Early STT open raise sizing

Like most people, my standard open raise preflop at most points in a single-table SnG is 2.5BB. The thinking is that it's a good compromise between getting value on your good hands, having fold equity on your steals and being able to save a little the times you get raised and have to fold.

For as long as I can remember though I've been opening for more like 3.5BB in the early levels (15-30 and 20-40). My thinking there is that I'm pretty much only playing premium hands that I want to build a decent pot with in the early stages, so I might as well try to get that little bit extra in the pot preflop. Thing is, I haven't thought about whether it's the right thing to do for as long as I can remember either... until this afternoon.

Anyone got any thoughts on whether there's actually any point doing this or whether there are better strategies?

Unlike my later game play the range isn't balanced so it's not hard for an observant player to put me on a tight range. But it wouldn't widen much anyway in the early stages if I reduced the bet size, so I don't think that makes much difference.

Would I get more action on my big hands if I made it 2.5 or 3BB? I'm not sure - people who stack QJ on a Jxx board probably do so whether the opening bet is 2.5, 3 or even 4BB and good players aren't likely to start calling me much wider just because I opened to 80 rather than 100.

Is the increased value, if it actually exists, outweighed by the times I'm forced to fold, say, QQ on an AKx board? Have I picked an incredibly inane topic to ponder aloud? Interested to hear people's thoughts.

If you're only playing premiums in the early levels you're definitely missing out on some spots to gain equity, especially when you move up in stakes as your currently doing now, most of the regs have such a solid late game that we're forced to play more pots in the early game. I had a similar approach to you a while back, but i've since changed up my game and i'm much looser than normal in the early game, even in the mid-low stakes. The rationale is that most of the bad players either bust out early, or gain a huge chip stack, I want to be the guy busting those players early, and i feel i play the big stack better than most going into the mid-late game. Also, since most of the "meh" breakeven regs are playing that tight early game, we can exploit them by opening up more. So as games get tougher, we find differant ways to beat them, the classic tight early- aggro late 4 years ago would have netted a tidy 15% ROI, nowdays, you'll be lucky to get 2%.
And think about this too, do you really think your BVB shoves are going to get respect from regs late if you've been playing tight early? Hell, even bad players will now call looser on average than they used to, the whole setting up an image thing is long gone, so we may as well just open up earlier. Of course we need to be able to play solid postflop then, and we're likely to get 3bet/played back at a little more often.

Anways little off topic but relevant to your situation i think .

As for the betsizing, it seems fine to me, it's a little easier to get stacks in, but then we lose a little bit of pot control and stuff postflop, in reality i think 3x is fine. I was doing something similar at the 10/20 level at stars, It's much easier to get the stack in by the river if your raising to say 4x at this level. However once past that, i feel 3x is fine, it's still very easy to get stacks in by the river, and we don't lose as much when we say raise in late with AK, fire flop and get check/raised, overall i think 3x is probably better, i can't be bothered to do the math on that one.

Late game 2.5 seems to be the standard, but i'm quite happy making it 2.25 x or even min raising once the blinds get super high, especially at Full tilt where there isnt an ante, min raising can be fine in the High blind mid game.

I changed up my starting hand range and have been having success with it. I dropped lots of small PP's out of it and play more big ace hands. I also switched my opens to 2.5x from start to finish. I may sneak in a min raise if I think I can get away with it. I think this helps me as lots of time I'll miss the flop and be OOP its mush easier on the chips stack when I miss the flop making the smaller open IMO.

...typical. Ask a simple question and get a much more useful answer in reply. Thanks guys

Let's talk about being more active early since it's obviously a bunch more interesting that what I originally had in mind. I'm thinking that stealing blinds on their own probably doesn't do much for us in the early level so what are the bigger earners we're looking for that make the extra risk worthwhile?

Restealing from the blinds is one that comes to mind, the average opponent will probably open from the cutoff or button a reasonable amount of the time but fold all but a very tight range of they're three-bet from the blinds, right?

Raising small early on is pretty cool imo, and is a practice I adhere to. Something like 2.25x +/- .25x.

Since early on in the SNG we aren't really raising to steal chips(i mean the pot size is crap, why would we care about it?), just any old raise size will weed out the horribad hands in the blinds. Given that the players in the blinds are often average randoms, we should assume we're better than them postflop, so it's totally fine if someone in the blinds calls us. When we are indeed called, a smaller preflop raise size lowers the c-bet size, if we choose to make one, but just lowers the pot size in general (it's a cumulative effect). Added bonus of raising smaller pre: lowers the fold rate needed for profit.

