Reasons to Open the Pot Poker

The very first thing the aspiring 6-max cash game player should do is learn what range to open-raise the pot with from each position. Learning charts, however, is an exercise in memorisation and this alone will not suffice to build a solid foundation. In this introductory lesson on 6-max cash games, we shall we defining not just what hands to raise pre-flop, but why to do so from each position on the table keno w88 .

By ‘opening’ we mean raising as the first player to enter the pot other than the blinds. Dealing with one or more limpers will be discussed at a later point in this course.



Let’s begin by getting more acquainted with each position on a 6-max table.

As you can see, the positions are separated into three types. First, we have the non-steal positions in blue where our opening range will be more restrained given the larger amount of players to act, and therefore, the higher the chance of running into a big hand, getting called, and getting 3-bet poker online w88 .

The red positions are ‘steal’ positions. This does not entail that we never have a strong hand when we open from these seats, but the profitability of many of the hands we open in these seats relies at least partially on sometimes making our opponents fold pre-flop. For example, opening 86s from the CO (Cut-Off), which I generally recommend, would not be a profitable play if we always got called or raised by at least one opponent.

The position in black is the BB (Big Blind). We shall not be discussing this seat today, for the simple reason that it is impossible to open the pot from the BB. If everyone folds to us, we take down the pot, which is nice, but does not generate much strategic interest. Later on in the course, we shall explore how to defend our big blind against opens from other players.

For now though, let us explore the reasons to open a pot. Only then we can start to understand how to build an opening range in a whole array of dynamic situations and that is a lot more interesting and profitable than just following a chart.

Reasons to Open the Pot
1. Value
Occasionally, we are fortunate enough to be dealt powerhouse hands such as AKo or QQ. These hands have very high equity, meaning that they win at showdown more than the vast majority of other hands, and therefore entitle us to a large average amount of the pot that we have built. The bigger the pot that we win, the more money we make. 70% of a large pot is a whole lot better than 70% of a small one w88 casino .

We raise from all positions on the table with big hands for value, but the criteria for making a value raise becomes less strict as we move towards the BU (button). This is because our opponents will call us with wider ranges as our incentive to steal the pot grows. Therefore, while KJo would be a skeptical hand to build a big pot with from UTG, it makes a fine value-raise from the BU because the BB will be forced to call hands like K9o and K5s to protect himself from us stealing profitably with any two cards. There is no set group of starting hands that we should always open for value, instead, we should think of a value open as raising a hand that will continue to be in good shape after that raise gets called.