Originally posted by RuiBouquet
Originally posted by fizbin
If you limp when you open in middle position, then you won't be short-handed out of position.
Never heard about that strategy! Where do you saw it?
Hwang, though it's in his full table book. I don't know for sure what he would say about open-limping in the hijack seat. Hwang wrote this on 2+2:
...you might play three Broadway cards with a dangler (at least single-suited) UTG or in the hijack in a 6-max game if the players behind you are passive and don't raise much; otherwise, you should throw them away from out of position. On the button -- or in the cutoff with a tight player to my left -- you can open with a raise with these hands, but generally limp in if a player has entered the pot in front of you.
So you have to read between the lines. He states that you can play three Broadways with a dangler in the hijack in a 6-max game, and then he says you can open-raise on the button, extending to the cutoff if there is a tight player on the button. With this hand in the hijack, Hwang says you can play it and implies you can't open-raise with it, so that's sounding like a limp when opening to me (if the players behind are passive, else muck), but it's possible he would always muck there when no limpers came in before. It's also unclear how he would play other hands, like AQQ4ss, in the hijack in an unopened pot, but his foremost goal is to not get isolated heads up out of position.
Originally posted by RuiBouquet
Originally posted by fizbin
A quick country check can be helpful too. A player from Greece or Finland is likely to be aggressive.
ahah are you talking true? this can't be reliable!!
Subgroup VPIP PFR 3Bet AFq%
--------- ---- --- ---- -----
All Greeks 72 18 4 41
All Players 43 13 1 41
"All Greeks" is all players that I noted as being Greek in notes and that also had 20 or more hands; there are 42 of these players. I always note player country whenever I write a note. "All Players" is all players for which I have 20 or more hands. The median values are given. This is all Omaha, and 99.9% of it is 6-max Hi PLO, ranging from .05-.10 to .50-1.00.
My hypothesis is that Greeks are generally more aggressive than non-Greeks, and at first glance you might think my hypothesis is busted; the aggression frequency is the same for Greeks and the whole population. However, you can't view aggression stats in isolation. You have to look at the VPIP too. For 6-max, a player with 20% VPIP and 41% aggression frequency is conservative, bordering on passive nit. A player with 43% VPIP and 41% aggression frequency is looser than optimal and not particularly aggressive. By contrast, a player with 72% VPIP and 41% aggression frequency is often bluffing or overplaying; he's betting and raising just as often as a conservative nit, but he doesn't have the hand strength to support it. By the time you get to 80% VPIP and 50% aggression frequency, that is definitely a maniac in my book.
The Greeks also seem to have the lead in PFR% and 3Bet% compared to the general population.
So, perhaps a safe way to summarize the statistics is this: if you find yourself in a low stakes PLO hand with an unknown Greek, it is statistically much more likely that he is an ultra loose and relatively aggressive player than if he were from some random other country.
Edit: Oh drat, there is an obvious flaw to my methodology here. If I'm more likely to write notes about loose and/or aggressive players, then that could be the sole cause of the Greeks appearing to be insane. The Greeks I've written notes about could be no more insane than others that I write notes about. I'll try to fix that sample bias later.
I don't plan to do the same analysis for players from Finland, because I know how it would come out. There are tight Fins and there are loose Fins, but there are no passive Fins. It's an exaggeration, of course. However, the Finnish population is not going to have that insanely loose profile of the Greeks.
Here's a funny anecdote. I wait until a player has 40 hands before I color code them for their VPIP. A Greek player had a VPIP of 42% after 40 hands, which I would color "green" for loose, and I thought, "no way, that's impossible!" Sure enough, after more hands his VPIP migrated up to 78%, putting him into the blue (whale) color category, just as I suspected.
Raw Greek data:
Spoiler
I have censored the player names, because most are huge fish, and so I wouldn't want to insult them. 
Player Hand VPIP PFR 3Bet AFq%
Greek #1 (27) 82 7 9 46
Greek #2 (54) 51 6 0 24
Greek #3 (104) 57 14 6 41
Greek #4 (40) 83 13 6 49
Greek #5 (57) 52 25 11 51
Greek #6 (28) 86 54 10 56
Greek #7 (30) 87 27 6 42
Greek #8 (76) 68 16 4 37
Greek #9 (41) 88 44 5 44
Greek #10 (82) 56 2 3 17
Greek #11 (70) 52 15 6 40
Greek #12 (24) 92 25 0 30
Greek #13 (24) 88 25 22 21
Greek #14 (129) 68 6 2 34
Greek #15 (68) 39 21 0 50
Greek #16 (28) 74 19 0 48
Greek #17 (73) 89 11 8 27
Greek #18 (39) 62 31 7 28
Greek #19 (97) 88 27 6 38
Greek #20 (61) 31 16 0 61
Greek #21 (58) 70 23 3 41
Greek #22 (146) 89 15 5 54
Greek #23 (57) 56 23 0 55
Greek #24 (116) 38 4 4 41
Greek #25 (34) 82 35 0 55
Greek #26 (22) 95 30 0 37
Greek #27 (39) 72 8 0 54
Greek #28 (86) 68 4 5 50
Greek #29 (96) 78 15 4 44
Greek #30 (147) 74 19 12 26
Greek #31 (25) 92 8 0 29
Greek #32 (34) 70 27 20 28
Greek #33 (23) 74 26 0 49
Greek #34 (75) 59 8 3 33
Greek #35 (89) 99 55 35 46
Greek #36 (91) 46 0 0 28
Greek #37 (26) 58 23 0 45
Greek #38 (68) 56 4 0 37
Greek #39 (30) 84 17 0 43
Greek #40 (39) 90 44 13 36
Greek #41 (72) 69 21 9 57
Greek #42 (26) 92 27 7 44
A
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