Early Position VPIP

[Lodogg]

I was wondering what everyones thoughts and/or statistics are for EP VPIP (First 3 seats)?

Thanks!

[AHiltz]

Over 1100 hands at Prima 50NL I am 26.42/8.63/2.83 at full ring.
The first 3 seats are 10.91, 11.43, and 16.38. The cutoff and button are 31.5 and 31.62.

[GatorJH]

Just under 600 hands at Stars I am at 19%, 22% and 12% for seats 1-3 and positive winnings for all three.

[Lukie]

Really low. If you are talking about full ring, there's no way you should be in the double digits in these seats.

[Lodogg]

Yes full ring...I forgot to add that. Right now I run at about 12% average in the EP (mainly because I will play PP UTG along with the big hands.) Lukie, do you not play low PP in EP?

[Lukie]

It really depends on the table dynamics and such. I'm definately open-folding more pp now then I ever have. To be honest this is probably one of the biggest gray areas in my game.. depending on the situation, sometimes i limp them, sometimes i raise them, and sometimes i just muck them. On a solid, full table though, the small pairs are really shitty hands from early position IMO, and I'm sure much of FTR will disagree with me. Especially if there's a decent player or two at the table that will play back at you preflop or postflop. Even still I'll play them if there's reason to.

Common advice around here has always been to limp them in early position and call most raises with them. But it's like, vs a good opponent, how transparent is this? You are at such a disadvantage in a spot like this being OOP, not being the agressor, and with a hand that you have to muck almost 8 out of 9 times because you don't flop shit. And even if the guy has something as strong as say, AK, and will stack off with a hand as weak as TPTK, which any solid player WON'T in this situation, a lot of shit has to go right for it to work. People talk about the 7.5:1 against hitting a set, but ignore that the other person has to hit a worthwhile hand to keep playing. My math is a bit fuzzy here, but AK only hits a hand around 1 in 3 times, and with a card gone, a pair is going to set up like 1 in 12 times... do the math. I still limp them on donkish tables though, but as I move up, the donks get smarter and more agressive which is a bad thing.

Sometimes I'll go Fnord style and raise the small pairs from EP, but this is really a power play and you are really banking on players folding preflop or postflop to a c-bet when you miss, and of course very favorable implied odds situations when you hit a well discuised monster (set on rag board when you raise from EP). But even then, to get any significant action, the other guy has to be able to beat an overpair, so yeah.

Everything = so situation dependant. The end.

[AHiltz]

Sometimes I'll go Fnord style and raise the small pairs from EP

which I also do, thus the double digit ep #'s from Prima. There are a lot of weak/tights there.

[Lukie]

Weak/tights are fun to play against, but when you start running into players who will 3-bet you pf more liberally and/or play back at your c-bets with any level of consistency, then these situations just suck.

[Renton]

my vpip UTG is 10% Basically pairs and AQ+.

In the first three seats I usually play pairs 22-88 to a mix of 50% raises 25% open limp and 25% mucks.

I am finally playing at a level with positionally aware players, so I feel that increasing my raising range in all positions makes it much harder to be read. It also increases the chances of me getting action if I wake up with a hand OOP.

Also, I will get paid off HUGE when I flop a set against aware players.

If I raise 44 utg, and a strong player in position cold calls me, a lot of times they will have a hand like JJ+ and the flop will come 4-2-7 and I will win a big pot.

I think I get a lot of value from my small pairs when I play them this way.

[GatorJH]

I think the key here is your awareness and ability to play these hands post flop. I have really opened up my starting requirements (similar to yours Renton), but really try to mix up how I play them post flop.

I have been much more successful once I came to the conclusion that TPMK isn't a golden hand (just kidding, but you get the point).