I think you're misunderstanding what opening light means. Light doesn't = small size, light = opening with marginal hands sometimes, not just premiums, for a variety of reasons. I'll still address your post in regards to the positives and negatives of opening to a smaller size.
c) "There is no recovery time to balance the added variance this brings. We are close to being eliminated" This isn't a great way to think of things, there's always a long run, variance is an illusion. Even though it may seem higher variance, it's not really. It's like how it seems like shoving weak hands in the small blind when you're short and it's folded to you seems high variance since you're risking 10-15BB to win 1.5-3BB, but in reality you're getting called so little, and when you get called you still win 1/3 of the time, so when you do the math, the times you bust out are so small that it's not really that high variance...
d) Opening to 2.25BB DOES NOT make it profitable to call with any 2 cards, but this shows that a lot of people think it does, and that's why it's good. They will call with any 2 cards, and we'll put them in a bunch of terrible spots on the flop. Say we open AQs, and they call us with 94 suited. Flop comes T92 rainbow with 1 spade. We bet, they call. Turn comes the J of spades giving us an open ender and a flush. We bet, they... have to fold the best hand. Even if it comes 952 and they call us on the flop, then the turn comes a K and we bet a gain, then the river comes a J and we shove... they can't call us (if they do it's not a profitably call). There's all sorts of ways to out play and exploit people calling with a wide range of hands... most of it involves betting.
"Are we opening light our entire range here, including JJ-AA? If so, we are throwing away equity! If not, we are advertising the fact that we may like to get away from our hand cheaply! A huge tell!"
Yes we should opene the same size with our entire range always, because exactly as you say, it's a huge tell if we vary our raise sizes based on hand strength. I don't see why we are throwing away equity with AA-JJ if we raise small, though.
Grammar Police;232889 wroteWell, I've been sitting on this for about 24 hrs. now, and in the interest of stimulating poker related conversation, and maybe learning something, I have a few questions and points!
In this particular example, with an M of 6.4, and ~15BB, the writing is on the wall. AQs is a big hand for us here, and opening light allows many things, as pointed out earlier:
A) it will allow us to get away from the hand easier when we miss, or feel beat after the flop. This is good!
B) it may induce action from a wider range of hands, leading to more equity for us. This is good, since we should be way ahead of any range here!
C) it may lead to a multiway pot with more than one caller, again increasing equity as above. This, however, may be a double edge sword. In the long run, we gave no doubt this is good, but there is no long run here! There is no recovery time to balance the added variance this brings. We are close to being eliminated, so the chips we risk are of greater value than those we may win! At this point in our tournament, would you choose 55% equity heads-up, or 35% equity 4-handed? Just a thought for further discussion!
D) it denies us any usefull info on BB's hand. Opening for 2.25bbs makes the BB call profitable with any 2 cards.
Are we opening light our entire range here, including JJ-AA? If so, we are throwing away equity! If not, we are advertising the fact that we may like to get away from our hand cheaply! A huge tell!
Just some thoughts for additional discussion! I am open to all ideas, and opening light here may have some advantages!