Playing against 7xBB standard raises

[Kilgore_Trout]

Hi all,

Was playing 50p/£1 cash tables at DTD over the weekend. On one table one player always opened for £7. That then became the standard raise round the whole table for the rest of the eveing. Even then most pots were 3 or 4 to the flop so like £20 - £30 in the pot pre flop most hands which is big for 50p/£1.

So whats the right way to play against this?

Usually I would flat call with hands like   for a £3 raise but as i usually sit down with £100 thats  7% of my stack when its £7 to call each time. Miss a few flops and thats too expensive I reckon.

So, should I tighten up my range, avoid flat calling, and just 3 bet with big pocket pairs and like AQ and AK?

How would you play a £100 stack here?

Cheers

[pokerfan]

Sit deeper.

[outragous76]

Sit deeper.

Yeah, came to post that

[EvilPie]

Sit deeper.

Or move to another table.

Alternatively just nit it up, sit and wait for AQ+ 99+ and limp / jam over the raisers.

[Kilgore_Trout]

OK so say I sit £200 deep instead of £100 would you still suggest flat calling with hands like  for £7 when it goes something like raise, call, call?

Also should I start opening for £7 myself?

I was the only one still opening for £3 with hands such as AQ from early/middle position but getting like 4 callers with all sorts of garbage. Its really had to play that post flop (for me anyway) from out of position unless I hit the flop pretty hard.

[muckthenuts]

By the sounds of it you should be playing tight, and see flops with hands like JTs when you can do so cheaply

[kinboshi]

When the bets are so large in terms of the blinds, I think that position becomes a lot more important.  You definitely don't want to be playing marginal hands in iinflated pots OOP.

[SuuPRlim]

you need big cards basically.

you want AJ when someone has A9 and so on, stacks are perfect for you to be able to stack off wide-ish for value on lots of boards, so be very careful to avoid REVERSE IMPLIED ODDS situations where a marginal/bad call preflop leads to you making further large mistakes post flop.

If you are comfortable sitting with £300 you can loosen up, but this increases your variance somewhat, nothing wrong with just playing super TAG and looking for hands to outflop people with, which is ideal if there is £3 in the middle and £90 back in stacks, easy to get all in.

[Honeybadger]

^^ Dave summed it up perfectly. You simply have to play tighter vs a large sized open raise.

Also... start opening to a bigger size yourself. There is no reason at all to think that 3x should be your standard raise size with AQ from MP. If they will call 5x with bad hands, make it 5x. If they will call 15x, make it 15x. You should stop even thinking in terms of having a 'standard raise size' when playing live. Use your skills and feel to get a sense for what the best raise size is at that particular moment, don't be constrained by what you feel are the standard sizings.

[zerofive]

^^ Dave summed it up perfectly. You simply have to play tighter vs a large sized open raise.

Also... start opening to a bigger size yourself. There is no reason at all to think that 3x should be your standard raise size with AQ from MP. If they will call 5x with bad hands, make it 5x. If they will call 15x, make it 15x. You should stop even thinking in terms of having a 'standard raise size' when playing live. Use your skills and feel to get a sense for what the best raise size is at that particular moment, don't be constrained by what you feel are the standard sizings.

Very much this. I remember reading something like this in a book on 6-max holdem called "Let There Be Range." It reads something like, "against solid regs, balance is important. Opening 3x with your marginal holdings and 5x with your strong holdings is easily exploitable. Against the fish, you should raise your value hands bigger and bigger until you find their fold threshold and get ready to win a big pot."

kinboshi only came here to state the obvious, but it's worth underlining.

I don't know what your ideal calling range is, but if the table is opening 7bb and calling a bunch, then this is a pretty perfect scenario for a 3bet/cbet shove line with your big hands.