the answer is "depends on how deep we are"

yeah thats true sauce the deeper we are the more important having position post flop is.

Anyway my final post on this topic, which I wasn't expecting anyone to agree with, nor should they is just to state that I think the fact that there are less random ranges to act is more important than having position post flop.

I think there are 3 main factors that increase the ev of a playable hand.
1)Having the iniative (being the pfr)
2)pre-flop positional ev (good position pre-flop)
3)post flop positional ev (good position post flop)

Now the button is fairly good as you have decent position preflop and the best position post flop, theses reasons + every1 in the poker word telling you its the best position means you'll also be the aggressor in this pos & also be overly afraid of this pos if you dont have it.

But in reality its having the iniative that is really increasing your ev & the "threat" of having position post flop otb.

The reality is if you have the iniative you can win +50% of your pots preflop, 50%+ of the remaining ones on the flop & so only 25% remain to be played oop & if you mix in an optimal amount of check raises/threats you can negate alot of their positional advantage.

This is provable by looking at the ev of hands on the poker hand chart,
- increases from utg to the big blind.

your own stats
In your general info tab under known starting hands select filters &...

Choose position OTB & choose no raise
Choose position OTB & choose any raise
Choose position SmallBlind & choose no raise (+0.25 per hand)
Choose position SmallBlind & choose any raise (+0.25 per hand)

(these numbers are slightly skewed and I can explain why but they give an indication.)

Put simply when you have a player left to act behind you pre-flop you have to assign him a random range (you have no information about what cards he has been dealt) & when you have multiple players left to act you have to put your specific hand up against multiple random ranges.
I will demonstrate that this is the real reason the number of hands we can play profitably (& the profit we can expect from any hand) is at its least UTG, (not because as many believe we may be oop post flop), & I will also demonstrate that the most profitable position
is in fact the Big Blind. (not the "Button" as many believe.) because it is the only position pre-flop when we can put our hand up against actual & not random ranges.


The following is a simple example created to demonstrate game theory at a basic level.

You have one opponent, you each select a number at random from 1-100. The highest number wins.
You are forced to act first but you have the option of choosing if you want to play against him or not.
What random numbers should you should choose to go up against him with?
Well the answer is obviously very simple any time you have a number above 51 you should elect to play because against a random hand you will win more than 50% of the time.


Simple enough?

Good, welll it turns out if you are playing the same game with two random opponents left to act you should enter the pot with any number above 67*.

Nx100/(N+1) where N is the number of opponents.

The reason is that you will still have a 50% chance of having a better hand than either of the two opponents.

(Against 3 opponents you need a number >75, against 4 > 20 & against 5 > 16.66)

How does this relate to poker?

Well if you are able to read between the lines you will see that this game theory/probabilty example gives us the
mathematically perfect base from which to consider raising a hand in an un-opened pot based on position!

ie. If everyone has folded & we are in the sb we can raise any hand in the top 50% of all hands because against a random range (the big blind) we are a 50%+ chance of having a better hand. If we are on the button we can raise with any hand in top 33% of all hands (this is equal to a number above 67/100 in the game theory example.) & so on...

Position based raising ranges in un-opened pot based on game theory/probability ...

Small Blind: 50%
The Button: 33%
The Cut-Off: 25%
UTG+1: 20%
UTG: 16.7%

Now to test this theory I went back to the chart http://www.flopturnriver.com/Holdem-...-6-Players.php
to see if these % of hands were in fact in line with the +ev threshold, (where a hand becomes profitable on avg.) from each position.
(bear in mind again anything above - 0.25 in the small blind is actually profit.)

Position based raising ranges in un-opened pot based on ev...

Small Blind: 49% (50%)
The Button: 27% (33%)
The Cut-Off: 22% (25%)
UTG+1: 18% (20%)
UTG: 15% (16.7%)

Aren't these surprisingly similiar?
Do you see now that this is the reason (how our hand fares against random ranges) that we can play more & more hands
profitably as we move forward from UTG (not because we will have better position post flop.) - This is the huge misconception!


Anyway, I dont think anyone will agree with this nor should you, just putting this out there for a day or so. You can't say I didnt tell you.

Originally Posted by noble007

Do you see now that this is the reason (how our hand fares against random ranges) that we can play more & more hands
profitably as we move forward from UTG (not because we will have better position post flop.) - This is the huge misconception!

No, assuming normal stack play the main reason is position.