OzExorcist said:

...typical. Ask a simple question and get a much more useful answer in reply. Thanks guys

Let's talk about being more active early since it's obviously a bunch more interesting that what I originally had in mind. I'm thinking that stealing blinds on their own probably doesn't do much for us in the early level so what are the bigger earners we're looking for that make the extra risk worthwhile?

Restealing from the blinds is one that comes to mind, the average opponent will probably open from the cutoff or button a reasonable amount of the time but fold all but a very tight range of they're three-bet from the blinds, right?

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I find stealing blinds when there low and I'm on the button or in SB very successful. I would only resteal vs known regs as randoms never fold, now your OOP and never know where you stand on the turn if you don't cbet the flop. And when you do cbet the flop you often don't want to see a turn anyway. IMO it's better not to resteal light in early game ever. As far as being more involded preflop in early game I don't agree. I find it's better to nit up early(still steal wide on button and SB). Most of the donks will bust early almost alway resulting in added equity by just folding. However if you find your in a game full of winning regs then opening up early will be the best coarse of action.

Since I'm like CP52 and nit it up early, I like the big pots for big hands strategy, so my opens are 3.5xBB and my 3-bets are also larger. My experience is that a 2.5xBB open will be floated a LOT and when there is one float there will usually be 2-3 more coming along. This tends to make c-bets less effective when we wiff as the flop will have hit someone.

Bwammo said:

Raising small early on is pretty cool imo, and is a practice I adhere to. Something like 2.25x +/- .25x.

Since early on in the SNG we aren't really raising to steal chips(i mean the pot size is crap, why would we care about it?), just any old raise size will weed out the horribad hands in the blinds. Given that the players in the blinds are often average randoms, we should assume we're better than them postflop, so it's totally fine if someone in the blinds calls us. When we are indeed called, a smaller preflop raise size lowers the c-bet size, if we choose to make one, but just lowers the pot size in general (it's a cumulative effect). Added bonus of raising smaller pre: lowers the fold rate needed for profit.

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Yeah the good thing about this is we can fire turn c-bets now too, whereas raising 3.5 a turn c-bet will be huge. I found a lot of the guys at the 3.40 level would just flat out fold and give up on the flop, so the 4x preflop worked quite well. As i moved up to the 6.50's, my c-bets were getting raised and called a lot more. So i've had to be a little more selective with my bets, and i've been barreling a little more often against opponants with weak ranges. the smaller bet sizing preflop has helped with that.

OzExorcist said:

...typical. Ask a simple question and get a much more useful answer in reply. Thanks guys

Let's talk about being more active early since it's obviously a bunch more interesting that what I originally had in mind. I'm thinking that stealing blinds on their own probably doesn't do much for us in the early level so what are the bigger earners we're looking for that make the extra risk worthwhile?

Restealing from the blinds is one that comes to mind, the average opponent will probably open from the cutoff or button a reasonable amount of the time but fold all but a very tight range of they're three-bet from the blinds, right?

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Yep, just to give an example of how i've changed it up. I now 3bet against known regs a lot more. The cool thing about 3betting regs is that we can make it super small, they will never just flat call they will either shove or fold so it's super proftiable.

Another good reason to get involved early, most of the fish get involved early. I shouldn't have to go into detail anymore than that, a smart guy like you should be able to work out the advantages of playing in more pots against fish early .

I've peeked in this thread several times now and feel bad not giving input, so here I am

Personally at t15/t30 and t20/t40 I'd usually raise 3.5xbb, and at t25/t50 I'd come in for 3xbb, otherwise I think I'm coming in for 2.5xbb. I guess my reasoning was that I'd collect a little more value while also limiting the action... I guess that's sort of counter-intuitive and probably somewhat results-oriented? I'm not sure but yeah. It's kind of a double-edged sword in a way, as some others have mentioned it's easier to get stacks in if you raise more, but say you have AK/AQ and you try to c-bet, that can get expensive pretty quickly if you get caught. So basically... I'm not sure what's best.

I think it's important to consider that the value of your hand is pretty relative to your opponent. Like, if you held AT on a AJ4 board, in the early stages you're never stacking off against a reg/decent player. But if I'm up against a drooler I'd be fist-pumping if I could get it in there, since they're showing up with all aces, lots of Jx, broadway draws, etc. If you can identify a player like this early on, attack them for thin value and build your stack quickly, so then you can be prepared to make lots of resteals or other aggressive/profitable plays as the tournament gets to the later stages, rather than letting yourself dwindle down and you have to really fight your way to the money. Way more +$EV opportunities imo.

