PokerVIP - 'Standard' Strategy, auto-pilot or anomaly?

Hi all.
I've been reading the forums, hand histories articles, poker school (love it) and watching videos and all that fun stuff.
I've come across a - what can I call it - bit of confusion as regards to strategy and in particular, what is 'Standard strategy' and what is not.
So, I'll try to pose my question properly and hope it gets discussed or at the very least explained to a fish like me in simple terms.

Say I raise 89ss in MP, is that standard opening strategy? It says in my SHC that it is. I have two concerns with this that I can think of off-hand,

1. That it's standard but doesn't take into consideration the players still to act, the dynamics of the particular game, (consider aggressive/passive/3bet happy, small/large stack sizes etc.)

Admittedly it may be fine as a sort of 'default' opening hand for MP versus unknowns and has been shown over X hands to be profitable and beginners need something to keep them consistent, but let's face it, unknowns are only unknowns until one showdown surely?

So when we have numbers on our HUD all over the screen after 3 orbits, is it still standard? I beg to differ.

2. SHCs I have issues with in the first place anyway even though I use them myself; I am becoming less inclined towards them, except, as mentioned, as a starting point for beginners or versus unknowns.

So what I'm asking is what is 'standard' as far as opening ranges by position is concerned. Does it just cover beginner or readless situations, or is it really the standard and we should all do it auto-pilot and learn from our postflop mistakes as we go?
I wont go into postflop because I'm not qualified to even ask the question. I do know about 'standard lines' a bit.

I know my question isn't as well formed as I would like, if it was I would probably not need to ask it. I could go int much more detail but lack the writing skill of some of you. But if you have tha skill you can interpret my drivel easily enough.

My own answer is use it for a round or two then play the player. Simples. I just hope I haven't wasted your time with trivia is all.

I think if people reading this even consider changing their attitude to what is a 'standard' play then I have succeeded somewhat.

I have no real conclusion to this, but I hope to get one from you clever lot.

Damn I can waffle, sorry peeps.

Last Post 8 years ago by

Pwll

Posts

4,146

Views

Copy post URL

https://www.pokervip.com/thread/view?forum=general-discussion&slug=standard-strategy-auto-pilot-or-anomaly&nav=57534539d39043ca028b461f

Hi Pwll, can I just ask what SHC is first

Thanks

Of course you may, SHC is Short Hand Chart, a grid of all the hands played from different positions at the table.

wait..
Attached Image

Like that one as an example

I like the thought you are giving to the game, but I'm not sure I know what your question is here. I guess my answer to the "maybe you're asking this?" question is, there are "known" hands everyone will open in each position, and "known" hands no one will open. 98s is in the gray area where "it depends" is prob the best answer.

My default is, in MP I won't open it unless I know the players behind me have low 3bet%. Then I will open it sometimes.

You correctly point out that if you use a HUD, there should be very few actual unknowns. So for the amount of times we get 98s in MP unopened with unknowns behind us, this just doesn't happen often enough for me to lose sleep over.

Hope that helps.

@CycleVancouver thank you very much, most kind of you. So I suppose really I put a lot of my meagre brain power into a 'Don't worry about it' question, it doesn't happen often enough?

Thanks a lot for the reply.

I think it's natural. I'm sure at our level, lots of us spend an inordinate amount of time on preflop issues that are really small in effect. PF, the game seems solved, and therefore we think we can/should be able to get a handle on everything. But postflop decisions like 2nd pair OOP, that comes up more frequently, can be more costly, and is harder to solve, so we spend less time on it, though we shouldn't.

I play like 54s from utg so if you are playing T9s+ that is like 10% of hands from mp!? If they 3b I 4b...

"you check I bet, you bet I raise, you raise I go all in!"

everything depends on you opps and your buy-in level, but

@BigBlackClock i do hope you know these two things:

1. T9s is most definitely NOT top 10% of hands
2. If you're opening 54s from utg, your open % is prob north of 30 from utg, meaning that your pf stats are so wild that honestly, I'm not even going to finish this thought.

You put cycle off food now.

I open 16% from utg...

Pwll: :D You put cycle off food now.

Cycle threw back 6 pints last night watching the basketball playoffs, so naturally I thought I needed a bag of doritos when I got home. Cycle SHOULD be off food right now! Brekkie was coffee and tylenol/paracetamol.

Erm, get well soon!

Hope the playoffs were fun in that case.

@Pwll I'm pretty sure "standard" in the example you gave would mean versus unknowns. As soon as you are seeing a reason not to open 98s from MP then you're not in a standard spot anymore, the situation is now specific to the reads you have on your current table.

Standard also refers to what is often called "population tendencies", i.e describing an average player for whichever site and whatever stakes.

Ok, thank you guys, I just like to be clear on stuff is all, it's no biggie.

Thanks.

Add your "Room Name" username and register with PokerVIP