The Guide to Pre-Flop (Day 6 Course Discussion)

Collin Moshman

Collin Moshman

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Awesome, glad to hear that Marcelobp!
 
redboy23

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Day 2 - Chapter 6

It is great to finally understand range notation. This is a huge takeaway for me. I also got the understanding of effective stack as well. This is something I am becoming very aware of while playing; I often ask myself if villain shoves do I risk and often if the answer is no, I tend to fold instead of betting or calling big bets, especially if there are others behind to act.

Response to video question:

The effective stack is 78 BBs.

My poker chi is increasing and that feels great. This translates to being more confident at the table. I am loving this feeling already!
 
redboy23

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Day 2 - Chapter 6 (Continued)

Some additional questions were given;

With pocket deuces (22) I limp and hope to hit a set and may call up to 3 x BB if someone raises.

With A6o, I wold fold most of the time but may call if I am feeling frisky and fold to aggression. With that many big blinds most likely I would fool around and hope for a big flop and call aggression only with two pair or an open ended straight draw.

With KQ suited, I should raise but again would limp to see how well I connect with the flop. This is only because my stack is deep.

I do not like to give villain an excuse to shove over my raise. Again the question - if I raise or 3-bet here would I call villains shove. If the answer is no - chances are I simply call or fold. I am looking at the UTG player he can have ATs+, 88+

Glad to hear your take on this.
 
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ronn6583

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If I understand correctly, the range is dynamic, i.e. it can and should change depending on the position, the actions of opponents, the effective stack ...
If you’re unsure whether to play a certain hand, then just fold for now and wait for a good spot.
Great tip.
 
whiskers77

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Great video and nice to hear you again, Katie! I was already wondering where you you have been in the last few videos. I like your laughs in between, it is sweet. :D

I would like to know something about the ante. Because actually, I am often hardly aware of this. Of course I am looking at the pot size preflop, but I am also wondering at which point you say, now it matters. Now it is high enough, so that we should adjust our actions / bet sizing and so on? After which level in a MTT or a SNG you start to matter about this?
 
Collin Moshman

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Nice notes on the video Redboy.

Whiskers, Katie's laugh is awesome, you're totally right about that! And yes you should adjust to the ante size. The larger it is, the more inclined you should be to raise pre-flop; defend your big blind; and shove over prior raises.
 
AndyGamesPoker

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I have a question regarding the pre-flop lesson. In "Factors Affecting Pre-Flop Ranges Part 2" Stack Sizes.
The lesson states to play fewer hands short stacked and more speculative hands when deep stacked.
Should we not open more when short stacked and Be more concerned about chip preservation when deep stacked and have a much tighter range? I would intuitively believe that the worst thing you can do with a deep stack is play too many hands and have your big stack chipped away playing speculative hands.
 
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karmakoumas

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effective stack <3

it's a very interesting video on pre-flop and the best think i learned is effective stack and how to correlate it to big blind.
i was always comparing my stack to other while playing.
but i never use to compare with big blindes who is such a better method and rapid method to use while playing tournament.
thank you for this day course and since now every :kh4::qh4: hand will remind me katie first course :love:
 
Katie Dozier

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I have a question regarding the pre-flop lesson. In "Factors Affecting Pre-Flop Ranges Part 2" Stack Sizes.
The lesson states to play fewer hands short stacked and more speculative hands when deep stacked.
Should we not open more when short stacked and Be more concerned about chip preservation when deep stacked and have a much tighter range? I would intuitively believe that the worst thing you can do with a deep stack is play too many hands and have your big stack chipped away playing speculative hands.


We will open more when short stacked when you take into account that these opens will be all-ins much of the time that we’re short. A lot of the time we’ll be looking to maximize our fold equity by shoving and will be thrilled to take down the starting pot which will often represent a good percentage of our stack.

Conversely, when we have a big stack that’s a great opportunity to play speculative hands as we’re deep enough to have the implied odds to justify it. For me, stack preservation is only an important concept in tournament poker for certain types of ICM-dictated circumstances, otherwise I’m always just trying to make correct plays that will result in accumulation in the long run :)
 
Katie Dozier

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it's a very interesting video on pre-flop and the best think i learned is effective stack and how to correlate it to big blind.
i was always comparing my stack to other while playing.
but i never use to compare with big blindes who is such a better method and rapid method to use while playing tournament.
thank you for this day course and since now every :kh4::qh4: hand will remind me katie first course :love:


Haha that’s great to hear, thanks [emoji4]
 
A

armadillo999

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I liked this one best.
It a some bits I hadn't thought about in a very long time.
So clearly I recently been playing bad.
 
freddydr87

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Very nice shart for preflop i liked it is very solid. Facing limpers i rather ROL with all my opening rang(like iff the limp doesnt exsist) and adding 1bb to my regular opening size,when there are 1 raiser allready i dont like to could call a lot becasu your hand could be dominated i use some middle poket pair and some suited conectors
 
FF2586

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Hey!

Nice lesson! This is lighter than the previous ones! Helps me with the SB range, I think I am playing very tight from that position. Effective stack is an easy concept but a very important one!

Looking forward to get to the defending the BB part! That would be very helpful for me!

Great stuff

gl gl gl
 
Bobbybones1950

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Was my preflop decision incorrect

I folded this hand. After reading The Guide to Preflop I believe I made the wrong decision.. The range I had on Villain was wide AKo - 47s.

