Poker Strategy Open Raising Chart
So by now we all know which starting handsare good and which are bad, but there's still a ton of variables that should influence your decision to open a particular hand preflop....In this article we'll look at some important factors when deciding pre-flop opens:
- Poker Strategy Open Raising Charter
- Poker Strategy Open Raising Chart Template
- Poker Strategy Open Raising Chart Sheet
Heads up Poker Tournament Strategy covering hand selection, pot odds, reads, position and more. Open raising or limping nearly all of your buttons. Here's a pot odds chart to keep in mind. Is there any chart i can use for different positions and different hands (A open-raise chart)? I am currently using the 'Upswing Poker, Full Ring MTT Chart' but i am not sure if there is a better chart out there for SnG's. Any help is appreciated!
The correct 6-max poker strategy is to play looser than you would in a full ring game (open 20% of hands) and make more bluffs and wider call downs. This means that in a 6-max game you should be playing a lot more speculative hands like suited connectors and suited aces as well. PLO Starting Hands Chart. Here is a basic and conservative pot limit omaha hand chart for being the first to open (everyone folds to you) in various positions. Note that “BBB” or “NNN” assumes the random cards are different (unpaired). Key: B: Broadway card (A, K, Q, J, T) ss: Single suited. Open Raising Chart 3-Bet gegen Openraise (inkl. SB-Defense) Open Raising Chart 3.0 UTG UTG+1 UTG+2 MP1 MP2 MP3 CO BU SB Pairs 99 99 88 77 66 55 44 33 22 A AQ AQ AJ AT AT A9 A7 A2 A2 K KQ KQ KJ KJ KT K7 K3 Q QJ QT Q9 Q4 J JT J9 J5 T T6 9 97 8 87 As ATs ATs ATs A9s A8s A6s A2s A2s A2s Ks KQs KQs KJs KJs KTs K9s K8s K2s K2s Qs QJs QTs Q9s Q8s Q6s.
i) Limitations of the Starting hand chart
ii) Position
iii) Limpers/Posters
iv) Stack-sizes
v) Open-raise size
vi) Edge/Reads
Limitations of the starting hand chart
Don't take the starting hand chart as gospel!
Many beginners are encouraged to make use of a starting hands chart (SHC)when first embarking on a poker career. While this suggestion is not without merit, it is particularly important to understand where its limitations lie.
A starting hands chart is very useful as a rough guide for an absolute beginner, but your ultimate goal should be to progress away from this as soon as possible. Poker is a dynamic game; the person who can adjust the most efficiently to the strategy of another is the one who will win the chips in the long run. Playing a static strategy in such a game is going to, at the very least, confine you to mediocrity - if not cause you to become a downright losing player.
Assuming we had a SHC representative of tight-aggressive play, let's consider some of the situations where we would typically deviate from our 'standard' open-raising strategy in a 6max game.
Position
This is partially factored into most starting-hands charts. A hand like A8o should be a standard open-raise on the button in many games. A8o from UTG however, is usually going to be trash and is a standard fold.
You should also consider your position relative to other players at the table. If there are fish in the blinds you might choose to open looser from early-position, because if these players call you will have position postflop. If there are loose or aggressive players in position on you, you should often tighten up. Perhaps you are in the CO with a loose-aggressive player on the button, and as a result you should tighten up your CO opening-range.
Limpers/Posters
If there are fish who open-limp you can choose to iso-raise a lot wider when you have position. (This is not strictly an 'open'-raise but similar principles apply.) Perhaps you find yourself with a hand you wouldn't normally open raise with from a specific situation, but playing that hand in position against a fish will likely still be +EV.
A similar principle applies if there are posters involved in a hand. You can often raise a little wider seeing as the extra dead-money means you don't need to steal the pot as often for it to be profitable. Posters will be folding a lot because their range pretty much includes any 2 cards. If you've already seen them check, their range becomes any 2 cards they didn't want to raise!
Stack Sizes
This is one factor that is completely disregarded in almost all SHCs, yet is a crucial piece of information in establishing which ranges you want to open.
If we take a very simplified view of the different starting hands we can split them into two categories. Hands which benefit from implied-odds, and hands which suffer from reverse implied-odds.
