Playing OOP

RodneyC86

RodneyC86

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As it stands right now I try to avoid playing OOP like the plague but with me recently increasing my CO/Btn stealing range I'm gonna get a lot of haters who would flat the button to test me.

I find the general problem is that I simply nit up a lot. And there's the issue of awkwardly reaching the river without initiative when I decide to pot control turn by checkcalling with day TPGK against a reg.

Anyone can offer some OOP advice?
 
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Ubercroz

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Regarding only the CO/BTN steal: If you are getting a lot of people to flat you then you should tighten up your stealing range a little. It doesn't have to be a lot, just a little tighter than them.
Additionally - if you are trying to steal don't get silly post flop. The steal is profitable by itself, so if you start throwing out cbets then you lose the immediate profit from stealing. An easy adjustment to make against people flatting you is: steal, value bet the flop with TP, value bet turn with better than TP, value bet river with your strongest range. If it turns out they are calling you down light then you can adjust there as well. I think its important to not get too crazy against the calling stations who flat your steals. It should be easy to beat them, if you quickly shift to value betting post flop.

In regards to playing out of position: yeah it sucks. So you have to not do it much. Playing a tight range is going to be beneficial to you. OOP is really more situationally dependant than being IP. You need to hit a board fairly hard and then extract value as you are able. When your opponents don't know how to hand read, and they don't know what hand ranges you are playing, you just kind of bet when you have it. The best thing you can do is work on hand reading, and determining their ranges. If you can identify what hands they should have, then you can more easily choose to bet, rather than check, the river. I would also think check calling TPGK against a reg is a bad idea most of the time. Playing tight helps to solve that problem, since you are playing a stronger range earlier, you shouldn't be having kicker issues.

Thats my basic advice. Play tighter, value bet, and fold more than you do.
 
RodneyC86

RodneyC86

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Regarding only the CO/BTN steal: If you are getting a lot of people to flat you then you should tighten up your stealing range a little. It doesn't have to be a lot, just a little tighter than them.
Additionally - if you are trying to steal don't get silly post flop. The steal is profitable by itself, so if you start throwing out cbets then you lose the immediate profit from stealing. An easy adjustment to make against people flatting you is: steal, value bet the flop with TP, value bet turn with better than TP, value bet river with your strongest range. If it turns out they are calling you down light then you can adjust there as well. I think its important to not get too crazy against the calling stations who flat your steals. It should be easy to beat them, if you quickly shift to value betting post flop.

In regards to playing out of position: yeah it sucks. So you have to not do it much. Playing a tight range is going to be beneficial to you. OOP is really more situationally dependant than being IP. You need to hit a board fairly hard and then extract value as you are able. When your opponents don't know how to hand read, and they don't know what hand ranges you are playing, you just kind of bet when you have it. The best thing you can do is work on hand reading, and determining their ranges. If you can identify what hands they should have, then you can more easily choose to bet, rather than check, the river. I would also think check calling TPGK against a reg is a bad idea most of the time. Playing tight helps to solve that problem, since you are playing a stronger range earlier, you shouldn't be having kicker issues.

Thats my basic advice. Play tighter, value bet, and fold more than you do.

Well that explains the lack of literature on this topic. It's already so hard 100bb deep, how the f*** do people play 700+bb OOP lol
 
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Ubercroz

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Well that explains the lack of literature on this topic. It's already so hard 100bb deep, how the f*** do people play 700+bb OOP lol

I've said before there are basically 3 edges, or advantages, you can have in poker. (1) skill, (2) card, and (3) position.

The amount that these edges come into play vary depending on the number of players and the stack size.

Lower stacks decrease the skill and positional edges. That is because your harder to bluff and are more committed with weaker hands. It's also because if you make a pot sized bet and are all in on the flop, then you have fewer decisions to make. Skill edge comes into play when people have more decisions to make (and therefore more mistakes they can make).

The deeper your stack sizes the less card edge matters and the more skill does. Because you are going to be making more decisions post flop (3 pot size bets will not get you all in so more raises can happen). As a result you have to be able to make better decisions and get better at putting your opponent on a range and reacting accordingly. Position also matters more as you get deeper stacked.

100bb poker is about the right "balance" between all three potential edges you can have. So it is a good place to improve, and it also means that if you are not as skilled you should not be playing deepstacked.
 
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