Optimal Play at $25NL
I’m just trying to grow beyond basic TAG strategy and need a little help.
Not to be discouraging, but what you suggest isn’t beyond basic TAG strategy; it’s part of basic TAG strategy. As Ed Miller brilliantly put it in his recent 2+2 magazine article:
Total all the dollars you’ve ever bet playing poker. The large majority of those dollars should have been bet from late position. Only a small percentage of your total handle should have been bet from up front.
To implement this idea, you should be:
1. Playing more hands from LP.
2. Raising more hands from LP.
The concept is called "positional awareness," and it’s a fundamental building-block of good poker strategy. My general rule-of-thumb on positional play is that if I look at my VPIP from each position, it should be decreasing as I move farther from the button (blinds are a whole separate category — ignore them for now). I’d love to see my "VPIP from Button" at double my "VPIP from UTG" in a full-ring game, but if your Button VPIP isn’t at LEAST 50% larger than your UTG VPIP, you’re not playing a sufficiently positionally aware game.
My preflop aggression rule-of-thumb is that I want my PFR% to be at least half of my VPIP. If I’m not raising it up with at LEAST half the hands I pay to see, I’m either too passive or too loose preflop.
So; how can we implement this "positionally aware" strategy? Here are some suggestions:
1. From EP, play tighter-than-tight. I play any pocket pair, AK, AQ, maybe AJ and KQ (depending on the table and my image); that’s it. I’m raising with AA-TT and AK, AQ, AJ, and KQ (if I play them). Sometimes I’ll raise 99 and 88 as well.
2. From MP, I don’t open-limp. If the hand is good enough to play, it’s good enough to raise as the first player in. I’ll add suited connectors down to T9s into my lineup, and unsuited QJ or JT. I’ll also consider open-raising any two if my table image is tight and the players behind me are tight preflop and/or horrible (or even just weak-tight) postflop.
3. From LP, if it’s folded to me, I’m open-raising with any pair, any ace, any king, any two honors, any suited connectors down to 54s, any unsuited connectors down to 87o. I make steal attempts a bit over 1/3 of the time, and it’s wildly profitable. I also follow up ANY steal attempt with a continuation bet, regardless of the board or my hand. I will, however, quickly release a garbage hand if I’m reraised preflop or bet into on the flop; there’s no reason to stick around if you get caught stealing.
4. From LP after limpers, I tighten up a bit on my raising standards but still play very loose: I’ll raise any suited ace, any pair AA-TT, AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, and QJ; I’ll add in any other pair and suited or unsuited connectors if I’m feeling frisky and my image is tight. I’ll at least limp with suited connectors and any pair regardless.
Position is a powerful advantage in no-limit hold’em; if you don’t use it, you’re costing yourself money. The best way to use it is to play reasonably loose from LP (barring a preflop raise in front of you) and reasonably tight from EP. Just make sure you stay aggressive — you’ve got to raise at least half of these hands preflop. That means there are plenty of hands that you wouldn’t even play from EP that are worth a raise in LP, even after limpers.
