WSoP: Open Raise 3xBB or vary it?

[luvrhino]

First off, i'm a relatively inexperienced, but fairly well-read, player who's playing in this year's WSoP thanks to EmpirePoker remarkably giving me wonderful customer service. I haven't been able to look at a computer screen for longer than 40 minutes consecutively since November (see above link), which means i can't play non-Turbo tourneys and am extremely out of practice. Even when i did play, it was almost entirely in Limit Sit & Go's on Empire, which doesn't exactly translate well to the WSoP NL play. Thus, i'm seeking whatever advice i can get.

Unless i'm at a table where blind stealing can be done with less, when playing NL tourneys i almost always use the standard 3xBB for my open raises when stacks are deep. Obviously, this makes it difficult to read the strength of my hand.

In Harrington on Hold'em, Mr. Harrington suggests varying the size of your open raises from 2x-5x the BB. This makes sense in that it allows you to put bigger raises in on hands that need them (e.g. TT or 99), while occasionally go smaller when you wouldn't mind some action (e.g. AA or KK). Of course, so as not to give away too much information, you'd need to randomly vary the sizes of open raises for all hands.

For a professional who's playing the same opponents multiple times a year, i can see how that tactic would be ideal. However, as a complete newbie on the first day of the WSoP, no one will have notes on me aside from being an internet qualifier...that and being a raging dork, but that's besides the point. The point is that i'll see 300-500(?) hands that day, likely playing, say, AA and KK just 1-3 times each, and even then from different positions. In terms of advertising value, my opponents won't notice that i sometimes open raise 2xBB or 5xBB with these hands, instead of 3xBB, especially since i either won't be opening the betting or because i'll end up winning/losing without showing at the end.

IOW, i'm wondering if i'd be better off still doing 3xBB for all open raises so that i'm not giving information about the comparative strength of my raising hands, rather than trying to be deceptive by playing a hand various ways in the same position. Furthermore, by always doing 3xBB, i'll deflect scrutiny of my boring betting patterns, which should be a good thing.

What say you?


p.s. Hopefully, no 2+2ers end up at my table. If you do, please forget everything i've posted. Remember, my name is Jennifer Tilly.

Thanks.

[Scooterdoo]

A good point of reference is to watch the table dynamics and see what the standard opening raise is and stick fairly close to it. If you don't play too many hands people won't even realize that you are slightly varying your betting (plus in the WSOP ME you'll likely be moved around quite a bit, so it doesn't really matter) so if you do have a hand like TT and decide to make a 4 or 5x BB raise when everyone else is opening with 3x people won't say -- "oh, this guy has made 10 opening raises from 2x - 5x so this doesn't mean anything". They will figure you are protecting your hand... period. You can vary it slightly but don't get too cute about it. Most important, this isn't that big a deal when compared to other issues, so don't spend too much time worrying about it.