I am kinda new to heads up sitngos, but have had ok success so far. One of my major problems is how to deal with super agro players. In hyper turbo siitngos I normally open ever button for a min raise. What % does villain need to be 3 betting for me not open every button? I should also mention that these games are at the microstakes level. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thank You
When is opening every button good?
SB = 0.5 BB
BB = 1.0 BB
min raise = 1.5 BB
f =fold % to min raise
Pure fold equity for 1.5 BB invested:
when villain folds you win (0.5 + 1.0 + 1.5) = 3.0 BB
EV(FE) = f * 3.0 - 1.5
indifference point for pure fold equity where EV(FE) = 0
solve for f
f = 1.5 / 3.0 = 50%
So if villain folds more than 50% of time, you instantly profit from min raising any 2 cards.
But be aware this is exploitable:
- villain can c/r you more
- villain can call with wider range
- villain can make more money postflop in excess of the instant profit FE you win pre flop because you will, on average, have a weaker range in bigger pots
Being exploitable is a good thing (hopefully you are taking an exploitable line to maximially exploit your opponent) but you should be aware of the counter strategy so you identify when villain adjusts so you can re-adjust.
It's not just villain's 3b frequency you need to worry about, it's also his pre flop OOP calling range and post flop tendencies.
Additionally game flow is a consideration: even the biggest nitfish will notice if you never fold a button and you may encourage them to adjust correctly if you exploit them too obviously.
RE: Super aggro players
When you open every button, you are easily exploited by light 3bets:
Say you open 100% but will only call off a jam with 20% of hands:
This means you will be folding 80% of the time, making his aggro play super profitable.
Some adjustments to exploit these players:
- Fold total trash (you don't have the FE you need to play these hands profitably against these players)
- Raise a polarised range of hands you are prepared to stack off with and the bottom of your range (beacuse you can call off with a larger part of your opening range, his wide 3b strategy will get destroyed by the top of your range while the bottom provides the illusion of huge fold equity)
- Introduce a limping range of middliing hands with good post flop playability (there will be less money in the pot to resteal reducing the profitability of 3b, you can outplay him postflop against a more likely dominated range and he may reveal even more exploitable tendencies vs limps)
General comment:
In a macro sense, you want to design ranges which give your opponents opportunities to make significant mistakes (this is where your profit comes from) against your ranges. You want them lose more on their bad and marginal hands and win less with their good hands.
If villain folds too much to min raises OOP, sure go ahead and raise every button.
But understand where the expectation (FE with trash starting hands) is coming from and under which conditions it becomes unprofitable.
Hunting the spewtard LAGfish will require a different SB strategy to the nitfish or the LPfish calling station.
I don't think that we have to be exploitable when we min raise every button. If we auto profit, ie; villain folds> 50 % then we could, in theory just shut down and never put another dime in the pot and wed still profit from the button. Im not advocating either min raising every bttn at micros or giving up when called, just saying that it doesn't make us automatically exploitable. My personal approach is to open raise 80% at micros as default because they just don't like to fold, which is fine but its even finer if we play a slightly tighter range. As for fold vs 3bet %..that depends entirely on the bb s 3bet% and the way he's constructing his 3bet range.