Building my own starting hand chart...

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jrodders

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I'm going back and re-evaluating my starting hand ranges, and would love to hear everyone's opinion.

Since I really want to analyze each position, I'm going to do them as separate posts starting with "Early" position in this post. And, since everything changes with #of players and stack size, this starting hand range will be for early tournament play, full-ring, with average stacks of 100+BB, no antes.


With that said, my early position starting range is:
55+, AJs+, AQo+

Too loose? Too tight? Should I sprinkle in any speculative hands? Which ones? How often? Right now I tend to play early position very straight forward.
 
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StorkBoy

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I have had the same problem like you recently. After many starting hands chart and books that I read, I realized that there are many more factors involved that you have to pay attention to determine the hand you will like to play. You can not play the same rang of hands against different players.
I do not give so much attention to cards itself how much I try to determine which hands my opponents at the table play and on this I try to determine whether I will start to play with the hand I've got.
I began to learn the percentages of the starting hand, you know when they say:"He opens 20% of hands range, 30% of hands range, He is tight player who opens only with 10% of hands" and things like that.
I think it's much more important to overcome this, because in this way we will be able to expand our initial hands and also we will be able to profitable steal blinds in a position and against some players with hands range that we didn't even consider to play before.

I should add that I am not a very experienced player, but I came to the stage when I pay more attention to players around me than on myself, so I wrote this because I think it will also help you if you start to pay attention to such things.
 
Dixarect

Dixarect

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I'm not the most experienced either but I usually limp in with any pocket pair and if anyone raises pre flop I muck anything lower than 5s. (Obv depending on raise size, my stack size, etc). If I don't see a set on the flop I fold to any bet, again depending on the cards dealt, my thoughts on opponents range etc.
 
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Jako7600

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I agree with Dixarect, and that with 100bb+ you can add min raises or limps (depending on the nature of the table, you wouldn't do this if you expect to get re raised a large proportion of the time) of all pocket pairs, due to the huge implied odds of flopping a set. The rest of your range seems good, as it's important not to get out of line early as the initial pot size is so small - so there is little benefit to winning uncontested pots. Furthermore by playing a tight range, you may create a tighter table image (if players are taking notes) which will help you steal the blinds and antes later in the tournament as your raises will get more respect.
 
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StorkBoy

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Yes, that's what I did recently and then I started without hands to lift their bets if I could read my opponent. If you want to visit this site http://thepokeracademy.com and sign up for a free video "Chips As Weapons Series", you'll get a series of six videos in which two times wsop winner Rap Porter explains all this what I was writing. For me it was very helpful.

If someone wants I can send to you by mail all charts that I collected for my first 3 months of initial research and a script that I made from Let's Play Poker by Lee Nelson. To me, it helped a lot in the beginning. Starting hands were divided into groups and the table stands when that group of hands to play and from which position and in which situations depending on what the opponent did before you.
 
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TimovieMan

TimovieMan

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UTG full-ring I would drop 55 and 66 even.

22-66 can be limped IF and only IF the table is pretty passive. Online, that's hardly ever the case, so I usually just fold them UTG.

55-66 get added to my open-raising range once we hit MP.
22-44 once we reach the HJ.

Other than that, AJs and AQo are very reasonable UTG. Expand slowly until you reach the HJ and then open up your range significantly with each position closer to the BTN.


From past experience, though, simply the act of making a good working preflop chart for yourself will ensure that you'll no longer need a preflop chart by the time you're done. ;)
 
dobatibata

dobatibata

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I prefer tight play on early position, i play pairs 9's and bigger, and only AK, plus i don't raise too, always limps, especially in first period of tournament. So for me you range is lengthy
 
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suricato35

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I'm not the most experienced either but I usually limp in with any pocket pair and if anyone raises pre flop I muck anything lower than 5s. (Obv depending on raise size, my stack size, etc). If I don't see a set on the flop I fold to any bet, again depending on the cards dealt, my thoughts on opponents range etc.

I already did that in the past, but today I don't find it is a very good play anymore. Like... If u have a strong hand u'll raise, and if u hold a PP u'll limp... This can be easily perceived by the better players on the table, and can get very exploitable.

Nowadays I prefer to play it exactly the same way I would with any AK, AJs etc, with a 3-4bb raise, which in the beginning of the tourney won't hurt the stack a lot.

Plus, I might consider dropping it if the table is acting too aggressive.
 
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