Heres my problem with alot of your posts that say things like:

"When stacks are deep, raise JJ+ and AK 3/4 of the time, limp 1/4."

Lets say you sit there for 5 hours and play. Youre going to get dealt a total of about 125-150 hands or so. Maybe 35 of them are from EP.

On avg , youre going to get JJ+ and AK less than 3% of the time. So that means you'll get JJ+ or AK 1 time on avg in 5 hours in the 1st 3 seats.

Thats way too much thinking, planning and plotting for 1 hand for my tastes. How are you going to raise that 3/4 and limp 1/4 when youre only in that spot once every 5 hours on avg?

Its just way too much "paint by numbers". I think you need to be spending alot more time paying attention to the flow of the game. Who is calling raises with what? Things like that should be be a major factor in determining what youre raising with and from what positions.

It's also assuming that your opponents are paying attention and not watching sports on tv, eating, talking to their gf sitting behind them, picking their nose, etc...

If it were 1 session, I'd agree, but I'm playing the late night game several times each week against the same players.

Also, the AK and JJ+ raises I'm talking about aren't the ones I'm most interested in but rather the SC, medium pair raises.

I figure we're talking about as much as 40 hours each month of these situations.

Finally, I AM paying attention to the flow of the game, and this was a strategy that I was considering in responding to the flow I described. Was just hoping to get some opinions on whether that's a good way to respond to that specific flow.

If the table doesn't get too out of line with 3-bets then I think its pretty mandatory to be raising SCs and lower pairs sometimes.

You need to be able to hit the flops that they are going to be repping stuff on. For example, if the board is [7c][8h], it would be nice to be able to have top 2, sets, straights and combo draws in your range rather than just overpairs that they are going to try to get you off of.

In general you would want to stay tight in EP but just make sure your range is somewhat balanced. Depending on the table, limping could be OK too.

Ice and Doyle,

Your points are sort of irrelevant. Saying that you shouldn't raise these hands 3/4 of the time and limp 1/4 of the time (assuming that that distribution is correct) because you'll "only be dealt them once per session" is similar to advocating folding a flush draw to an all-in on the flop getting 3-1 because you're probably only gonna get it in with a flush draw once this session.

Ais,

Something I learned and greatly enjoy dealing with is not always being worried about having a wide range. More specifically, it's ok to have your hand be basically "face-up" if you are able to determine why your opponent is reacting to your hand the way he is. Why is he betting 2/3rds pot on the river when its obvious you have a small overpair (for instance). If you are better at determining if he is doing it with a set for value or busted draw as a bluff than he is at figuring out whether you'll fold it or call with it, it's ok for him to know you have it.

Xas: Yes, that was an issue I was thinking of, too, and really one reason why I'm much more confident raising, possibly re-raising and even occasionally 3-barreling 54s with position. With position, I'm getting pretty good at determining villain's hand. OOP, I find it much more difficult.

Say I bet out QQ on a 972 twotone board and get raised when deep. With the better players in this game, I find it very difficult to determine whether I'm up against some kind of T8, two pair, set, flush draw with or without pair, stuff like that. And I'm pretty sure the better players in this game are also willing to attack my check on the turn. With position, they're the ones checking or betting to me, and it's much much easier for me to figure out where I'm at.

ice: One way is Harrington's second hand randomizer. I think that's a pretty good start, and that method is what I really had in mind. But one can also adjust depending on how cards fall and what you've turned over or just do it "texturally." Even if I'm doing it texturally in point of fact, I find it helpful to have the percentages in mind, mainly in the sense that I want to look like someone who has something like these percentages.