Hands which benefit from implied-odds: These typically include speculative hands like 78s. These hands don't have immediate showdown-value, yet they do have some potential to make strong nutted hands a small proportion of the time. It's important that when you do make a flush/straight/straight-flush that there is enough money in villain's stack to make it profitable in the long run. In other words, if villain has a very short stack, it can quite easily become un-profitable to play a hand like 78s.
The other type of hand, is that which suffers from reverse implied-odds: These are hands with immediate showdown value like AK, or QQ. You have no problem playing these against a shortstack because a large proportion of the time you will either be committed preflop or on the flop. They suffer from reverse implied odds because as the stacks get deeper, you are less happy with stacking off with the type of hands they make, namely big one-pair hands. If your opponent seems extremely happy to get 200BB stacks in, it's likely that your AK on the K678 is no good; whereas, if villain only has a 25BB stack, it's a snap-call with TPTK.
The hands in between:
There are some hands that fall in the middle of these two categories, such as QTs. This is both a speculative hand, and a hand that makes weak-top pairs. How you choose to play it depends on the exact circumstances. Much of the time if villain is deep, you will play it as a speculative hand, while if villain is shallow you will play it as a TPGK hand.
General rule of thumb:
As a general rule you want to tighten up your open-raises when shortstacks are still left to act. As the stacks get deeper you can start opening a lot wider with all kinds of speculative hands. (Theoretically when the stacks are super-deep, perhaps 1000bb deep, you can open 27o even if you never steal preflop, because you have sufficient implied odds. In practice you'd only ever do this if you expect to have a huge post-flop edge). You should then be careful playing TPTK/Overpair as the stacks get deeper. Playing AKo 200BB deep, it is likely you will need to employ some pot-control during the hand if you make a TPTK hand. You will also be less comfortable putting yourself in a situation where you need to stack off preflop for 200BB+, even with hands like KK where it might be standard to stack off in a 100BB pot.
Open-Raise Sizing
You should often vary your open-raise size, depending on the players at the table and the position you are opening from.
Typically many follow a strategy where they open larger from UTG, and smaller from the Button. This is partially because your UTG open-raising range is typically stronger than your BU opening range. Your UTG open also needs to get through more players, and you perhaps discourage them from calling you in-position with a slightly larger open raise size.
This is just a generic sizing strategy however, and you should consider making deviations depending on the players at the table. Perhaps you are getting relentlessly 3bet by a certain opponent; you could choose to open-raise smaller so you lose less, make 3betting less attractive for villain, and also make it easier for you to flat-call if you were so inclined.
Or perhaps villain is a huge fish, that plays every hand, but always check-folds when he misses the flop. Why not open-raise large, perhaps 5x or 6x and take it down on the flop? Perhaps villain NEVER folds anything preflop, and you have AA, why not raise to 10x or even more?
Conversely perhaps you are UTG with a suited-connector, and you know that regardless of your raise sizing, you are likely getting called in several spots. So why not open-raise smaller?
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Edge/Reads
A big factor in which ranges you choose to open also depends on any reads you have and also how big your edge is.
It's often going to be wise to discard any marginal opens if the table is very tough. Certain hands like Axs which you can potentially open UTG in some games, perhaps become standard folds in games where you are going to exploited too heavily by smart opponents with position.
Certain reads may cause you to open tighter/loser, or may also cause you to open slightly different ranges. If you know villain is a postflop calling station, you might want to tighten up your open-ranges. If you know villain will play fit-or-fold on every flop, you can sometimes loosen up quite dramatically.
Perhaps you know villain is 3betting very wide, and then open a certain type of hand with the intention of 4bet-bluffing because it contains certain blockers. The further you can plan a hand before you've even open-raised, the more specific you can be about which ranges you want to open.
Summary
While SHC's may be useful tools from a theoretical perspective, and for the use of beginners, there are many aspects of a real poker game that are simply not taken into account, such as stack-sizes and relative position.
In general, the deeper the stack-sizes, the less useful a SHC becomes. A SHC certainly carries a little more relevance when applied to short-stacked play, purely because it is a little easier to say how close a play is to the mathematical optimum, but there are still deviations that could be made depending on who is at the table amongst other factors.
A final word
Open raising is one of the most fundamental areas of the game
where many players seem to struggle. Whether it means that a
player can’t determine what types of hands to open raise with,
how much to raise, what to fold to, or anything else, it’s
definitely a major problem area. Since every game is so
different, it becomes very impossible to define set ranges of
hands to raise with and the proper correlated bet sizes. With
that said, however, we hope that this article will serve as a
useful guide towards understanding the basic concepts behind
open raises.
