I think I need to raise my VpIp...but with what?

[lil feller]

I have a reasonable sized Party 10/20 and 15/30 DB (about 150k hands...) and I think my VPIP might be a little low...

Its about 15%, and my winrate is 2.2bb/100 (I know 100k is terribly accurate for winrate, but I'm pretty sure i'm a winning player). I feel I play pretty well post flop, well enough to add some hands to my range.

Any generaly input, or any additional information I need to give? Thanks in advance for any help.

lf

[tolbiny]

The simplest advice is to start by adding hands in position.

[Baulucky]

[ QUOTE ]
Any generaly input, or any additional information I need to give? Thanks in advance for any help.

[/ QUOTE ]

Play more tables and more hands per hour. You are doing just fine. I'm tighter.

[helpmeout]

Play some 10/20 6max you'll soon learn how to play a bit looser and more aggressive.

Dont be too concerned though your winrate is very solid.

[mmcd]

Look for more situations to play, don't think of it in terms of adding this hand in this position or that hand in that position.

Some examples:
Blind defense against a habitual stealer, donk, or just plain weak player.

In LP after a single bad limper.

CO/Button after multiple limpers (or even a raise and multiple cold-callers).

Just at look at different situations as they come up and try to decide which hands you think you can play profitably.

[Senor Choppy]

Cold-call more often with small pocket pairs and defend more liberally in the bb.

[brick]

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

[flub]

Don't change anything. You're more likely to mess something up then make something better. Also you need to seperate your 10/20 from your 15/30 VPIP. With the different blinds your 15/30 will probably be higher.

That's a great bb/100 and 150k hands is a bigger sample size then a lot of people are giving it credit for lately. Also consider most of the advice you are getting here is from people with a lower bb/100 then yours.

Your bb/100 is after 150k hands right? It's not clear from your post. Did you mean to say "100k is" instead of "150 isn't"?

-flub

[lil feller]

[ QUOTE ]
Some examples:
Blind defense against a habitual stealer, donk, or just plain weak player.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is one i'm weak at. I hate playing out of position, with marginal holdings, against maniacal steelers. I generally feel anything worth 3 betting (which I assume is what you mean by defending) is worth taking to showdown. Am I off base here?

[ QUOTE ]
In LP after a single bad limper.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll raise any 2 broadway cards and any Ace in this situation. I usually limp with medium suited cards (T9, etc), hoping to get more players.

[ QUOTE ]
CO/Button after multiple limpers (or even a raise and multiple cold-callers).

[/ QUOTE ]

How many cold callers/limpers do you need before J9 is profitable, what about 57s or 89o...?

thanks for the good post /images/graemlins/smile.gif

lf

[lil feller]

[ QUOTE ]
Cold-call more often with small pocket pairs and defend more liberally in the bb

[/ QUOTE ]

how many players do you need to cold/call with small PP. I hardly ever limp in EP with pairs 77 or smaller, is that too snug? Depending on the game I'll open raise 88-TT, or sometimes I'll limp. I almost always raise w/ JJ or better from anywhere (unless I'm folding JJ pre-flop, which happens, but rarely.).

lf

[lil feller]

[ QUOTE ]
If it ain't broke don't fix it

[/ QUOTE ]

I wish I accept that, but, alas, I cannot. I don't just play to win, I play to win as much as I can. If I can improve my score by handling some situations differently, I think I should do that. all the great minds here can certainly help point me in the right direction.

Haven't seen you around, where've ya been?

lf

[lil feller]

oops, its 150k for both sorry.

lf

[brick]

Tulalip is far. F..A..R

[lil feller]

Good, stay out of my games /images/graemlins/smile.gif

j/k, of course.

lf

[TStoneMBD]

play T8o from UTG1 and UTG2. its the new tech and will alter your winrate by about .2BB/100.

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]
how many players do you need to cold/call with small PP.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll always cold-call with a raiser and 2 others. Depending on how early you are and how many more are likely to come in behind you, 2 total opponents is probably enough.

[ QUOTE ]
I hardly ever limp in EP with pairs 77 or smaller, is that too snug? Depending on the game I'll open raise 88-TT, or sometimes I'll limp. I almost always raise w/ JJ or better from anywhere (unless I'm folding JJ pre-flop, which happens, but rarely.).

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll open early with 77 and up. I don't think it matters if you play 66 or 88, it's not going to affect your VP$IP in any significant way.

What's your fold the bb to a steal number?

[lil feller]

[ QUOTE ]
What's your fold the bb to a steal number?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm really not too clear on exactly what this number means, but...

Its about 85%...I'm guessing thats a little high...

lf

[lil feller]

[ QUOTE ]

play T8o from UTG1 and UTG2. its the new tech and will alter your winrate by about .2BB/100.

[/ QUOTE ]

What did I Do to deserver this?...

lf

[worm33]

i just had an online opponent tell me my vpip was 54%. He told me i should try playing less hands. And he always comes to my table. I dont have pokertracker, maybe i should get it so i can get that down to about 48 or so.

[lil feller]

[ QUOTE ]
i just had an online opponent tell me my vpip was 54%. He told me i should try playing less hands. And he always comes to my table. I dont have pokertracker, maybe i should get it so i can get that down to about 48 or so.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its good to have goals...


lf

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What's your fold the bb to a steal number?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm really not too clear on exactly what this number means, but...

