In poker, being in position during a poker hand (last to act on each post-flop betting
round) is going to ♨️ give you a massive advantage. Seeing how your opponents act first
will allow you to play more optimally against them ♨️ in addition to being able to put
them in tight spots often and profit more from them.
To compensate for potentially
♨️ being out-of-position in a hand, in the preflop betting round, the further you are to
the right of the button ♨️ (being one of the first players to act), the tighter your
starting hand range should be for when you come ♨️ in for an open-raise.
This is not only
because you may be out-of-position for the rest of the hand, but you ♨️ may also get 3bet
from an in-position player too. If you open too wide, you run into the problem of
♨️ having to defend your range too wide appropriately, as well, (based on minimum defense
frequency - MDF). You’ll likely have ♨️ to continue with hands that are actually slightly
–EV to be raising/calling.
Table of Contents
Poker Starting Hand Chart (6-Max Cash,
100bb)
As ♨️ such, it’s essential only to raise hands that are going to be +EV to start
with (for an open-raise).
And thanks ♨️ to the help of poker solver like PokerSnowie and
PioSolver, we can create a baseline for our 6-Max poker starting ♨️ hand chart.
Note that
the range of hands that we can open-raise with gets wider and wider, the closer we are
♨️ to the button.
Also notice that these are hands that we are *open* raising with, which
means that action has folded ♨️ to us when we are in the corresponding seating position in
the hand (no limpers; no straddles; no other raises ♨️ before us; etc.).
Lastly, it should
be noted that the above chart shows the SB open-raising range for raising first in
♨️ (RFI). If we choose to play GTO, it’s suggested to have a mixed strategy that includes
some open-limps and some ♨️ open-raises from the SB, but for the purposes of this article,
we’ve kept it simple with this baseline RFI chart ♨️ by keeping limps out of the
question.
Studying this baseline chart is a necessity for developing a winning strategy
in poker. ♨️ If you’re opening up too many hands, even if it’s slightly –EV to open with
preflop, your mistakes throughout the ♨️ hand are going to compound - potentially putting
you in even bigger –EV spots, if you play sub-optimally post-flop. Also, ♨️ bear in mind
that a recommended 2.5x raise size is recommended for this chart. This strategy, of
course, will make ♨️ it more ideal for online play than live (where rake tends to be
higher, and games often play a bit ♨️ differently than online, especially at lower
stakes).
When To Deviate From This Chart
This chart is a GTO poker chart for hands ♨️ to
open-raise within a 6-max game. This fact means that if everyone is playing perfectly,
this is the chart to ♨️ go by.
The thing is, though, in poker, no one is going to play
correctly. Everyone is going to have holes ♨️ and weaknesses in their game. The bigger a
player’s leaks and flaws are, the more you should be looking to ♨️ exploit these leaks,
instead of playing a fundamentally sound game yourself, solely to try and maximise your
profit.
Here are just ♨️ a few examples of situations where you may choose to deviate from
this baseline chart:
If you have a fish in ♨️ the big blind, raise wider, especially as
you get closer to the button.
If you have a LAG 3bettor on your ♨️ direct left, open-raise
tighter.
If you’re still developing your fundamental strategies for postflop play,
raise tighter. (This strategy will eliminate small ♨️ +EV situations preflop and help give
you the larger +EV situations for postflop, as you work to improve.)
If you have
♨️ tighter players to your left (more likely to fold preflop to a raise than usual),
open-raise wider.
These are just a ♨️ few examples. You could also experiment with raising
larger or smaller with your ENTIRE range based on table dynamics, if ♨️ you want a tighter
or wider hand range, and if you’re trying to achieve a specific result.
A Word on
Preflop ♨️ Raise Sizing
The smaller you open-raise, the more poker hands you can open (by
a small percentage).
If you raise larger, then ♨️ generally you should have a tighter
range of hands.
When playing micro stakes, some coaches advocate a 4x UTG open raise.
♨️ Then reducing to 3x for HJ, 2.5x for CO and BTN, and then back to between 3 and 4x for
♨️ SB opens.
The reason for these larger-than-normal recommended open-sizes is because the
range of hands that will call an open-raise in ♨️ the micro stakes is much higher than as
you move up. (You can get more value from your more-premium-heavy hand ♨️ ranges from OOP,
like UTG and HJ than when you’re opening wider in LP.)
As a very brief example of this,
♨️ if you have a tight, recommended UTG range, and you have a BTN player who’s going to
call both a ♨️ 3x or 4x-open with Q8s, then you might as well push for that extra value.
Your range is going to ♨️ be stronger than their calling range.
In live play, most players
raise to 4-5x the big blind. (Usually only starting at ♨️ 2/5, you’ll only see select
players opening up to 3x.) This play is exploitable, but there is valid reasoning
behind ♨️ it.
Namely, many more players in live play want to see flops (as they’re only
playing about 25 hands/hr), so you ♨️ want to discourage some hands from calling while
simultaneously gaining value from worse hands. If by raising larger, you can ♨️ get more
folds preflop to get a pot heads-up, then this is beneficial too. You’ll also retain
the highest amount ♨️ of equity versus ONE other hand, than, say – FIVE other hands –
regardless of what your hand is!
Exploitatively, it’s ♨️ okay to experiment with your
open-raise sizing when at a table, too. If you have a loose cannon in the ♨️ mix, they’ll
often have a threshold for how much they’ll willingly see a flop. Feel free to keep
boosting your ♨️ open-raise sizes (while maintaining an exploitatively tighter range, if
that’s the case) until you find what their threshold is.
Acting AFTER ♨️ an
Open-Raise
While this article aims to deal with OPEN-raises, I think it’s crucial to
still touch on this point in ♨️ brief.
In general, if another player opens, you should
call with hands that do better than the majority of their opening ♨️ range, and then 3bet
for value with your best hands, and mix in some bluffs with hands that are slightly ♨️ too
poor to call with.
Yes, it’s always important to take a player’s table image, raise
size, and stack size into ♨️ account, but such is the case with all aspects of poker. You
should always take ALL of the different variables ♨️ into account.
In Conclusion
Be sure
to study the chart above and review it frequently until you know it like the back ♨️ of
your hand.
Knowing and understanding GTO charts like this in poker is essential so that
you can have a solid ♨️ baseline, and then be able to deviate from it, as necessary, if
the situation calls for it.
