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I have a feeling that this is a leak in my game as I will complete anything but 72. I guess you would also need to take into account equity through the number of limpers also. |
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It is usually a clear leak to complete the small blind with offsuit trash. You have the worst position, so even if you make the best hand, it is hard to get value for it. Something like J4o rarely makes strong hands. You might hit a jackpot flop like JJ7, but your chance to outflop an overpair is about 3.5%, and you do not always win when you hit the flop hard. The hands you can play profitably depend on how many players limped in front of you and what their ranges are. If there are several limpers, then you may be able to play most hands which are suited or fully connected. If there is just one limper from early position, then you may want to fold hands like A7o, K4s, and T8o. If everyone folds to you, consider open-raising most of the hands you would play instead of open-limping. This will often get many folds, and it will often set up good situations postflop, since players often give too much respect to raises from the small blind, and do not use their positional advantage against the small blind. |
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You can use a database program like poker tracker to examine your average profit in the small blind based on such things as hand, action, and number of players seeing the flop. Then only play the hand types that show a positive profit. I'll be happy to do the analysis for you if you send your hand histories to mazoula@mailcity.com with a note about your request. As always the more hands the better. mazoula 1
To clarify, you should filter to times when it is not raised in front of you, and the comparison is with losing the small blind, not breaking even. If you average a loss of $0.70/hand while posting a small blind of $1, then it means you should play the hand, since losing $0.70 is better than losing $1.
(Sep 04 '10 at 05:38)
Douglas Zare
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Even with jackpot flops like JJ7 when you hold J4o are problematic in multi-way pots. The few times you actually do hit flops like this you will either win a small pot or lose a large one(to a jack with a bigger kicker or a flopped full house like 77). I don't think its effective to use poker tracker in this way unless you have an extremely large sample size(probably more than a million hands). It will lead you to false conclusions like say you have J4o and you complete multi-way with 3 other players and flop JJ4 and one of the other players has 44 it will shown an insanely high expectation for J4 off and you might incorrectly assume its profitable to play this hand in this way. As for what range you should complete it depends on how many limpers, their stack sizes & what type of opponents they are. I would rarely ever complete with no limpers. My range would widen the more bad players in the pot. I'd tend to play hands that could hit big flops like connectors or fairly connected suited hand and tend to stay away from hands like A8o where you could hit either card and easily be dominated OOP in a multiway pot. 1
The sample size you need is reduced if you group together similar hands.
(Sep 12 '10 at 07:50)
Douglas Zare
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