by Aisthesis » Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:22 am
This is something I'm still struggling with and will post whenever I think I've figured something out.
You might take a look at my recent posts on HU raises--which doesn't mean an HU match, just situations which you expect to be HU in full ring.
I think the hands you want to raise vary situationally (on the HU raises, I'm recommending raising some hands that I wouldn't even play if there were 4 or 5 limpers already in).
I'm currently distinguishing between 3 types of situations: 1) You expect it to be HU after you raise, 2) You expect it to be 3-way, 3) You expect 4 or more players in the hand.
I think there will be quite a bit of overlap between the second and third group, but I'm guessing it's not a bad idea to distinguish these.
What's in any case clear to me is that in shorthanded pots you want to be in there (raising, I think) with hands that hit medium strong (overpair, less than nut flushes) on a very large percentage of flops--like at least 40%, preferably more, although it has problems if you restrict your range to AA alone, which obviously is overpair 100% of the time.
In more multi-way situations, I think value-raises are good with position on hands that hit harder at the expense of hitting less frequently. For example, junk AA really has only top set value there, and that's only going to hit about 12% of the time, making the EV very dubious. AAds on the other hand hits top set 12% plus 25% for a nut flush draw. I also think wraps are good raising hands in this kind of pot, probably being a little pickier the smaller they are (like maybe 4567 only ds? possibly not raising that hand at all, although I like having some small card hands in the raising range just as a matter of principle, so that no one can assume that a small card flop has missed you if you raise).
Anyhow, I haven't really tried to enumerate raising hands for multi-way pots yet exactly, but that's my next project.
No idea whether this view is right or wrong, but it's in any case the conclusion I've come to.