Am I a dinosaur?

[Nakamura]

I notice that many regulars tend to raise only 2.5 - 3xBB at the 10/20 level on Stars. I still bet 4x at the 10/20 level, because my raising range used to be very tight, so it made it easier to get all the money into the pot by the river.

My raising range is more balanced now and I don't open-limp with PPs any more. Given that I'm opening more pots now, with weaker hands in general, do I need to adapt and only raise 3 or 3.5x?

[dneureiter]

Alot of good players open to 3.5-4x in early and mid position at 10/20 and 15/30. Your range is still fairly tight there and you are mainly opening with value hands.

[RiverMonster]

I am raising 3.5 throughout unless I drop below 10bb. Then push fold. Not sure if its in my head or villains but that extra .5 bet seems to isolate much better than the standard 3bet.

I only play the top 5 hands early + open limp pp's in late pos. I am in a debate with myself as to whether or not open limping pp's is +EV for me. I seem to forget the no set no bet rule on a low board and get crushed when Mr. Donk can't get away from his A7 and catches his A.

I am convinced that this game is won on our ability to out play most in the latter stages. I am playing FT 5.50s and because of my super tight play early I usually get to the last 4 or 5 with around 1000 chips but the end results have been good due to my push/fold game.

Side note: I have been adding a few 11's on FT (I am rolled but scared) and the above strategy had been working well at this level also.

Your thoughts on open limping pp's. Why did you quit?

[RiverMonster]

Has been working well.

[Nakamura]

Your thoughts on open limping pp's. Why did you quit?

Ask yourself which hands are you open limping? Smart opponents will realise that you are only open limping PP and will iso-raise, c-bet the flop.

I know because I do this all the time to regs I have a read on. A surprising number still open-limp and call raises against players who are simply not going to pay them off.

My cards don't really matter, but I like to pick cards with some value to them. When they call or raise on the flop I'll likely go bust with AA, KK or QQ, but I can safely fold most of my other hands.

If you are going to go down the limping route you need to throw hands other than PPs in there for deception and to balance your limping range. Limping just PPs is way unbalanced and very exploitable.

Raising PPs allow you win the pot uncontested, hit well disguised sets i.e. more likely to get paid, and we can rep cards on the flop and win with a c-bet.

[drmcboy]

I do 3x while the table average is over 50BBs and then switch to 2.5 somewhere after that. I'm playing MTTs with 3k stacks to start so it's maybe not a great comparison.

I differentiate because at 50+BBs I'm never raising to steal - I'm raising because I have a hand I want to play. So I want someone to call and I want the pot to be larger. Once stacks are smaller and antes kick in more of my raises will be steals that I want to be as cheap as possible. Same with c-bets.

It's worth experimenting just because it is easy to get into pre flop habits and then see those plays as 'correct' - I used to 4x early and 3x later and was really surprised how little difference there is between 2.5 and 3. But as long as you're thinking about the reasons for raising/sizing and have good answers that's the important thing.