Hey,This feels like a pretty strange questions since i've chalked up 1300 or so HUSNG games and have a 5% ROI or so, but never the less it's something i've been struggling a little with lately.I'd like some input from people on their rough calling range preflop at the start of a HUSNG. For arguments sake we'll say $5-$30 levels (not for each level, they all play similar) and we're talking first few hands with no reads - villain folds one/two buttons and 3x's the rest, what's your calling range?I'm always pretty confused when I have hands like J7/J8suited or 75suited etc. I think it's important to balance your range here and not become too predictable such as only calling or 3 betting A10+ but i'm finding it difficult where to draw the line.Thanks!
Since your opponent also has limited information, I wouldn't be incredibly worried about balancing your range.For example, say you start off pretty tight, only calling 20% of hands and 3betting 10%.Even if your opponent recognizes this (and they won't always, not by a long shot) as you pick up reads throughout the game you'll likely be playing more loosely (whether it be 3betting wider bc you found a leak, or calling more hands bc they play weak and passive postflop, allowing you to see more turns when you want to and pick up pots when you miss) so it's not like they can exploit your early, less balanced and tighter OOP range.You've got a lot more working against you in the first few hands, a few things:- No real reads bc it's early on and you haven't played many, if any hands.- You're OOP and at the deepest point of the match, meaning that your positional disadvantage is at its greatest, making it the worst spot to play hands in.- You're facing a larger preflop raise on average than in later levels.If you think about how you make adjustments, when you reraise a top pair, when you should fire thin value, when you should call with a weak pair, when you should fold a middle pair and all the other various adjustments you make versus certain opponents, you don't have any of those advantages early on in the match against an unknown, so you're really working with so much less. As such, many successful players (particularly in the lower stakes and slower blind structures, but in any games to an extent *very high stakes excluded) play a little tighter OOP early on. Besides not falling prey to all those pitfalls I talked about, there are actually other advantages. If a player picks up some stronger hands early on and you're folding to their opens, they may do something such as limp a wide range of hands, making it even tougher for them to get value postflop (and allowing you to see flops OOP at no cost). They may also get tilty because they "just picked up AA, JJ, AK and TT preflop and this guy keeps folding to my raises, damnit" and spew more quickly than they otherwise would've.Just some things to think about. I know you want a specific range, but if you just apply a thought process to the situation and consider all the variables, I think you'll start to realize what types of hands you like to call with and which ones are better to fold early on.Remember that suited connectors and gappers are stronger when you're deeper, as their risk to reward when winning big pots is larger. Also remember that unsuited high cards are weaker, as they are more prone to domination (stuff such as K4o) as well as they cannot make too many big hands such as straights or flushes (and when they do they are much less disguised since you usually need 4 flush cards or 4 to a straight to make them). If you start to call with some 98s type hands preflop and notice an opponent is weak or checking back a lot, you can start to open up the calling range, as you've now found a way to exploit them postflop.
Thanks for the detailed response Ryan, most helpful :)