These are the open raising ranges from GTO Wizard for 6-max ring games at 100bb deep, using a 3x opening size (excluding the small and big blinds)
It’s possible to learn a slightly simplified version of all 4 ranges by memorizing just 3 cards and a few simple rules - Queen, Ten, Seven:
- From UTG, we can open:
1.1 Any off-suit hand where the lowest card is a Queen or better
1.2 Any suited hand where the lowest card is a Ten or better
1.3 Any pair of Seven’s or better
1.4 For each seat to the left, we can open 1 card higher in each category - That gives is the core of our range, which can be expanded with following rules:
2.1 We always open all suited A’s
2.1 We can open off-suit Aces with a kicker two below our base range (eg from UTG, we can open ATo, even though rule 1 specifies only opening AQo+)
2.2 We can open off-suit King high hands with a kicker one below our base range
2.3 We can open suited King highs with a kicker 3 below the base range for suited hands
2.4 We can open suited Queen high hands one below our base range
This gives us the following ranges:
The frequencies for UTG, HJ and Cutoff are all within 1%. The button approximation is a lot tighter than it should be, 32.4% vs 39.6%, but if you also add a rule to play all off-suit aces from the button, then it’s very close again. The differences in the solver vs approximated ranges is almost entirely with hands that have 0 EV, so you’ll rarely be folding a hand that is supposed to be +EV, or calling with a hand that’s losing in theory.
The same rules likely won’t work for all ranges, and I’m not suggesting these a good ranges to use. The basic idea of using the lowest off-suit kicker, lowest suited kicker and lowest pair and then expanding that range with a few simple rules will usually work fairly well though.
Some final thoughts if you want to extend this concept:
- In this case, the solved ranges seem be almost allergic to suited connectors, but if you want to play them, a good rule might be that the lowest card should be 1 above the lowest pair you’re supposed to open.
- Related to the above, even if you want to always open all pocket pairs, knowing which ones you should be opening can be useful. In fact, even if you have good reasons for not following standard opening raising ranges, knowing what they are will give you a better idea of mistakes your opponents are making
- If you’re trying to apply this to 9-max ranges, consider grouping seats into pairs. For some ranges, you might have to learn what the lowest kickers/pairs are for each seat, because they won’t follow an always one lower rule as you move around to the left.
- It’s probably possible to find rules that adapt nicely to different stack depths. I don’t really play MTT’s, so this is left as an exercise for the reader
PS: I’m basically piggy backing off @Younguru excellent thread: Simple Replay Ring Strategy. If you’re struggling at low-mid stakes, I would start there, and then come back to this to further fine tune your pre-flop strategy. It’s boring, but nothing will increase your win rate faster than improving you pre-flop play.