minimum raise

Okay this is a serious post from me for a change. I am talking to Tenbob - but anybody else can feel free to respond, especially Fredric lol.

However, when I request assistance and guidance from you I need to understand the response. So please refrain from using any acronyms - except UTG. I kind of like that one. And don't refer to my opponents and myself as comic book characters like villians and heroes. And for godsakes don't expect me to know who seat 8 is. I can count but don't know where to start. And it will be a great day in the history of mankind when I can actually read a hand history from start to finish without my mind drifting to something else.

Now - about this minimum raise thing you were trying to educate me on. I need to know if you meant never literally. No matter what I have or what kind of game I am playing- I should never raise less than....

Is it 3x, 4x or 5x the bet - or is that a judgement call on my part? If so, based on what?

Thanks for your help, as always.

Depends on many things. Like if you are UTG or not

These can all have an influence :-

Whether Pre-flop/Post flop
Hand strength (and I dont just mean your 2 hole cards)
Pre-flop position (there's your UTG stuff)
Blind size/stack size/relative stack size
Player reads/previous player behaviour
Table image
No. of players in pot
etc etc.....

buts lets not get bogged down....essentially min raises are used in a couple of areas...

1) You are looking to increase the pot size, usually when you have the best (or close to) possible hand. You therefore can offer them value (by min raising), which it hard for them to refuse.

2) You are looking to find where you're at. You are seeking information by their reaction to the raise, and subsequent behaviour on the next card.

There....acronym free

ps min-raising is all FP does ....so he certainly wont say 'never'

Thanks Welly. Especially for keeping it basic for me.

Umm - Chris - I was hoping you would respond since you were there and you know how I was raising and have a bit more perspective on that specific scenario. Though you don't know what I had either time.

(Btw I had AK one of the times and can't remember the other - but it was also a strong hand. I think both situations were post flop and I had strong hands after the flop.)

Oops - I used an acronym lol.

Dunno if yer talking about the ring games or the donkament, but my only note on you is (paraphrasing) 'limps often - raises seldom'. Limp less, raise more, especially when shortstacked (I saw you limping a couple of times for like over an 8th of your stack, which is really bad - at that stage you should be push/folding).

As for minraising, I rambled on for a bit about how it's generally a bad idea here. Summary: NLHE is a game of implied odds and by minbetting/raising (especially with huge hands) we are giving our opponents huge implied odds (essentially the chance they will take all our monies if they hit their hand).

Okay - read your previous post and other than not knowing what MP means it was well written and I know basically what you are saying.

But if I have AK and AKjunk flops and I raise 4x the bet your little villian folds almost every time and I have won a tiny amount with a great hand. Doesn't matter if I am playing with you and Liam who can read me like a book lol - or a table full of total strangers.

If I sound like I am just learning the game after playing for 2 years - well maybe I am. I played for the entertainment of it until now and was content to chalk the losses up to entertainment expense.

Now I would like to try to win more often so it means paying more attention to these things.

Unfortunately my brain will freeze up if I overload it - so one thing at a time for me and I have to keep it simple.

Thanks

EP, MP, LP al refer to the position on the table: Early Position, Middle Position, Late Position

This is far preferable to losing a huge amount if someone with QJ who stuck around because you only minbet hits a gutshot and takes all your monies.

If someone has a hand they like they'll generally stick with it whether you minbet or bet 1/2 to 2/3 pot (let's say in your example our opponent is a typical calling station donk with A6 sooted - he's calling any reasonable bet, right?). All you're acheiving by betting tiny is giving decent draws pot odds to call and longshot draws implied odds to bust you.

Ask yourself which would you rather have? Win 10 pots with a profit of 50 chips each time by raising hard on the flop and having others fold to you, or min. raising and having your opponent sucking you out at least twice for a loss of 200 chips? This is usually what happens with min. raising. Hit them hard, take the chips and run.
You need to look at the bigger picture overall in the game than just that hand. If it's a tourney you want to build a chip lead and sometimes you have to grind it out to do that.

i'll leave those who understand such things to talk theory to you

just to say about the above: i'm right there with you

AD

Raising preflop does a few things.

1) It says to your opponents that you have some sort of hand

2) It builds a bigger pot

3) It gives your opponents a chance to fold and give you the blinds

4) It gives your opponents a chance to call and tell you that they have a decent hand

5) It gives your oppoenents a chance to reraise and tell you that they have a very good hand.

6) It gives you a chance to bet flops you miss (a continuation bet) based on the image you have gained by raising preflop


If you only minraise your opponents are given great odds to call and for each person who calls the odds get even better for the rest. Most worryingly the big blind is going to have at least 3.5 to 1 to call.

So you lose some of the benefits of raising as your opponents have not told you much about their hand by calling and could have almost any 2 cards. This causes even more problems on the flop. Also you haven't built much of a pot so that when you hit the flop it's trickier to induce opponents to bet or call incorrectly as they can get away cheap.

