Results of a pet play

[obex]

I'm sure many if not most 2+2 players do this, but I'm curious if it remains profitable at the higher limits.

Whenever I'm in the BB, and everyone folds to the SB, who justs completes, I automatically raise with ANY 2 cards. I'll keep betting the hand unless I get raised and then adjust play according to the board and my read on the opponent. After 20K hands of 1/2 6max I looked at my tracker data. In order to examine if I should really be doing this play regardless of my cards, I filtered for only truly garbage hands (throwing out all Ax and Kx hands, all Group 1-8). With even these terrible cards, this play is worth 0.25 BB/hand.
I'm moved up to 5/10 6max now and am curious if this play will hold up. I imagine the scenario itself will come up less often as the play is more aggressive in general. Does anyone have data from higher limits for something like this?

[Vehn]

While this is fine in 2/3 chip blind games it is a poor idea in 1/2 games. I raise maybe 50% of the time in this situation. Reason being is that the other 50% that I check, I almost always take it down on the flop if the SB checks.

[Nick B.]

It isn't a play that I would make. Do you really do it with any two cards? Vehn is right that a bet after a sb check will usually win the pot. You state the win rate of .25bb for all the bad hands you do this with, but I think a win rate like that would be normal regardless because of the position you have against the sb.

I will raise a lot of marginal hands when the sb limps to me, but I won't raise any 2. I would be interested to see your win rate for true garbage like 32o and such.

[Nate tha' Great]

The play will work just fine as long as you're up against opponents who will let you get away with it. As you move up limits, that will become harder, as you'll come across opponents who will begin to trap with strong hands an/or limp-reraise, or at the very least, rope-a-dope you whenever they have a pair if you're willing to keep putting chips in with anything.

I also think that vehn makes a great point about the blind structures. At 10/15, it's a really nice advantage for the SB to be able to limp in with just about anything and hope that he hits the flop, and raising frequently provides a nice deterrant againts that.

[Bob L]

I think that this autoraise with any 2 cards from the bb can't be a winning strategy.I am trying to envision doing this headsup -which is pretty well the same thing.Generally speaking ,being more aggressive from the button (bb) is winning strategy.Many players I have played do what you do -autoraise from the button -and because they have position and are being aggressive are tough to beat.but anyone who has played alot of headsup knows that someone ALWAYS raising from the button with any 2 will eventually lose-and these players are consider fish -tougher to play than the weak tight players but fish nonetheless.These types are easy to adjust to and although if they start hitting cards -shortterm they are unbeatable-but when cards come close to evening out -they have no chance.Playing the style you refer to is only good against weak tight players.But if you continue playing this way ,even the weak tight will eventually adjust to you.And for me -I don't want weaktight players to change so I don't want to give them any reason to.I have usually played the 5-10 6 max tables for about a year now and I'm sure that most of the players there would be able to adjust to the strategy you talk about -and I don't recommend it.Just play tight aggressive against good players and you can loosen up and be aggressive against weaker tighter players.

PS -if we happen to cross paths -feel free to play this style with me and I will help you decide if its a winning strategy.

Good luck

[obex]

Interesting responses. A couple of points:
I don't do this over and over again at the same table, especially if there's been a showdown that reveals my bad cards. Obviously this isn't a good option when you are playing against opponents you see frequently, but that's not the case for me at the 1/2 tables. With the thousands of players playing these games, and the low likelihood that most of them are paying any attention, I don't really worry about someone seeing the pattern. I'm not overwhelmed at the 5/10 level that it will be much different so far. My data tells me that this scenario only occurs about 1% of the total hands played, so unless I stay at the same table for a long time it would be hard for someone to see a pattern without a showdown. And my data shows that a showdown only happens about 26% of the time with these hands. (Most of the time they fold before the flop or on the flop, or I fold when they raise me and the flop doesn't hit me.) Bob, I don't think heads up is analagous for the simple fact that Party is so diluted with players and the scenario comes up maybe once or twice an hour, it would take an attentive player to adjust. Obviously, heads up you can't auto-anything because your opponent will pick up the pattern and adjust.

Yes, Nick, I do play this way for ANY 2 cards. Let me be totally clear, the 0.25 BB/hand are for GARBAGE hands (just like 32o, which won 1.00 BB/h, n=3), specifically no king or ace, nothing in HPFAP Group 1-8, true trash hands that I doubt were profitable for me before I started - unfortunately I don't have any tracker data before I started playing like this. Perhaps I would have done better with these hands playing in a different manner. I'll admit, I don't have a control group for this experiment. But I was surprised that these trash hands were actually profitable under any conditions, even with position.
Perhaps someone out there can filter their own data for these trash hands and show me something better. It would be difficult though, because I don't think the pokertracker can filter for the position of your opponent. I was able to filter because I know the only times I raised these trash hands from the blind were under the specific conditions of a SB limp to me with no other callers.

Thanks for your feedback, it is greatly appreciated. The point about 2/3 structure was especially good. I can't say that it will stop me from doing it in the future. I will certainly post results at 5/10 max if my numbers ever get large enough to be signficant. My biggest surprise is that no one else says they play this way. Somebody must. Anyone? ..Bueller?

[ProfLupin]

Your winning record with this play doesn't surprise me too much as it falls directly in line with HEFAP short-handed section where the writers point out that if you aren't careful you can let your opponent win money in the long run heads up simply by betting every time. So at the 1/2 level it doesn't surprise me that your opponents collectively were passive enough in these heads-up situations to net you money by you betting every time.