Opening size: live preflop cash game 1/2

[rfgqqabc]

So the local cash game to me has become a fairly large 1/2 table. Regs buy in for about 400 and rec players anything from 50-500 with a bit of polarisation.

Say we are 9 handed, the table has 3 regs, 450 eff with most of the table. What should our open size be?

I tried 7 moving to 10 after one limper and going up from there. At the moment, I've made my default 10 and will use any excuse to make it 15 if the night calls for it.

I've also tightened up some, does this backup my preflop sizings? Opens to 10 get folds from some of the regs, isoing and make it more expensive to 3bet without it, meaning I make life easy by folding a lot. Does this make sense? Complete gibberish? I feel like it works for me and I've seen others have similar ideas at festivals etc but not sure if its as conscious a process as mine.

Is making it 15/20 pre a step too far? Just judgement call ingame?

[Pugwashed]

I've also tightened up some, does this backup my preflop sizings?

The smaller you're opening the wider you can be opening so switching to a larger sizing preflop should involve tightening up slightly as well.

The sizing that is best and the range you're opening is gonna depend so much on your position (opening smaller in late position (this mainly a function of people having wider ranges and being less concerned about having to play pots oop with a deeper SPR)), the stacks behind and the players behind (do they call a lot and fold infrequently? do they 3bet a lot and call infrequently? do they just fold a lot?)

It's difficult to just pick a number and say thats what you should be opening to. I'm guessing 15-20 is too big in almost all situations. There are probably a lot of people with much more experience playing live cash that could give better answers.

[SuuPRlim]

yes +1 pug the tighter you open the more you should open to as you have stronger range and therefore get 3bet less.

With really aggro regs behind you your best strategy is going to be to open tighter and bigger, providing the stacks are deep you could defo build some limps in if there are going berserk aswell, its true that once you limp pre-flop you never have a sick starting hand but 800 deep on  (for eg) having a good starting hand doesn't make a huge difference

Basically though it's live poker, have a look around if seat 3 is sat upright clutching onto his cards and holding his chips and you find the kings make it £25, if you have 68s and just wanna take iniative make it £8. bet big with big hands, medium with medium hands and small with bad hands and you'll never go too far wrong in live cash games.

[david3103]

yes +1 pug the tighter you open the more you should open to as you have stronger range and therefore get 3bet less.

With really aggro regs behind you your best strategy is going to be to open tighter and bigger, providing the stacks are deep you could defo build some limps in if there are going berserk aswell, its true that once you limp pre-flop you never have a sick starting hand but 800 deep on  (for eg) having a good starting hand doesn't make a huge difference

Basically though it's live poker, have a look around if seat 3 is sat upright clutching onto his cards and holding his chips and you find the kings make it £25, if you have 68s and just wanna take iniative make it £8. bet big with big hands, medium with medium hands and small with bad hands and you'll never go too far wrong in live cash games.

Obviously I'm not questioning any advice from LilDave, but I am confused now.

I thought we had to make our raise sizes consistent? If we make it £8 with  and £20 with  aren't we telling the other thinkers at the table what we have to some extent? I used to know the game that Adam is referencing and although it has changed a lot I think the regs are the same faces that drove me away (some are just too good for me) and I'm pretty sure they'll pick up on varied bet sizes and adjust.

[kinboshi]

I would tend to change my bet-sizing based on position, rather than hand-strength - but the two are actually related.  You're going to be tightening up and not opening with too many times from early position, so when you raise from EP you can raise a bit larger than you would from the button (and you'll usually have a good starting hand).  From the button you will be opening with a wider range, and that could include (as well as ). Also, from the button you can also open a lot larger if there are multiple limpers, to make it look like a squeeze and make any limp-callers pay to see the flop.

Of course, you can mix it up a bit if you think the other players are being observant, but it's probably not that important in most 1/2 live cash games.

