Why can't we just loosen up a little?

[esbesb]

Ok. This is a theoretical post. Let me preface this by saying that I think I am a competent player, but not a great player, and I cannot figure out whether this idea is a step backwards or a step forwards in my development as a player.

The idea relates to loosening up substantially in your calling standards when (1) you have position; (2) you feel pretty good about your ability to read your oponent; (3) there is one raiser before you; and (4) you have a hand that is not great but which has potential, most typically a suited connector.

Here is an example of what I am talking about: Let's say you are in the middle stages of the tournament and the blinds are medium-sized. You are in last position or the cutoff and you have something along the lines of 67s or even JTo.

Action gets folded to middle or later position who raises 3x the BB. Now, there are a ton of hands he could be doing this with, ranging from 22-AA to AK, AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, KJ, KTs, even maybe stuff like QJ or A9 or even Ax.

For simplicity's sake, let's say I have 67s.

Now, almost all of the above hands have me beat, but not by much. Mostly, the only hads that have me dominated are pocket pairs higher than my suited connector. (But even that might not be so important unless he's holding JJ-AA.)

If the blinds fold, now there is also dead money in the pot.

Now the flop comes. If he has a pair TT or lower, there is a good chance for scary overcards. If he has high, non-paired cards, there is a good chance the flop will miss him. I would guess that most of the time, the flop is not going to help the original raiser.

But the most important thing is that I have position on him. And, if I feel pretty confident about my ability to read him from his action after the flop, I have a pretty good chance of taking down the pot post-flop, unless he has truly flopped a strong hand. If the guy has TT and overcards flop, I might well be able to take it down. If the guy has KQ and low cards flop I might well be able to taken it down. Etc. I called his raise -- I must have something after all.

Add to that the possility that the flop might hit me.

So, who cares so much if my suited connector is almost surely a pre-flop underdog (even a 2:1 underdog). He doesn't know what I have. And if I play it right, isn't this +EV most of the time?

So, should't we loosen up a little?

[dmk]

It depends on a LOT of factors: blinds, stack sizes, opponents image, etc.

Basically, most of us already know that position is the most important thing in NL. However, you also have to be very good at reading your opponents to make this worthwhile. Otherwise you're just going to bleed away your chips from preflop calls (which happens to a lot of ppl).

[Potowame]

Read the Essays on the home page.

"The Different Stages in a Players Life"

I think this will give you the answer you are looking for.

[SossMan]

If you are consistantly betting in postion when the opponent checks to you, you are going to be susseptable to some checkraises vs. observant opponents. It won't take too many of these to eat away the EV of the successful steals.

[Pat Southern]

With deep stacks against incredibly straightforward opponents its a good move to make occassionally. But if it cuts out a big portion of your stack to call, its not a very good play.