2/5 ~ how light is your iso range vs fish in +2

I go 30-35. I’m looking for excuses to play pots in position against this guy. I’m going to make the players behind me punish me before I start folding ATo

1. If possible, and as soon as you can, change seats to be on his direct right.

2. Until you can do that, I'd be raising a super-tight range for an egregiously large size. $25 isn't big enough. Make it $40, at least. If players are still flatting from behind, make it $50. Keep increasing your raise size until he's the only caller.

"Iso" is short for "isolate". You can't isolate this opponent when you're directly to his left and everyone wants to play with him. Not when you only open to 5BB's. You have to make it really expensive for people to see a flop.

When you do raise, whether you get it heads up or it's still multi-way, you need to be betting aggressively post-flop with your strong but vulnerable hands, and trapping with your invulnerable hands. You need to be using VERY large sizes. You have to make it really expensive for your opponents to realize their equity.

When you raise pre, get called, and the board is super-connected, you need to play very defensively. Over-fold to aggression. You need to make it unprofitable for your opponents to call your raises with speculative hands.

When you play this way, your opponents will quickly realize that it's not profitable to ride your coat-tails by flat calling when you raise.

They don't want to call 8BB-10BB pre, cap their range, and have to fold when you c-bet huge on most boards, or you check-fold when they smash the flop, or you snap them off when they try to rep a strong hand on boards that they miss but you have crushed, or you cooler them when they make a strong but second-best hand.

If you can sit on his direct right, it's a dream situation, because we can start aggressively squeezing all the dead money when he VPIP's and gets a parade of callers.

We play 8-handed, so to me the extra player makes a difference. Not crazy about the idea of iso with 7 players behind. Are you planning to bet/fold against a 3bet? Is anyone 3betting?

Sometimes betting a weak hand up front looks really strong and villain’s give you credit. Personally, I see a lot of weak opens (not many weak 3bets) so I’m probably never folding better than ATo.

Semi-savvy players open weak hands up front hoping it looks strong. Once you identify yourself as a wide opener, I will be 3betting regularly.

Isolating at low stakes with an open is meaningless to me as you usually gather a crowd. I don’t think you isolate unless you 3bet.

A lot of money disappears trying to attack someone and then running into someone else with a hand.

Back to the original question
I think if you open ATo and get heads up with villain, you might win a big pot. Nothing wrong with taking a stab, but I don’t think this works out like you want very often.

You end up with a weak hand OOP against an unknown villain and the fish swims away.

You want to be on the left of the fish, but in a 2/5 game there are probably multiple fishes.

I wouldn't iso UTG+2 with ATo, because you usually aren't going to isolate. You will either play it multiway or have to fold to a 3!. Calling a 3! with ATo would be really bad.

What deuce said. I don't like our chances of getting through 6 more opponents with ATo. So our iso attempt might have to be bigger. We don't want bigger with ATo, and see also...

I also am wondering why an "aggro" V is limping UTG1. Something isn't adding up. If they limp/3! bigly, we're going to have to fold, and we'll feel like idiots setting 35-50 bucks on fire.

Be on CO/BU or in the blinds, and sure. Not UTG2.

He started off opening frequently, cbetting/barreling high frequency.
He's toned down his aggression after tripling up. Limp/calling to get hands in.

He did limp/3b qq in utg before but that was just once, other times just limp/call.

You want to be on the right of a whale or maniac.

So V's now loose (presumably) and sticky pf. Are they sticky as well post? ATo isn't great on a lot of boards, and I think it might be -EV if you have to double/triple barrel with it to try and get V off a low pair. Plus again, 6 more people to get through.

I'd save this for a later position. ATs, sure, why not? AQo fine too. If you've been card-dead, and people have noticed, maybe fine to raise this, hoping you can get heads up or even win pre.

Not sure this guy is that fishy a fish, and that OP has such a big skill advantage over him, that it is that valuable to isolate against him anyway.

Yeah I'd rather be on this guy's left, and I'm mainly looking to play lots of pots with him in late position.

You want to be on the right of a maniac who is reliably raising every time, that way you can see what everyone else does before you have to respond.

This guy has some maniac-like tendencies, but he also has calling station tendencies. In this case I think it's going to be more valuable to be on his left, and be able to more effectively control pot sizes when you get heads up with him...

ATo is garbage in early position when you're going to get lots of callers behind. I would be looking to open hands that play well mutiway, like suited aces, suited Broadways, and mid pocket pairs and better. With offsuit aces I might open AJo just because he's that big of a fish, but I'm going to be careful with it if it goes multiway. AQo would be a more clear open.

It's also worth considering limping behind this guy with your whole range in EP. That's assuming someone else on the table is almost always going to raise. You can wait and see what everyone else does, including the fish, then call a raise with implied odds hands and reraise big with the top of your range.

This enables you to play more hands with the fish without exposing so many chips. If you raise big in EP sometimes it will go 3-bet, 4-bet when other players just have big hands. By limping you can play more hands, and see what everyone else does. You can reraise big and get more value with the top of your range, and escape cheaply with hands that are happy to play with the fish, but vulnerable to strong actions behind.

I limp behind in ep sometimes. I don't have a problem with splitting my range and theoretically becoming exploitable.

In 2/5 you can maybe limp behind range, as it gets raised so often, and 3! fairly often. At 1/3, you sometimes have to raise your good hands. You don't want to play a limped pot with AK/JJ, etc. It depends on how aggressive the table is playing preflop.