[SuuPRlim]

I thought we had to make our raise sizes consistent? If we make it £8 with  and £20 with  aren't we telling the other thinkers at the table what we have to some extent? I used to know the game that Adam is referencing and although it has changed a lot I think the regs are the same faces that drove me away (some are just too good for me) and I'm pretty sure they'll pick up on varied bet sizes and adjust.

Yh you're abso right, if the majority of the table is going to notice what you're doing then you need to be balanced here. If not (which i'd say is the case in 95% of live games) then you go aahead and be as exploitative as you can get away with, cos obviously in a vacuum you show the most profit with AA by opening to as much as you can (within reason, opening to £300 prolly not gonna you far lol)

Having said this at 10/20 the ther night i opened to $220 UTG with 72o for absolutley no reason anyone can think of lol

[cambridgealex]

I thought we had to make our raise sizes consistent? If we make it £8 with  and £20 with  aren't we telling the other thinkers at the table what we have to some extent? I used to know the game that Adam is referencing and although it has changed a lot I think the regs are the same faces that drove me away (some are just too good for me) and I'm pretty sure they'll pick up on varied bet sizes and adjust.

Yh you're abso right, if the majority of the table is going to notice what you're doing then you need to be balanced here. If not (which i'd say is the case in 95% of live games) then you go aahead and be as exploitative as you can get away with, cos obviously in a vacuum you show the most profit with AA by opening to as much as you can (within reason, opening to £300 prolly not gonna you far lol)

Having said this at 10/20 the ther night i opened to $220 UTG with 72o for absolutley no reason anyone can think of lol

to show it and get given the "whale" label by everyone! #investmentsftw.

@david I think dave is saying that if our strategy is to play loose, then we can open to say £8 with all the hands we're raising, but if we're playing a tighter range, then we should open all our hands to more, say like £12 or £15.

[david3103]

I thought we had to make our raise sizes consistent? If we make it £8 with  and £20 with  aren't we telling the other thinkers at the table what we have to some extent? I used to know the game that Adam is referencing and although it has changed a lot I think the regs are the same faces that drove me away (some are just too good for me) and I'm pretty sure they'll pick up on varied bet sizes and adjust.

Yh you're abso right, if the majority of the table is going to notice what you're doing then you need to be balanced here. If not (which i'd say is the case in 95% of live games) then you go aahead and be as exploitative as you can get away with, cos obviously in a vacuum you show the most profit with AA by opening to as much as you can (within reason, opening to £300 prolly not gonna you far lol)

Having said this at 10/20 the ther night i opened to $220 UTG with 72o for absolutley no reason anyone can think of lol

to show it and get given the "whale" label by everyone! #investmentsftw.

@david I think dave is saying that if our strategy is to play loose, then we can open to say £8 with all the hands we're raising, but if we're playing a tighter range, then we should open all our hands to more, say like £12 or £15.

But again - I understand where my ability level is in comparison to others posting here and I'm trying to understand the concept we're debating, not questioning the advice.

LilDave didn't say to raise less if you're playing loose and more if you're playing tight, he said change your raise size according to hand strength. Just feels like that would be asking for trouble in a game with more than a couple of thinking regs.

Are we saying that, at an average live cash table, where you may never again play the same line up, having a range of raise sizes is best, but that on a table like the old DTD £1/£2 with Mitch, Alex, Stato, Keith plus four others you need to be raising the same for all your range?

[cambridgealex]

"
Are we saying that, at an average live cash table, where you may never again play the same line up, having a range of raise sizes is best, but that on a table like the old DTD £1/£2 with Mitch, Alex, Stato, Keith plus four others you need to be raising the same for all your range?"

I'd agree with this.

[cambridgealex]

Think Dave was saying both things tbh.

[david3103]

"
Are we saying that, at an average live cash table, where you may never again play the same line up, having a range of raise sizes is best, but that on a table like the old DTD £1/£2 with Mitch, Alex, Stato, Keith plus four others you need to be raising the same for all your range?"

I'd agree with this.

phew - this I understand

[rfgqqabc]

"
Are we saying that, at an average live cash table, where you may never again play the same line up, having a range of raise sizes is best, but that on a table like the old DTD £1/£2 with Mitch, Alex, Stato, Keith plus four others you need to be raising the same for all your range?"