Position is important for postflop play, so if we have a deep stack its a more important factor then if we have a shortstack. If we have 10BB stack postflop matter less then if we have a 100BB stack. So position would matter less and relative hand strength more.

Any form of capped betting reduce the position factor so while game teory is fine the faqt is that the hand does not end there and you hafto factor in postflop play. In NL more potential money goes into the pot postflop compared to limit, once again stack size comes into play here but in general position is a bigger factor is NL.

Noble007,

There's nothing to disagree with, you have sound logic and your points are actually great. They may not be the most important points and not very necessary, as Sauce always tell me you don't need to reinvent the wheel, but its always good to explore all concepts.

So there is no confusion, I was not aware that we where talking about all positions and not only utg+otb. I think you could add that the position factor increase the closer the button we get.

It's the reason most people dont have a linear raising range. (I hope I got that right.)

Even if it's a general thing that most people understand, it dont hurt to look over things and why we do what we do.

Ok , Lukie do you agree that

- if you folded every single hand in the sb
your ev would be - 0.25 (the cost of posting the small blind)

Yes.

-if you folded every hand utg it would 0.00
(you never played a hand & there are no forced blinds.)

Yes. This reminds me of Fnord's old saying and common poker axiom that goes something like this: in a game without antes, the first person to open without aces is a fool.

So when it actually shows say - .16 in the sb can you see that you are making 0.09 bb/hand or 9bb/100 more in that position than had you folded every hand?

First of all it would be "making" $.09 per hand. My thoughts are though, and the universally accepted thoughts are that you are still losing money in the position. I'm not sure how you are 'making' money though. The SB and BB are forced bets. You are always going to be expected to lose money in these positions (except maybe if you practice absolutely phenominal game selection).

so I am simply removing/averaging out the cost of the blinds to enable a comparison of profitability between positions.

I've never seen this done anywhere but this thread to be honest. It doesn't make much sense to me, although I do understand what you are trying to do.

b) " I think you overestimate how often people fold around to the BB."

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Holdem-...-6-Players.php

Maybe but on this poker hand chart I referenced below, the worst hands converged at -.25bb (the cost of blind) in the sb but they converged at about -.36 in the bb (where it should be - 0.5 if the hands are rarely/never played but the -.36 indicates sometimes the blinds are folded to them for a positive effect of +- 0.14bb per hand)

this may be slightly innacurate but if i have over-estimated the number it only means I make even more legitimate ev in the bb then I previously thought.

head asplode

simple question, in a typical 6-handed game, what % of the time do you expect any given hand to fold to the BB?

Ok , Lukie do you agree that

- if you folded every single hand in the sb
your ev would be - 0.25 (the cost of posting the small blind)

-if you folded every hand utg it would 0.00
(you never played a hand & there are no forced blinds.)

also, by your logic, these numbers cannot be correct. (They are, but you can't get to them if you are averaging out the cost of blinds throughout all positions).

Originally Posted by Lukie

simple question, in a typical 6-handed game, what % of the time do you expect any given hand to fold to the BB?

A little over 11% of the time, or about once every 10x you're in the big blind the blinds will be folded to you.
(more or less according to that poker ev chart but that might not be accurate.)

explanation: (If we're in the bb 10x in a row & got the blinds folded to us once in this time)
9x -0.5 (cost of posting bb) +1x0.75 (sb&bb you get to keep when blinds are folding to you) = -3.75
-3.75/10 (amount of x we were in the bb in above equation) = -0.37)

(-0.36 is the number the worst hands converge at in the bb on the poker ev chart when they should be at -0.5 if the blinds were never folded to you)

Originally Posted by Lukie

So when it actually shows say - .16 in the sb can you see that you are making 0.09 bb/hand or 9bb/100 more in that position than had you folded every hand?

First of all it would be "making" $.09 per hand. My thoughts are though, and the universally accepted thoughts are that you are still losing money in the position. I'm not sure how you are 'making' money though. The SB and BB are forced bets. You are always going to be expected to lose money in these positions (except maybe if you practice absolutely phenominal game selection).

Yes Lukie, you are always going to be expected to lose money in the blinds.

I'm not sure how else to explain the concept that -
Anything you lose less in the sb than you are expected to (-0.25) is actually profit you've gained from that position.

(& that you can then take this "profit" and compare it to other positions like utg to determine if its more profitable to act near last pre-flop(adv) and 1st post (disadv) -sb or 1st pre-flop (disadv)and sometimes have position post (adv) - (utg))