open sizing in freerolls-microlimits

I really have no questions about opening from all positions except sb/button, from them I open 2bb almost always, so as not to blow the pot too much, because many in such tournaments will call hands that look good, with strong hands, rarely but open 2.5 -3bb no one notices this, but it's beneficial for me. but about sb/btn. under normal conditions, it is necessary to open 3.5-4 from sat, 2.5-3.5 from btn. but considering what range we open with, wouldn't it be loose to open on the solver, because again in the freeroll everyone calls and can get there. it seems to me that it is worth either narrowing the range very much, or opening as usual and getting from weak players postflop

In btn and sb open 3-4 bb, this is standard play

Don't worry at all how much to open if you want to really know how much to open, you can watch tournaments there, the opening comes from sb to bb 3 bb opening, and so you can open as much as you want. The main thing is that you understand how to play and who you are playing against, this is also very important many factors play a role because poker has become completely different

Fepitaph said:

I really have no questions about opening from all positions except sb/button, from them I open 2bb almost always, so as not to blow the pot too much, because many in such tournaments will call hands that look good, with strong hands, rarely but open 2.5 -3bb no one notices this, but it's beneficial for me. but about sb/btn. under normal conditions, it is necessary to open 3.5-4 from sat, 2.5-3.5 from btn. but considering what range we open with, wouldn't it be loose to open on the solver, because again in the freeroll everyone calls and can get there. it seems to me that it is worth either narrowing the range very much, or opening as usual and getting from weak players postflop

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Opening differs by position:
Full ring UTG to MP about 3 bb first in, if you have limpers before you add 1 bb, so if you have one limper before you raise to 4 bb
After MP, so for HJ, CO, Button, the RFI is 2.5 bb + 1 bb per limper.
2bb rfi is only a minraise, it shows not really strenght.
You will get a lot of callers behind, because it is still cheap to enter the pot, it makes hands harder to play because you are out of position most of the time.
Goal, mostly play hands in position.
If you want callers in SB and BB to your button minraise, this is ok,
But if you want to take down the pot directly, you have to make it more expensive for SB and BB players.
Raising a hand shall give you the opportunity to play this hand heads up and not multiway, hard to achieve in today's games.

I always open up with a 2bb bet, regardless of the tournament and the strength of my hand.

Sizing in poker refers to the size of the bet and its choice. In games with no limit or pot limit, this is part of the strategy.Beginners act intuitively, and strong opponents use different bets depending on their goals.

Solver says that it only makes sense to open with a higher sizing on SB vs BB, in other spots the usual 2-2.5bb, depending on the stack size and the stage of the tournament. I don’t understand what kind of 3 or even 4bb opens people are talking about here (except in some deep stack tournaments, where you sit down at the table with 200bb+) - I haven’t seen this in any article, not a single streamer, be it a player ABI 10 or ABI 100 - everyone on the contrary says that by increasing the size of the open raise unnecessarily, you are only losing extra money - you will achieve all the same with a regular min-raise, but with opponents 3bet you will get 6bb, not 12 - it seems to me that the difference is obvious.

When you have a big stack you can make more comfortably bigger bets, and steal the blinds easier. But when your stack is small you bet more carefully and when the stack remains low then you wait your chance to go all in.

Mag_P1e said:

Solver says that it only makes sense to open with a higher sizing on SB vs BB, in other spots the usual 2-2.5bb, depending on the stack size and the stage of the tournament. I don’t understand what kind of 3 or even 4bb opens people are talking about here (except in some deep stack tournaments, where you sit down at the table with 200bb+) - I haven’t seen this in any article, not a single streamer, be it a player ABI 10 or ABI 100 - everyone on the contrary says that by increasing the size of the open raise unnecessarily, you are only losing extra money - you will achieve all the same with a regular min-raise, but with opponents 3bet you will get 6bb, not 12 - it seems to me that the difference is obvious.

