Lesson
Building a Linear Raising Range vs. an Over-Folding Villain
Preflop Architecture · intermediate · 7 min
Tyler and Eric review whether to raise marginal hands after a player limps, focusing on why exploitative preflop adjustments should stay linear against a caller who does not 3-bet enough. The lesson contrasts solver mixed raises with practical hand selection, showing why hands like K4 suited can make more sense than 97 offsuit when targeting a loose, passive limper.
Key takeaways
- Do not assume a player is overfolding preflop just because they sometimes fold to large raises; separate preflop folds from postflop fold-to-c-bet tendencies.
- Against a limper who calls too much and rarely 3-bets, prefer a linear raising range that has equity advantage over their calling range.
- Marginal offsuit hands like 97 offsuit require a very severe overfold to justify raising and should usually be excluded.
- If exploiting an overfold, choose hands closer to the top of your range, such as JTo, J9o, A7o, or suited kings, rather than low-equity offsuit hands.
- Use solver outputs as reference points, but do not copy mixed low-frequency raises when the opponent's strategy is unbalanced.