OK... so just to put the raise sizing thing to bed have we pretty much established that there's no real point in raising bigger than 3BB early in the game and that doing so actually hurts us? Our fold equity is probably about the same either way, hands that want to stack preflop will probably still stack regardless, we can still manipulate bet sizes to get in postflop should we so choose and we save money the times we either get raised out preflop or get to make a smaller c-bet postflop. Sound about right?

(edit: LOL, wrote this at the same time as CJ)

^^ I guess one thing I'm kinda torn on is that if we have AA or KK or whatever and our opponents will call a bigger bet just as often as a smaller bet, why wouldn't we raise the larger amount? A reason I suppose would be that it's an awfully transparent strategy, if we're only raising more with monsters, but I mean if you're opponents aren't observant there's certainly no reason not to raise more imo.

cjatud2012 said:

^^ I guess one thing I'm kinda torn on is that if we have AA or KK or whatever and our opponents will call a bigger bet just as often as a smaller bet, why wouldn't we raise the larger amount? A reason I suppose would be that it's an awfully transparent strategy, if we're only raising more with monsters, but I mean if you're opponents aren't observant there's certainly no reason not to raise more imo.

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Precisely. The only hands you should be raising larger than the normal 3x are ones that you're actually getting value for, essentially just AA/KK/sometimes QQ but not really. In that case we're trying to make it more expensive for some jagoff to hit a set or two pair against us since we're likely to pay him off in a low stakes game.

cjatud2012 said:

A reason I suppose would be that it's an awfully transparent strategy, if we're only raising more with monsters, but I mean if you're opponents aren't observant there's certainly no reason not to raise more imo.

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Basically I've got the poker equivalent of Mr Mackey in the back of my head saying "Always raising one amount with your strong hands and always raising another with the others is bad, m'kay..." and I'm sure he's got a point.

But you've got a point too, if our opponents aren't observant then why not do it? At what levels do you think the average opponent gets observant enough that we need to stop doing this?

For those that use the 2.5xBB open, do you not see a higher average number of players preflop than if you use a 3.5xBB open? Do you not see more floats from the BTN/SB/BB ? I can see where in a $20 game the 2.5xBB open wouldn't but in the =<$10 games I see enough to make a noticeable effect.

Jillychemung said:

For those that use the 2.5xBB open, do you not see a higher average number of players preflop than if you use a 3.5xBB open? Do you not see more floats from the BTN/SB/BB ? I can see where in a $20 game the 2.5xBB open wouldn't but in the =<$10 games I see enough to make a noticeable effect.

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That's why we're making this raise in position, so when the bad players call us preflop and float, we're actually just getting value for having a superior hand and a superior position on the table.

My claim is that by opening at 2.5 vs 3.5 you get on average 4 extra players per flop vs 2 at the opening 3 levels. With these extra players per flop your c-bets will succeed less. Do the extra chips that we win fewer times make up for the amount of times we c-bet and lose?

Typical scenario, open AQs from the HJ, flop comes K82, our c-bets will be much more successful versus just a BTN floater versus the BTN, SB & BB.

Has anyone run an experiment of say 5K games opening at 2.5 and 5K games opening at 3.5 and quantified the average number of players preflop, success rate of c-bets, c-bet frequency?

Jillychemung said:

My claim is that by opening at 2.5 vs 3.5 you get on average 4 extra players per flop vs 2 at the opening 3 levels. With these extra players per flop your c-bets will succeed less.

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I agree with this so trying to wrap my brain (slow learner )
around this vvvvvvvv

Bwammo said:

That's why we're making this raise in position, so when the bad players call us preflop and float, we're actually just getting value for having a superior hand and a superior position on the table.

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so we don't raise OOP or just change bet size with position ? say AA UTG with blinds at 10/20 , any raise under 4 or 5 bb may end up with 6 or 8 callers and get 2 or 3 no matter what . (donk levels )

From my small sample of SNGs played, at 5+.5, 10+1 and 11+1 Turbo, I don't notice a difference at all in the amount of callers between the 3bb and the 2.5bb opens. So, if we assume the opponents react almost the same to the two openings, it's up to your style. If you play the usual early tight style, open for 3bb for value. If you're looser, open for 2.5bb so you only have to win the pot PF twice out of 3 to make it immediately profitable while making it cheaper to c-bet if you do get called.

I find at low stakes SNG, say $1-$3, it's best not to overthink pre-flop bet sizing. As been stated before if a player is going to stack off with a p/f raise of 3x, then a 2.5 or even up to a 4x makes no difference to the outcome of the hand. I found that, generally, micro SNG players do not pay enough attention to the meaning in the sizing of your p/f raise. To them a raise is a raise, and the amount does not really matter. The math does not evn enter their mind, and c-bet sizing isn't even in their realm.