Should I Have Re-raised 12BB or possibly shoved All In

https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/4qrTJzI

Thankyou :banghead:
 
Debi

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Hey!

Nice lesson! This is lighter than the previous ones! Helps me with the SB range, I think I am playing very tight from that position. Effective stack is an easy concept but a very important one!

Looking forward to get to the defending the BB part! That would be very helpful for me!

Great stuff

gl gl gl

Glad you are enjoying this! You will love the BB lesson. :)
 
Phoenix Wright

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A lot of information in this Pre-flop guide. Thanks for this great in-depth lesson.
 
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osvimanCC

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Hi guys

I think that this topic should have been explained in a deeper way.

Pre-flop game is so important that we need to understand all the good decisions that we have to face.
 
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As someone who used to play extremely tight and passive- even with a chip advantage - I think knowing about effective stack size has made been a little more aggressive.

I did not really even use to give it a second thought, but now I make sure I know where my stack compares to the rest of the table at all times.
 
BentleyBoy

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Matt, sometimes that happens to everyone, you just get bad hand after bad hand. Don't worry! Just play your best. If you have a profitable situation to get involved with, like playing a strong hand or attacking a weak opponent with a junky hand, then do it. Otherwise fold and move on to the next one even if you've been folding a lot. The system works in the long run even if sometimes you spend a tourney mostly folding :)


While I tHink the video was great and the chapter in the book very helpful, this comment from Collin in response to Matt’s point is really valuable in terms of pre flop play.

There will be times where the game becomes very frustrating. Hand after hand of trash and when you do get a playable hand you get called and miss the flop.

This is why pre flop assessment is key and patience and determination support that.

Having a good grip of ranges and what to do with them in certain situations increases your chances of providing yourself an opportunity to be successful. Always remember that making the correct decision is far more important than winning...and the reason for this is that making the wrong decisions simply means that you will lose more often.

Great work guys.

BB
 
Collin Moshman

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Thanks guys, we really appreciate the nice words!
I folded this hand. After reading The Guide to Preflop I believe I made the wrong decision.. The range I had on Villain was wide AKo - 47s.

Should I Have Re-raised 12BB or possibly shoved All In

https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/4qrTJzI

Thankyou :banghead:


Bobby, I would generally shove here, but folding is fine particularly if the raiser is a tighter player. If you think he's opening down to 74s though, go ahead and move all-in for sure :)
 
carmenzu

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Preflop is very important, and sometimes you have to make difficult decisions, many times players who are in early position raise 3 blinds or more, and we fold important cards (AT, TT, KJo) even being in better position, when they show their cards 64s, 58s etc, it gives me a headache.
Yes, ranges are important, and stakes too, and weigh heavily on preflop decisions.

.


.
 
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LuisBoaC

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Hi guys. Firstly I'd just like to thank Collin and Katie for this amazing course and all their input across the forum (namely their AMA). Also I've owned Collin's book 'Sit 'n Go Strategy' for a few years and found it very helpful.
I'm just watching this Guide to Pre-Flop and have a question regading the K9o vs 3 limpers at about 13mins; Katie advocates raising with some better hands, such as KTo. Then Katie explains some hands she'd like to limp with - low pocket pairs and weakish suited connectors. So I'd just like to know, does that mean you would fold K9o here (assuming no strong reads on the limpers)?
Thanks again for everything.
 
Katie Dozier

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Hi guys. Firstly I'd just like to thank Collin and Katie for this amazing course and all their input across the forum (namely their AMA). Also I've owned Collin's book 'Sit 'n Go Strategy' for a few years and found it very helpful.
I'm just watching this Guide to Pre-Flop and have a question regading the K9o vs 3 limpers at about 13mins; Katie advocates raising with some better hands, such as KTo. Then Katie explains some hands she'd like to limp with - low pocket pairs and weakish suited connectors. So I'd just like to know, does that mean you would fold K9o here (assuming no strong reads on the limpers)?
Thanks again for everything.


I'm so glad to hear you're enjoying the course and thank you for your nice words! :)

Yes, K9o is the top of my folding range here and I would go ahead and advocate letting it go in this scenario. It isn't quite strong enough to raise and doesn't have enough speculative value to justify overlimping even on the button.
 
Herkstwin

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Wish I was 50 years younger and could retain what is being taught. For this old guy, only two things to hang onto after Day 6:
1. You are playing every pre-flop hand
2. Effective Stack - mine or the second largest, if I am leading (which seldom is the case, so I guess I better start watching the table.)
 
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Coinuss

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Finished Day #6.

The basics of preflop hand selection.

This was the first pure strategy course, and it was extremely important. I will study it furthermore, because bad preflop play = a losing tournament player.

I will give my answer to the question:

-Effective stack: 23bb (Coolman20000's stack).

:icon_stud

I did not think that an effective stack is the minimum count of chips that I can lose. I thought that an effective stack is the minimum count of chips that I can win against an opponent. As a rule, I often have a short stack and therefore an effective stack is equal to my stack. But, changing my mindset, I improved my game.
I did not analyze my own range, I always thought that it was very tight, but after reading the recommendations I thought that the proposed range is so wide that I decided to analyze my range, and I was surprised that I have only two ranges for UTG / Utg + 1 / MP/ LO / HJ, as the HJ range from guidelines, and for CO / BTN / SB, as the BTN range. I found that my early position range is so loose, and that is what leads to eliminate from MTT. I will try discipline in the future.
Thanks for this course, Katie and Collin.
 
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