I'd agree with this.

I think Daves right, and i do consciously make those decisions, but they tend to be small and unnoticeable. I'm 100% sure I open suubconsciously slightly bigger with big hands, but it doesnt really matter. How do people feel about going into games readless and making what may be a slightly larger raise than the table is used to.

For example, 1/2 Blackpool. A guy sat down about 10am, bought in for 1k, and started opening to 15. This completely changed the dynamic of the table.

So overall, people agree with dynamic sizing, and also agree tighter > bigger sizes.

[muckthenuts]

You really need to vary raise sizes based on position. I'd open to £12 in your game from EP to dissaude the domino effect that happens so often in live cash, then MP or LP only £7 or thereabouts is neccesary. Be consistent with them imo, you do need to be balanced in that way with 3 regs in the game.

[cambridgealex]

I know what you mean Adam. I've sat in some games this week with total unknowns and if I picked up aces the first hand I'd raise then I'd make it say 40 at 5/10 rather than 30 which would be my standard open size, or if in a comp you get moved to a new table and would normally open for 700 at 150/300 I'd go 800 if I picked up a big hand the first hand. Then of course you have to spend the rest of the level sticking with the same size lol.

[SuuPRlim]

LilDave didn't say to raise less if you're playing loose and more if you're playing tight

mmmm....that was actually the first thing I said in this thread!

yes +1 pug the tighter you open the more you should open to as you have stronger range and therefore get 3bet less.

Basically the point I was making was not a theoretical one, from a theoretical standpoint you should open to the same in most positions, for example when I play online I open to pot UTG/UTG1, pot or 3x from the HJ depending on the BTN (how aggro he is) and 3x on the button, I know a very good player who opens for min on the btn every time, this is the correct way to play I can't go around opening 4589ds UTG1 to 3x and potting when I have AKKQ as obviously smart people will pick up on this and start 3betting me everytime I just 3x (btw there is a reg in my games I've been playing with for the best part of 3 years and he does this and has never changed lol)

Thing is live poker is much, much more vacuum based, like the example I gave, supposing you're in a standard live poker game (2 other good regs, 4 guys not really doing much and 2 guys punting around) and you get dealt KK you look around and you see one of the weaker guys clutching his cards, grabbing chips etc this prolly means he's way more likely to have a hand he wants to get some money in the pot with, so you were going to open to £8 which is your stnd open, but this time you open to £15 cos you feel pretty sure he's going to be getting involved.

Now the two good players at the table prolly gonna see this and think, mmm wow that's different to normal, prolly has a good hand, but the rest of the table are almost guarenteed not to notice and the two guys you really wanna be playing pots with are very unlikely to care. If you had 77 here you prolly wouldn't do that as he could well have a better hand (be planning to 3bet) and you'd like the pot multi-way if possible.

Everyone saying you should vary your opening size based on position is defo right as well, but I really do think you can have a whole bunch of opening sizes that is influenced basically on the strength of your hand because in a standard £1/£2 live game literally no-one except the best regular players will be noticing enough to do anything about it and you make so much more money in the short term by being able to put more money in the pot from the offset with your better hands.

Even here in Vegas when I've played nl games I've done the same thing, UTG2  I get AK Im making it 5-7x and in the same spot with 67s im opening to 4x, throw in the odd switcheroo where you open AA to 3x one time and hope it gets shown down or a really bad hand really big etc but seriously everyone is playing on their phones, chatting the waitresses up, looking at food menu's if there's more than 1 (maybe 2) players at the table that are noticing this and capable of exploiting you then it's really not a very good live poker game.

This whole strategy does hinge on you being able to snap realise when someone is trying to exploit you and adjusting to a more mainstream strategy asap though, and like i said earlier this is not in the slightest the correct way to play theoretically is just a big exploitative adjustment taking advantage of a weakness a lot of people in live games have (not paying enough attention basically)