There is also the matter of raising larger with the premiums. One could argue that you might as well turn your hand face up, But again, to a player who does not pay attention to any possible reasons of bet sizing, this will also go unnoticed.

Due to this, I have found myself frequently raising 4x or more in an unopened pot, and 3-betting heavy (shove) in a raised pot w/ QQ+. Even cold shoving to a few limps has seen decent results. Alot of the time everyone will fold and you just end up with a few extra blinds, but you will sometimes get the "hero call" against you with A10 (example) and be in great shape. If they do all fold to you, you hav then created a meta game scenario, and will probably be called lighter than usual next time you cold shove. Droolers remember when they are shoved around, it's an ego thing.

So back to my origional point. I don't focus too much about the p/f sizing, because at micro levels we are usually playing against opponents who are making their decisions on the strength/love of their own hands and not giving much thought if any to mine.

By raising 3x with KQs, 1010+, you are still getting some value, but not too many callers that you don't know where you stand. I have noticed that 2.5 gets ALOT of callers early. I have found that by making a 3x raise my standard, I can focus more on ranging, and post flop play. And that, IMO, is where bet sizing really matters in micro's.

Just some numbers to illustrate the difference the number of preflop players make, so the 2.5 open is only cheaper by a couple of BB

LP 2.5xBB open w/ BTN/SB/BB call + 1/2potCB = 15xBB
LP 2.5xBB open w/ BTN/BB call + 1/2potCB = 9xBB
LP 2.5xBB open w/ SB/BB call + 1/2 potCB = 11.25xBB
LP 2.5xBB open w/ BTN/SB call + 1/2potCB = 9xBB

LP 3.5xBB open w/ BTN call + 1/2potCB = 12.75xBB
LP 3.5xBB open w/ BB call + 1/2potCB = 11.25xBB
LP 3.5xBB open w/ BTN/BB call + 1/2potCB = 16.5xBB
LP 3.5xBB open w/ SB/BB call + 1/2potCB = 15.75xBB


Now for me the question is how does our winrate differ for both preflop and after the CB?

Gday, fellow Aussie, yes indeed you have picked an interesting topic, and Thanks, cause I get heaps of reassurance from the feedback on CARDSCHAT, that I too am playing field right.

To start with Im only new to the world of on-line Hold 'em poker, and when I first started I used to play a wide range of hands at the start of a tourney, not anymore, i have since then tightened my range, and with a lot more success.

Yeah, you are right on the money when it comes to early and even mid-tourney moves. But on the other hand, if on the button and most of the table calls, I usual limp in, cause ive had many a hand were ive raised, then weve had an all in, I hate that, especiallly so early in the game.

Jillychemung said:

My claim is that by opening at 2.5 vs 3.5 you get on average 4 extra players per flop vs 2 at the opening 3 levels. With these extra players per flop your c-bets will succeed less. Do the extra chips that we win fewer times make up for the amount of times we c-bet and lose?

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I haven't done any experiments over a reasonable sample and like I said in the OP I've been opening for 3.5 or more with a tight range in the early levels for as long as I can remember - it's only been the past week or so I've been experimenting with smaller amounts.

That said I'd be surprised if going from 3.5 to 2.5 resulted in double the average amount of callers. Maybe it's a function of the level I'm playing at ($12 turbos) but most players I come across don't seem to make a distinction in the early blinds because they either follow the super-tight early strategy or they don't. Those that follow it will fold because it's a raise and those that don't might call or might not but I don't think 1BB difference in the bet size will sway either one's decision all that much.

That's just my gut feeling, like I said I haven't done an experiment on it or anything and it could also be very different at lower levels. What have other people's experiences been?

OzExorcist said:

What have other people's experiences been?

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My perception is that with a 2.5x open I get a larger average number of players preflop and my preflop win% goes down. I can't quantify either though. I wish I had time to run such an experiment or access to a database that had enough data to look at this. I was sorta hoping that Bwammo (or cohorts) might know of any studies in this area.

Jillychemung said:

My perception is that with a 2.5x open I get a larger average number of players preflop and my preflop win% goes down. I can't quantify either though. I wish I had time to run such an experiment or access to a database that had enough data to look at this. I was sorta hoping that Bwammo (or cohorts) might know of any studies in this area.

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It makes me want to throw up just thinking about it. But you can buy HH's from PTR and do you're own studies.