Poker Strategy Open Raising Charter
In reality, open raising is an initial process of trial and
error. Once you get past the stage of trial, you need to be able
to critically analyze what does and doesn’t work. Taking it one
step further, you’ll then be forced to determine why any play
worked or didn’t work. Poker is always about digging deeper
until you find the absolute most simplistic reasoning behind why
something will work. You should never open raise to open raise,
and in understanding this much alone, you’ll have already
conquered half of the battle.
Short Handed vs. Full Ring Games and Online vs. Live Games
One of the primary disparities between open raise ranges and
bet sizing is found in the format of the game that you are
playing in. Where AT might be a fold in a
full ring game, it’s most often worthy of a raise in a
short handed game. Being able to determine how ranges shift
depending upon how many people are playing is one of the most
important things that you can do. While it will ultimately only
change a handful of borderline hands from folds to raises, these
marginal differences can make all of the difference in the long
run.
In live play, a general open range in short handed games is
A9/AT+, any two face cards, and any pocket pair. Though this
range is quite specific, you’ll likely find that it’s also
quite useless, given that most live cash games don’t play short
handed, and when they do they are likely to break relatively
quickly. Of course, knowing which types of hands should call for
a raise is still going to be valuable, even if only on rare
occasions.
Again in live play, standard full ring games will call for a
bit different range of open raise worthy hands. QK is on the
borderline of open raises, QJ is almost always out of the
equation, and AT is very marginal. AJ+ is an open in most
situations, and 88+ is usually worth opening with. The reasoning
for only opening 88+ is the simple fact that
smaller pocket pairs will find most all of their value in
set mining. As a result, raising with 55, for example, is going
to be difficult if you are faced with a re-raise.
If you limp in, however, you can safely call an open raise from your
opponent and still be playing in the pot at a reasonable price.
For AJ, 88-99, a re-raise will frequently be enough to denote a
fold, depending upon the size of the raise and how many others
called. If you open with AJ, get re raised by one player, and
then are the only one left in the hand and are sitting out of
position, you should be folding. If you raise with 88, get re
raised, see two calls, and can play in position, it’s a clear
cut call. In full ring games, the expanded player base will
dramatically shift how and what hands are able to be played.
Poker Strategy Open Raising Chart Template
Online play is much more universal across the different types
of tables that are available. Any pocket pair, QJ/QK+ and AT+
are the standard hands for which an open raise should be made.
Of course there will be exceptions that are going to apply, but
No Limit Hold’em cash games should generally abide by this
specific base range of hands. Open limping is just not an option
in online poker as it is in live poker.
Position
Position will allow for you to expand the number of hands
that are going to be fit for open raising. K8 suited isn’t
going to make sense to open raise with from under the gun, but
it will be the perfect open raise if you are on the button and
are looking to steal. The less action that there is and the
closer to the button that you are, the more value that every
single hand will have. This doesn’t mean that you should be
firing out raises with reckless abandon, but that you should
seek out opportunities to be aggressive when possible and
logical. The more that you stray from typical open raising
hands, the less useful that any guidelines for raise worthy
hands will be.
Poker Strategy Open Raising Chart Sheet
Bet Sizing
Bet sizing is something that’s so incredibly simplistic, even
systematic, yet so terribly executed by so many players.
Have you ever noticed that some people will open with a 4x raise
one time, a 5x raise the next, and then a 10x raise? These
types of players telegraph their hands with the size of their
open raises and are easy to play against. If you want to win,
however, you should be making your open raises as deceptive as
possible.
In live games, a general range of 3-6x times the big blind
will be ideal for open raise bet sizing. In a $2/$5 game, a
$15-$30 open raise will work just fine. You should adjust the
exact sizing based on your opponents’ likelihood to call. At a
loose table, make bigger open raises, at a tight table, remain
moderate in your bets.
When you are open raising but are facing a pot with limpers,
you should again adjust your raise size. If you were open
raising to 5x at $2/$5 when under the gun (to $25), add 1 big
blind to that raise per limper. For example, with one limper the
raise would be to $30. With two limpers the open raise would be
to $35. All things considered, bet sizing is actually one of the
easiest to understand dynamics involved in open raising.