Its about 85%...I'm guessing thats a little high...

lf

[/ QUOTE ]

It's how often you fold when someone open-raises from the button, the CO, and maybe the CO+1, but basically when it looks like someone is stealing in LP.

I think your VP$IP would be fairly normal if you started defending more. I'm at 55% lately. I used to be around 65% (at what I thought was as tight as you could be in those situations).

85% is really exploitable. Even if people aren't raising you with any 2, you're still giving up too much against thieves. If I saw someone that tight in the blinds when on the button, I'd probably raise without a hand knowing that I'm +EV by a mile even not being able to win a showdown.

[lil feller]

So what are you standards in the BB? This sounds like an area I could improve on.

lf

[elindauer]

Well, there's the smartass response, and it goes something like this:

If you don't know what hands would play well postflop, you aren't as good postflop as you think.

Then there's the sincere helpful answer, which goes like this:

Look for opportunities to get involved with weaker cards from the blinds. Lots of tight players throw away profitable opportunities because they aren't sensitive enough to the odds they are getting in these spots.

Then there's the true answer:

It's very hard to help you unless you tell us what hands you are playing where.


Good luck.
Eric

[anatta]

I think a very tight style can be part of a winning style playing multitable PP 15-30. I wouldn't just add hands, like today I am raising KQo UTG like Peter Rus says, and I am playing AXs and any pair UTG like Dynasty does...

Be more like Roy Cooke, who always talks about situations in preflop decisions. "It depends" and such. (not to say Peter and Dynasty don't play situations) However, if you are multitabling and only have the gametime table and individual stats and not much more, than you are limited in the situations you can play because your knowledge of opponents precise post flop tendancies will be limited, so your moves or plays must be lessened.

In that case there is something to be said for just keeping it simple and playing tight. The profit comes from those two guys, you know the 48/6 and the 55/39. Plus the other 15 who plays like a girl.

[lil feller]

Senor choppy pointed out that I'm way to tight in defending my BB from a steal. I'm hypersensitive to position, and struggle seeing the profit in defending with something like KTo, only to be forced to play out of position the whole hand, against somebody who will take shots at me regardless of my holding. I might try getting a little more defensive of my blinds.

lf

and I know I play well post flop, but thanks.

[Senor Choppy]

Unlike preflop, where I play almost robotically, I don't have any set standards for the blinds.

I think the easiest way to improve is to start adding hands a notch below what you'd normally call with, (ie, if you'd call with QTo and above in a certain situation, call with Q9o or Q8o). It doesn't require any kind of grand rethinking of your game, and will slowly get you where you need to be.

Or you can just do what I did and do a complete 180 one day and start defending with any 2 cards that are both above a 7.

[lil feller]

[ QUOTE ]
if you'd call with QTo

[/ QUOTE ]

This is an auto-muck to an LP raiser.

You see, I play well post flop when I get to dictate the action, especially in position (to which I am hyper sensitive). But if I call with a hand like QTo, I have no idea what to do if I don't flop anything. Should I just give up? Try to push an aggressive stealer off a potentially better hand? I real struggle with playing hands like this out of position, and I don't play drawing type hands because the pot is destined to be too small.

Maybe I'll try defending with some more "marginal" hands, but any suggestions on post flop strategy in these situations?

lf

[tomahawk]

I don't play much 10-handed, but when I do I use the same blind-attack/defence as I have in my normal 4-5 handed 10/20 game. Seems to work pretty well.

This includes threebetting both KTo and QTo to a button openraiser if the SB folds. I believe gonores wrote this strategy once in his quest, and I love it for several reasons.

It makes people nervous about raising you after a while (of course when this happens you have to adjust your threebetting standards).

You get the initiative in a lot of HU hands where noone hits and the most passive player is forced to fold the flop or turn. (betting with KTo to push someone out feels a hell of a lot better than calling with it to see if they can beat king high)

You get paid off a lot more on your big pairs and big aces. This, for some reason, seem to be true also when you're not defending anything, as people start trusting you less overall.

Lastly, it is a lot more fun. You get to play poker, size up your opponent, shift your strategies as they do, and try to outplay them. I guess I'm a shorthanded player at heart, but once those first 5-6 people fold in a full-ring game, it would be foolish not to play the hand like it was a SH game IMO.

Tomahawk

[Senor Choppy]

If you're folding QTo to a button raise, what are you playing?

I think you're worried too much about having control. Don't worry about being out of position, if you're dominated, etc. There's $55 in the pot, and it only costs you $15 more to call with a decent hand and only 1 opponent. You don't have to hit a huge hand here, you don't need to steal pots very often, just see the flop and continue if you hit something.

As far as a strategy with this hand online, if you hit a pair check-raise the flop and bet the entire way, then reevaluate.

This obviously isn't ideal blind play, but playing QTo in a very straight forward way vs. a steal has got to be better than throwing it away. I think it's +EV to play it on an individual basis, and it definitely improves future EV by making you less of a target.

[DeeJ]

You don't defend with KT ?! I steal with Q9 /images/graemlins/smile.gif