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That is correct in normal and quite tough games. But freerolls and some very cheap MTTs play a little bit like very bad and loose Live Games: A LOT of players call you (and with total garbage hands). And they call you even if you raise more than is "theoretically correct".

So if they call you when you raise with 4bb with your tighter and better range why not do it? And the 3-bets are also usually less common if they don't have a really premium hand.

Build a big pot early to more naturally get more money in on later streets.

If they fold too much preflop lower your raises. If they call see how much you can raise before they start folding.

Solvers usually don't calculate for horrendously bad players.

pentazepam said:

That is correct in normal and quite tough games. But freerolls and some very cheap MTTs play a little bit like very bad and loose Live Games: A LOT of players call you (and with total garbage hands). And they call you even if you raise more than is "theoretically correct".

So if they call you when you raise with 4bb with your tighter and better range why not do it? And the 3-bets are also usually less common if they don't have a really premium hand.

Build a big pot early to more naturally get more money in on later streets.

If they fold too much preflop lower your raises. If they call see how much you can raise before they start folding.

Solvers usually don't calculate for horrendously bad players.

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I agree with your arguments and I will speak for myself - it is precisely because of the weak players at the micro-limits that I do not open big. This artificially “inflates” the pot and as a result, a simple c-bet of 25-30% on the flop will cost a significant part of our stack. In addition, we often miss the board - and it will be easy to bluff us out of the hand, because otherwise we will become more and more attached to the hand, reducing the SPR. So for myself, I decided to play more carefully and calmly, try to subtly gain value and just wait until the fish themselves give me their money. Perhaps when I grow in limits, I will want to change my strategy, but for now it works in tournaments for 1-2 dollars.

Mag_P1e said:

I agree with your arguments and I will speak for myself - it is precisely because of the weak players at the micro-limits that I do not open big. This artificially “inflates” the pot and as a result, a simple c-bet of 25-30% on the flop will cost a significant part of our stack. In addition, we often miss the board - and it will be easy to bluff us out of the hand, because otherwise we will become more and more attached to the hand, reducing the SPR. So for myself, I decided to play more carefully and calmly, try to subtly gain value and just wait until the fish themselves give me their money. Perhaps when I grow in limits, I will want to change my strategy, but for now it works in tournaments for 1-2 dollars.

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Of course its stack size dependant. We do not want to raise to 3BB or more with a 20-25BB effective stack, because then we lose to much, when we get 3-bet, and we create a low SPR, where we often dont have much room to navigate postflop. But early in the tournament with 100BB effective stacks its completely fine to use larger open sizes.

Also the whole point is, that we are talking about loose games with many multiway pots, and we should not be C-betting in multiway pots, unless we have a strong made hand or a strong draw, which we are willing to play a big pot with. The idea of min-raising preflop and then C-betting 25-30% of the flop with nothing is for tight games, where people fold to much.

In very loose games we should also not be following GTO preflop charts. For instance such charts typically has us opening all suited aces from UTG at a 9-handed table. But if an UTG open will commonly get 3-4 callers, then we dont want to be stuck in such a situation with A2s, because it puts us in to many difficult and unprofitable postflop spots, where we are out of position against multible opponents and have no idea, if for instance our top pair or our wheel straight is any good.

In free tournaments with a lot of calls, the opening strategy may differ from the norm. If your opponents tend to call wide ranges, then you can adapt your opening range by increasing your bet size or choosing stronger hands to open. This will help you make the most of weak players postflop.
However, don't forget to consider other factors such as table position, the size of your and your opponents' stacks, and your general understanding of the dynamics of the game. Analyzing and adapting your strategy in real time is an important part of playing poker successfully.

The truth is that there is no correct way to always play your hands the same way. It depends on the moment of the tournament, the players' stacks, positions and their stack. But for me, 95% of the time I prefer to open a raise with 2.2bb and re-raise pre flop of 3x the bb and the previous bet.
An example is the utg opening of 2bb and me on the button increasing to 6bb.