Raising from SB in zone to steal fast fold BB

[BluDogg]

Is it +EV to min raise from the SB to take advantage of fast folds from the BB? You risk .08 to win .07, so if you win the BB even %54 of the time you would be making money and if you do see the flop you have potential to improve. This strategy is one I'd use with rags. If I have higher value holdings, I'd open with standard sizing. Thoughts?

 

[MinhANguyen]

No. Open tight from the SB, unless you have reads BB is a nit. Trust me. I have played 5NL all the way to 100NL on Zone, and you really want to tighten up in the SB. You will be OOP for the whole hand, and the BB will make moves on you postflop.

It's not just about him needing to fold 54% of the time to make it profitable. You will most likely make more mistakes postflop OOP, and you cannot control the size of the pot as easily OOP. And when you do have the best hand, it's going to be easy for the BB (who has position on you) to bluff you off your hand. You will also have reverse implied odds when you pair your A no kicker, K no kicker, etc.

If you have any other questions about Zone, I can answer them . I'm a regular on 100NL Zone, and have played a ton of hands on there as well as on the lower stakes.

 

[BluDogg]

I was more saying that a min open would statistically take down more pots with the odds of the BB folding, which at 5nl are quite high in my experience. I'm only suggesting doing this with truly raggy hands. Not hands I'd normally open with from the SB. I'd always raise quality hands, but if I get 84o in the SB and it is folded to me, why not make a min raise to .10? In this case I'd argue that this is a purely stats driven play when your population read tells you that he's going to fold over 54 percent of the time. I'm going so far as to disregard any post flop play as this is a move that is purely a steal attempt.

 

[Sidetracked]

Depends on the player pool. If they're tight, maybe profitable. If I were in the BB though, I'd never fast fold until someone raised.

 

[MinhANguyen]

I was more saying that a min open would statistically take down more pots with the odds of the BB folding, which at 5nl are quite high in my experience. I'm only suggesting doing this with truly raggy hands. Not hands I'd normally open with from the SB. I'd always raise quality hands, but if I get 84o in the SB and it is folded to me, why not make a min raise to .10? In this case I'd argue that this is a purely stats driven play when your population read tells you that he's going to fold over 54 percent of the time. I'm going so far as to disregard any post flop play as this is a move that is purely a steal attempt.

If you get 84o in the SB, just fast fold it... You can see many more hands per hour this way, which = more $ if you are a winner at your stakes. You also have to remember most of the time not everyone is going to fold to you... Most likely, someone will open the pot or there will be some limpers. You're wasting time and money waiting to play OOP with 8 high.

I seriously doubt the BB folds over 54% to a min-raise, but I might be wrong. And like I said, we have to take postflop play into account. You can't just ignore it like it doesn't exist. Let's say you min-raise K2o. You flop TPNK. You're going to be making a lot of mistakes OOP (folding the best hand to pressure from the BB who has position on us, calling down with a worse kicker, or just getting outflopped). You win like 1.5bb from your steal. But you'll lose a lot more money trying to manuever OOP once called unless you flop quads/full house/two pair. Unless you plan on check-folding every flop that doesn't give you two pair + wih these hands, postflop play is a factor to consider.

 

[2tuzai]

if they fold 50% of the time and u x/f every flop u are BE which u will not do so yes its EV+ but i prefer to open 2.5bb from sb as long as u don`t go crazy post flop u should do that. For sure u don`t want to do this vs calling station or super aggro ops who will 3bet or defend very wide.