Insulate yourself against the fishs
This article is an adaptation of Memoirs of aejones published in audio versions.
One advantage of 3better a button that would boost to isolate is that you will surely 3-bet an amount that the button can not afford to caller because his range of hands will be very broad.
Say you're on the blind with AQs and you Bettez 3-button. The fish will surely folder and the button will be in a difficult situation for caller. You can also do this game with a hand like 56s. 56s is a very good hand to make this game the blinds. The button can not call with many hands if we have 100 or 150BB stacks. I make this point because everything I said should be reviewed if we assume that each player has 300BB and more in his stack. If stimulus 5BB and you 3-Bettez 17 BB for example, it can not ligh caller if he has a small pocket pair, for example, with the size of the stacks; there will be no ratings for setminer, if it is a smart player. It will even a hand like KJ folder in this situation. This will be an immediate benefit to you. This is something that needs your attention; how often your opponent folds against 3-bet?
His limp button
The last thing I want to talk in the pre-flop section is open-raise in late position, the min-raise and limp on the button.
Earlier I mentioned that I opened approximately 2.5 Xbb 2xBB or late position, that is to say the cutoff and button.
There is something I must tell you. It is extremely important to stop to open 3 or 4 times BB button when you have shortstacks your left. In late position against the shortstacks to my left, I will play more tight because they will re-stealer me so often and they take advantage of me. You should only raise to 3 or 4x BB in this situation if you want action, like when you have a pair of aces for example. That is why we must know his blinds and do not play too many tables at once. So again, if you try to steal blinds short stack, you can not afford to do so by raising 3 or 4xBB. These players are winners blinds. They enjoy regular too often trying to steal the blinds and you should be aware of. Several regular do not fit these shortstacks.
Leaving aside the shortstacks and talk because of limping the button and min-raiser.
There is a good friend of mine who must be the best NLHE player who is not known and min-raise all button HU. 100% min-raise on the button HU. It is this game for one reason. He plays a lot against which regular multi-table and it has a lot of action of these players. It is unknown in the poker world, but this is a player who made 500K in profit last year This is a very good winning player. He min-raise its buttons because in today's parts, the error that are regular, is not quite flat caller BB. They always want the 3-bet. They 3bet too and you can caller as their 3-bet will be smaller. There are several players that you will enjoy because today, many players are on automatic pilot. They play like robots.
So it will min-raise people who do not call BB.
The fact of min-raiser also has the advantage that you will fear more players. Why? Because regular limpés hate playing in pots or jars because they have no experience of these little pots and lack of experience in something scares us. When you min-raisez, you will push to fold or 3-bet. It's very rare that you will only caller. Play pots min-raises can bring you a lot of money. 3better is a style of play high variance and several players defend themselves against these 3-bet. They'll 4-bet. 4-bet is made more and more popular.
So good of the min-raise is that you will 3-bet less often. I often min-raise from the button, even in 6-max against people who do not call outside blinds. For cons, I never will min-raise button if a player on the blinds has a high VPIP as 38%, for example. In this case, go for a standard raise. I'll even raise to 4 or 5x BB if one of the blinds is a retarded 60% VPIP and loves caller. Obviously, if you have any of these players in the blinds, you want to put more pre-flop money to play a pot against him in position while you know that play terribly wrong after the flop.
So again, it is important to try to think outside conventional wisdom and see that limp on the button may be a good thing if you have a regular aggressive on blinds and UTG fish that cold Callera very light . You know that the fish will call after the flop of the dead money and you have position on the regular.
The fact limping the button is even more applicable in HU. I played a series of HU against a player named Apestyles. We played 2 tables 5/10 HU there some months ago and I realized that Apestyle played better than me pre-flop. It outplayait me preflop when we had 100 or 150BB. His raises and 3-bets were always well placed, well calculated and he knew put me in difficult situations, etc.. Often 4-bettait and it annoyed me because I did not know what to do.
What I started to do? I started to limp and min-raised the button. On the flop, I've realized that people play very ABC, especially in limp-pot or min-raised pot. On T22 flop as the big blind folder is about 100% of the time if you bet. People will more often folder in limpés pots. I discussed it with friends who also spoke to me because they limpaient button HU against very aggressive players. If you get 3-bet often, you should narrow your opening range and start min-raise and limp. People will fight less in a limp pot. This strategy will also reduce your variance.
Blind vs. blind
I will not go immediately limp-reraise from, but in summary, if you are facing an opponent who is playing very well pre-flop, that 3-bet good hands, that 4-bet frequently and that puts you in difficult situations, you should consider limp or min-raise button more often by establishing good range to make this game
The last thing I want to mention is blind vs. blind. Many people ask me about this kind of situations.
If you are in the small blind and that all players have folde up, you really want to get information on the big blind. Want to know if it is tight or loose, whether or not multi-tables, etc.. Unless a particular history with the BB, I will open a very large% of my hands in this situation, blind vs. blind. The question of the size of the stimulus is difficult.
Personally, I like 3xBB well. If you raise to 4xBB, you will encourage your opponent caller less often, but you will 3-bet more often. In this situation, do not play automatically, do not be on auto-pilot. Several players on the BB will be robots and do only 2 games; folder or 3-bet. Yet many good players will only raise my caller and give me a lot of trouble post-flop. You must know that you will 3-bet and will flat-caller. As I said, I'll open with lots of hands on the small blind as the BB will not give me reason to stop doing it.
I can play against anyone and it does not scare me, but I find it difficult to play out of position when there is a good regular to my left and that is why the act of opening the SB is a particular issue. So what range of hands you should open the SB? Well, go ahead with the same ranks in late position. Remember the ranks of open-raise from the button?
My Attempt to steal% in this situation is about 50%. You can open almost the same number of hands the cutoff or button.
CTS has already mentioned the fact that you could open any 2 matching button and cutoff cards. I open with a lot of bad cards button, hands like Kx, Q7o, Ax, etc.. Same for the small blind. Q4S, open as long as the BB does not give you reason not to. If you are uncomfortable to play post-flop pots out of position, you can play very tight so the small blind.
