What does opening your range mean?

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butterstoch

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Every MTT tutorial video asks to open your range in the later stages of tournament. Does it mean just raising with cards like JQ , KQ or calling the raises. Isnt there a fear of being shoved on and folding meekly? :confused:
 
fletchdad

fletchdad

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Opening your range means opening with more hands than you have been. A basic MTT strategy advises keeping a very tight range at the beginning stages, and widening that range as the blinds go up.

Of course, you want to take as much as you can into consideration before raising. Dont just blindly raise lighter cause the blinds have gone up. If you have (a) tight player/s to your right then open up that range. Use a bet size that either commits you (intentionally) or lets you fold to a shove. Dont just raise and say "uhhh, he shoved.. What now?" if you see what I mean. But a generic play is not possible. It also comes down to, when the blinds go up, you have to play some hands, instigate some flips to win. If you just wait for good hands, A.) no one will challenge your raises and B.) you will probably blind out.
 
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butterstoch

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The issue i take is, almost everybody realizes this and looks for tight players. So this eventually leads to people either calling with really light hands or shoving with A X. Raising 3-4 times and being shoved on by various players, drains out the courage to raise again , on top of dwindling your stack without any gain. There are no set rules i guess, but required some help regarding this
 
fletchdad

fletchdad

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Saying something like "raising 3-4 times and being shoved on" says nothing about the situation itself.

Your stack size, position, bubble, and his stack size, position as well as table history, his play so far etc.............
 
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AlbieTross

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Basically means you're willing to play with a larger variety of hands.
 
Vadim Kudimov

Vadim Kudimov

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Textbooks written all true, but rarely abide by this rule. Yes, it is necessary to increase the number of hands played (range), depending on the stage of the tournament. I think I am no exception and many occasionally depart from this rule and pay your stack.
 
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rlzaleski

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To simplify it, generally early in a large tournament a beginner might play AJ+ and 99+ raising it 2-3x the blinds or larger if the pot already has a lot of money in it. These hands you play are your "range".

This is fine until 1 of 2 things happen.

1) Your number of blinds gets low (i.e. 12 BB or high antes). You need to gamble more in this situation.
2) The number of players at your table goes down.

In both of those, you open your range. Likely you start playing every Ace and more connectors (i.e. 10 9), and more pairs like 55. The range is more open because the list of hands you might play is larger.

It's also important to note that for most players their position to the button is tied to their range as well. UTG and other early positions tend to be tighter. The Button and spots right before might be looser. And the BB tends to be loose as well depending on the raise size (i.e. most people will call a min raise with almost any 2 cards)
 
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KLDUFF1987

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Rlz, your post is great thanks for that. Being able to loosen up more as the tournament progesses has all ways bothered me but kinda getting used to opining more and more
 
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welterson

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My range is JJ+ AK shove, and depending on the table image can go shove with TT +, AQ +
 
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butterstoch

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Shoving with JJ or AQ, UTG or button is still easy, as compared to raising with K10 from early position. The issue is getting the courage to do that which i am not able to gather.:smile:
 
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joe777

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You need to widen your range a bit when in position and attempt to steal the blind and ante at this phase.
 
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