Pre flop aggression

[aslowjoe]

I am trying hard to get my pre flop aggression up but some of the hands you guys recommend raising with I don't quite understand the theory please explain.

UTG A8s-A9S QJs JTs 77 wouldn't these hands pay off better multiway. By raising aren't you only going to callers that hands dominate you.To me these hands are of most benefit in brining down a large multiway pot when hitting a flush, str8
or a set rather then playing somebody HU.

MP same hands 50/50

CO and button I understand

Thnks for you input
Joe

[Blake Lovely]

UTG I fold all of these. Unless the game has been extremely loose passive.
Late position, ie button and cut off I can see raising a-8, a9 suited in the right spots.

If you are a pokertracker user, your preflop agression will be much less than your postflop agression. That is normal, and dont worry about increasing it.

You can also increase your aggressiveness on pokertracker by calling less.the formula is (bet% + raise%)/call %
Ie. fold all the hands you mentioned plus a-10, aj even AQ when someone raises.

[kiddo]

[ QUOTE ]
UTG A8s-A9S QJs JTs 77 wouldn't these hands pay off better multiway. By raising aren't you only going to callers that hands dominate you.To me these hands are of most benefit in brining down a large multiway pot when hitting a flush, str8.
or a set rather then playing somebody HU.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is all true and if your raise from UTG never makes u by the button u should think about not raising QJs, JTs and 66, maybe also 77. Also, if a lot of people are always coming in if you only call, you should probably call with theses hands.

But problem is that this only happens at very loose-passive tables and I am not sure there are so many very loose-passive tables SH?

The benefits of raising are:

1) You will sometimes win the pot without flop.

2) You will sometimes by the button, playing against blinds in last position.

3) Hands that loose players would have taken to showdown and which there would have won over you if u dont hit, like Axo and smalll pairs, are now (sometimes) forced to fold preflop.

4) The blinds are not coming in with any2, making it easier to guess what they have and making them fold there K6o if they dont hit flop.

5) If noone is hit on flop, the preflopraiser will sometimes win the pot with a bet.

6) If you are limping with your worst hands good players will start to raise you a lot when you limp. The only solution to this is starting to limp with really good hands and that is not a winning style SH. A good SHplayer plays in a way that disguise his hand, he bets flop with both draws and full housese, making it hard to read him. Never limp first in preflop is a way of disguising your hand, they dont know if they are calling JTs or AA. A player raising JTs UTG will win more then 1 limping because if u raise it will "borrow" some of the strenght from other hands you normally raise with (hope this is understandable in english, im from sweden).

There are more reasons but this are some.

About domination: Its not such a big problem SH, because more often you will be alone with your pair and a hand like 77 or JTs is not often dominated by another hand if u raise preflop (domination means you only got 3 outs, like AQ against AK. AK against JT is not domination, because your 6 outs are clean).

[aslowjoe]

This is all true and if your raise from UTG never makes u by the button u should think about not raising QJs, JTs and 66, maybe also 77. Also, if a lot of people are always coming in if you only call, you should probably call with theses hands.

But problem is that this only happens at very loose-passive tables and I am not sure there are so many very loose-passive tables SH?

The benefits of raising are:

1) You will sometimes win the pot without flop.

2) You will sometimes by the button, playing against blinds in last position.

I see the the benefits of 1 and 2 but just as much you will facing another caller or raiser behind more then you buy the blinds or the button.

3) Hands that loose players would have taken to showdown and which there would have won over you if u dont hit, like Axo and smalll pairs, are now (sometimes) forced to fold preflop.

aren't those the players you want in . Doesn't the poker therom state that anytime your a player calls incorrectly you are gaining money. So on the spec hands don't you want JT Q9 off coming along.

4) The blinds are not coming in with any2, making it easier to guess what they have and making them fold there K6o if they dont hit flop.

agreed

5) If noone is hit on flop, the preflopraiser will sometimes win the pot with a bet.

agreed

6) If you are limping with your worst hands good players will start to raise you a lot when you limp. The only solution to this is starting to limp with really good hands and that is not a winning style SH. A good SHplayer plays in a way that disguise his hand, he bets flop with both draws and full housese, making it hard to read him. Never limp first in preflop is a way of disguising your hand, they dont know if they are calling JTs or AA. A player raising JTs UTG will win more then 1 limping because if u raise it will "borrow" some of the strenght from other hands you normally raise with (hope this is understandable in english, im from sweden).

agreed

I do understand all those reasons. But the slim edge on a small pot or raking in a big pot because JT caught part of the flop and is staying in to the end. That is the balance that I am trying to justify to myself.

About domination: Its not such a big problem SH, because more often you will be alone with your pair and a hand like 77 or JTs is not often dominated by another hand if u raise preflop (domination means you only got 3 outs, like AQ against AK. AK against JT is not domination, because your 6 outs are clean).

[/ QUOTE ]

I meant specificaly A8s A9s. Sorry that I did not make that clear.

My pre flop raise is 8.8% These are the hands that seem to be need to raise to get over 10.
I hope the use of quotes work. I have never used them before

[aslowjoe]

I guess I need a tutorial on how to use quotes.

[kiddo]

Ok if u understand all this I can only say that I raise JTs and Axs from UTG (I fold lower Axs if it is a bit tight-aggressive, but its not very often) and I win with them all. JTs is a big winner, and all Axs are winners except A2s, a marginal loser. This is 5/10 and 10/20 and I only looked at 85K hands, I didnt have patience looking at them all (takes long for PokerT), but I looked at it before and they are longterm winners, at least for me. (I fold A9o UTG, suited is good)

Using quote is easy. Click on qoute and paste between "quote" and "/quote".

[joker122]

it's the simple matter of lowering your starting hand requirements as the number of players in a game decrease. as the numbers of players decrease, any hand goes up in value. it really all stems from the "struggle for the blinds" which DS explains is what poker is, at it's core, in TOP.

looking at an extreme example....if you're playing HU or even 3 handed, are you still folding 66 or JQs just because they do better multiway? of course not.

[Gazza]

I raise all the hands you mentioned first in from any position and over limpers (except in blinds). I usually fold them all to raise in front. It seems to work. Here are my PT stats (50K hands in total)

A9s 0.57
A8s 0.63
A7s 0.58 (i play it the same way)
QJs 0.68
JTs 0.48
77 is the black sheep of the family at 0.09 but that is brilliant compared to where it was after 30K hands (my biggest loser)

And nice summary Kiddo even if Joe knew it all already
I'll just add that raising some of these hands may actually solve some domination problems. What a great result it is to raise with A7s and get AT or A9 to fold

Gazza

[aslowjoe]

Thanks for all your help. Mostly I am just a lurker in the SH forum but since I have been reading the SH forum my results have improved tremendously. I have went from a slight loser SH to a good consistent winner. I am still trying to sew up some loose ends. (probably more then a few)
My Axs is a slight loser to break even. So I know that I am wrong about raising not raising these hands. Also not enough hands to get a great estimation only about 8000 hands
but Gaaz's 50,000 hands win rate is compelling.

Another question. Is there any hands that should be limped in first?

[girgy44]

[ QUOTE ]
fold all the hands you mentioned plus a-10, aj even AQ when someone raises.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fold AQ to a bet??? I 3-bet that w/o thinking. Same with AJs.

[Rounder041]

I agree with you girgy, Im in there raising, taking control, not to mention it is very likely I have the best hand.