In a freeroll, min raising is a bad idea, but raising constantly preflop is probably a worse idea...unless you're very late in the tournament.

Dakota, I just posted this in Misch's silly intro thread, but then I saw this thread. Here's a great example why minimum raises are (usually) bad:

PokerStars Game #7282228299: Tournament #37239799, $1.50+$0.25 Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2006/12/03 - 12:19:10 (ET)
Table '37239799 2' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: juiceeQ (2005 in chips)
Seat 2: chubbs777 (4627 in chips)
Seat 5: six6foot (1755 in chips)
Seat 6: Golden1 (1255 in chips)
Seat 7: hxcEddie (1795 in chips)
Seat 8: polecat 864 (453 in chips)
Seat 9: yankeedime (1610 in chips)
yankeedime: posts small blind 50
juiceeQ: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to juiceeQ [Th 5c]
chubbs777: calls 100
six6foot: raises 100 to 200
Golden1: folds
hxcEddie: calls 200
polecat 864: folds
yankeedime: folds
juiceeQ: calls 100
chubbs777: calls 100
*** FLOP *** [Td 5h 5s] WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
juiceeQ: checks
chubbs777: checks
six6foot: bets 300
hxcEddie: folds
juiceeQ: calls 300
chubbs777: folds
*** TURN *** [Td 5h 5s] J♣
juiceeQ: checks
six6foot: bets 300
juiceeQ: calls 300
*** RIVER *** [Td 5h 5s Jc] 7♠
juiceeQ: bets 300--I was hoping for the reraise
six6foot: calls 300--
*** SHOW DOWN ***
juiceeQ: shows [Th 5c] (a full house, Fives full of Tens)
six6foot: mucks hand
juiceeQ collected 2650 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2650 | Rake 0
Board [Td 5h 5s Jc 7s]
Seat 1: juiceeQ (big blind) showed [Th 5c] and won (2650) with a full house, Fives full of Tens
Seat 2: chubbs777 folded on the Flop
Seat 5: six6foot mucked [9c 9s]
Seat 6: Golden1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: hxcEddie folded on the Flop
Seat 8: polecat 864 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: yankeedime (small blind) folded before Flop

P.s. Sorry for the hand history.

As long as I have a decent amount of chips at the table I'll limp and min-raise pretty often. A larger percentage of players that I play against will stay in the hand with an ok hand whether they have to put 50 chips in the pot or 250 chips.

If I have a decent amount of chips I'll fish a little with any 2 face cards or King-X suited. I'll also min-raise in some cases with middle pair-top kicker. The min-raise will increase the pot without risking a lot of chips. The only bad thing is that it'll tell my opponents that I have an ok hand but not a killer which in a lot of cases causes them to push.

Thats how I play and it depends on reads a lot. I dont really play 'by the book' but I get decent results.

Min-raising is really really horrible. There is times when it is a correct play, but these time are so few its really not an issue to consider them for the purpose of this thread.

Min raising really gives the BB odd to call with any 2 cards, your goal in poker is to make your opponent make mistakes, and generally its not a mistake to call with any 2 cards from the BB facing a min raise. So when your AA was cracked by 45o you know why.

AKA Tammys hand above.

There are loads of reasons already stated in this thread as to why its a no no. Jim ? What in earth are you taking about, if you want to control the size of the pot just smooth call, you can make a better arguement than that surely. Since when did you not want callers with inferior cards ?

Nice thread Debi.

Well why risk a lot when the people on a draw will call either. When you have an ok hand and you put them on a draw why would you make a big raise? For them to hit there draw and take half of your chips? I would rather min-raise and let them keep drawing...then when they re-raise me when the third heart hits I know they probably hit the flush and I'm not pot commited. If they don't hit i can min-raise again and they will probably call with the Ace or king kicker because they are pot commited.

The argument that you should not min-raise usually only works when you are playing against decent poker players and in most cases you are not playing against decent players.

This is fundamentally incorrect.

If someone is on a draw and you have a made hand, you have to bet/raise enough so that they're not getting pot odds to call. If you do not and only bet/raise a tiny amount, they are making the correct decision by calling you, and you are the one in 'error' because you have not bet enough to lure your opponent into making a mistake. You have it backwards when you say it 'only works against decent players' too - poor players are more likely to call when they're not getting odds and thus are more likely to make the mistake of calling without odds.

You profit from your opponent's mistakes. When the opportunity arises for you to force your opponent into making a mistake, you have to take it.

Dorkus is spot on.

If your opponents are drawing out on you when they call despite not having the odds it's a sign you are playing well and will win in the long run.

Individual hands don't matter, it's putting yourself in positive EV situations consistently that wins in the end.

Not betting much because although you have the better hand you don't want to build a pot is a major hole in your game.

Yes this may be true in ring games but tournament play is different. In a large tournament I may be in this situation up to 10 times. Eight of those hands I may win but those 2 I lose could take me out of contention. Individual hands do not matter in MTT's. Besides this is my style of play and I make enough profit off of it to be satisfied. No one style of play is right for every player.

