'Standard' 4xBB pre-flop raise is wrong?

Having looked through NLHE:TaP I was rather surprised to read Sklansky bashing the “4xBB + 1 per limper” pre-flop raise. He said that using this to disguise your hand was “like cutting off your leg to cure your athlete’s foot”.

His alternative was pretty much to just raise whatever the fuck you felt like and just mix it up 20% of the time to keep the villains guessing. The following EP openers were also outlined:

Usually raise: QQ+, AK
Usually limp: 22-JJ, suited broadways, SC, Axs

MP & LP are almost identical to EP but with a few ‘promotions’ from fold to limp and limp to raise.

Call me nucking futs, but this sounds like a fast track to busto for a 100BB effective stack game. I know I’m very, very new to NLHE and as a result I honestly feel like I’m losing the plot, but I can’t see this working for anything with less than 250BB E.S.

Someone please help.

I haven't read that but I am guessing he's talking about a regular live mid stakes game where players play tagg poker?

He cant be talking about 2nl/5nl micro poker. Lets face it, you dont need to mix up your play even 10% of the time pf.

I think the standard 4x + 1bb is good in micro b/c we are playing a relatively tight range compared to our opponents. They're stats usually are usually 40+/8- or on the other end at 5-/2/.
We charge the 40/8 players 4xbb because we know they call with worse and we make $$ when they do that.

Sklanskys commentary is most likely related to a game that the micro's never come close to approaching.

I dont know what kind of games he plays in, but in fairly tight-aggressive online games you raise preflop with a pretty good chance of comming away with either the blinds, or the blinds and a cbet. Limping on the other hand will usually face an isolation raise from a wide enough range that calling hands like low PPs, SCs and looking to hit flops is not going to get the implied odds it needs to be profitable. The protection to this would be limping hands like AA occasionally but thats going to cause you to lose value against the 1 or 2 loose fish at the table, and sometimes leave you with a 4 way limped pot where you have no idea where you are.

In loose passive games I can see a case for limping most speculative hands from early position, but in most online games I think the "standard TAG" way of playing these hands is going to be much more profitable.

I think the more interesting part of that section is that he advocates raising 3x with 1 pair type hands like AK, and 4x with speculative nut hands like sethunting pairs. Assuming table conditions are right that 3x will usually only get 1-2 callers preflop, Id be interested to hear what other people had to say on this, especially with relatively deep stacks (say 150bb+).

It's more about the stacks than the stakes I think Vinland, due to the fact that he's advocating limping high implied odds hands like SC, Axs.

The other thing that irked me about it was the disclaimer after the 4xBB bashing, that said 'an expert player could make more without this strategy'. Make up your mind Sklansky.

Originally Posted by Pelion

I think the more interesting part of that section is that he advocates raising 3x with 1 pair type hands like AK, and 4x with speculative nut hands like sethunting pairs. Assuming table conditions are right that 3x will usually only get 1-2 callers preflop, Id be interested to hear what other people had to say on this, especially with relatively deep stacks (say 150bb+).

ty,ty. Goes against the grain a bit, doesn't it?