I'm 95% a tournament player myself. EV situations are defined in the context of the tournament not the individual hand and chip EV doesn't always equal $EV as you say.

In poker there are very few absolutes but not giving your opponent the odds to draw is one of them.

As for tournament play, a min. raise is a sure fire sign of Weakness. . .imo.
There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. But 99% of the time I feel it to be true.

Individual hands win and lose MTT's.

True everyone has an entitlement to their own style of play, but your arguement is flawed at the FUNDAMENTAL level. Min raising and laying your opponents odds is a huge leak, and if you cant see that me thinks youll be stuck playing 50c sit and gos for a long time yet.

Any individual hand can not win a MTT (except for the last one) but just one hand can lose it.

When it comes to fundimentals I just dont see the point of risking more chips than you have to when you have a chance to lose the hand. I've personally seen players call big raises on a draw in Freerolls and $22 buy-in's. You see the top players in the world doing it in every show they have on TV. I've watched $50/$100 ring games on FT and Stars where players have called thousands on a draw. If you have middle pair or any moderate hand and you know your opponent is on a draw and will call a big raise then why raise? If you currently have the best hand then why just call?

If you want to win at poker then you must evaluate each situation and try to either wn the most you can or lose as little as possible. By saying that you never min-raise means you are saying you must do a certain play without any thought.

I love players that min raise. Saves me time identifying the donks.

Thanks for all of the helpful advice. Adjusting my raising habits will be the first thing I start working on. I have started tracking my cash and my games - so it will be easy to see as I make changes to my game if they are working or not. Will keep you posted!

I guess after this one the challenge I tackle next will be determined by another random comment made by Tenbob at the table:

"Debi.."
"What Liam?"
"Don't................"

Do you only put all your chips in when you have the undrawoutonable nuts then? I could take your theory one step further and say 'Why ever bet or raise at all if there's a chance you're going to lose', and hopefully you see how silly that sounds.

It's a tournament. You have to take risks, you have to win 50/50s and 60/40s and suck out every once in a while. You can't nut peddle your way to the final table.

I don't understand the last two sentences. Should we just be folding when our opponent is on a draw? How do you ever 'know' your opponent is on a draw anyway? The simple fact is that without expressed or implied odds to do so, anyone calling a bet/raise with a draw is making a mistake. Sure, sometimes they will get lucky and hit, but without odds the risk of them calling does not justify the reward they get even when they hit.

I beg you to read Theory of Poker (Sklansky), because this is an absolutely huge leak in your game and it seems your not willing to take either Liam's or my word for it.

...and I haven't even touched on the "What the heck do you do with TPTK when villain who you read for a flush draw pushes over the top of your minraise?" question.

I don't get this argument at all. The basic rule to follow in poker is put chips in the center when you are ahead. If you have middle-pair and think your opponent is drawing to a straight or something, believe it or not you are winning here. You want to lay your opponent lousy odds to continue, because by doing so you're effectively making a bet that he won't hit his draw at odds that are in your favour.

You're essentially saying "I could lose the bet, so shouldn't I put less money on it even though the odds are in my favour?" Sorry, buddy, it just doesn't make sense. If you think you're winning, you want to increase the size of the pot, almost 100% of the time.

JimboJim, please believe me when I say that Dorkus is right and all the literature and smart money are onside with what he is saying, as is the math.

dakota, first time Ive read this thread, so would like to add my bit:
UTG, on the button, or EP your PF move must be in relation to your 'reads' on the other players. If you're holding motown, doyles hand, or the computer hand, then limp. if its big slick, cowboys, or even bangkok ladyboy make a hefty riot. if its a tourney, calculate your M, and your Q, and the other's M's and Q's, but mind your P's and Q's. When those babies flop, before you bet/call/check/scratch your head looking puzzled, work out your EV, is it - or +? then work out pot odds, then implied pot odds, and finally work out what time it is in Australia when you bet, as thats key if your holding Big Slick, or the guy next to you is tilting. Then make your bet, min., 2x,3x,5x,76.4x, or even half the pot, 3/4 the pot, the pot plus a rabbit, etc to deny him calling odds.
also, work out what everyones style is?: TAG TAP LAP LAG LAW SOS FUK DIK etc
Hope this helps?


....oh hang on, no acronyms, sorry, ah well too late now


(daks knows Im just kidding her before anyone says stop being cocky, it took me an hour to look up all the meanings to what I wrote here!)

I think Jim is also misapplying tournament theory. It is generally sensible not to push coinflips or even small edges early on if you feel you have a skill advantage on the field, but made hand vs flush draw is not a coinflip or a small edge, it's 65/35, and that's assuming the player on the draw gets to see both the turn and river, which is huge. Not to mention there are already often going to be plenty of chips in the pot, too.

You had me going for a few seconds lol. But IDKWTFYATA!!!!!

Minimum raises dont do much, especially if im in the Big Blind i will call a minimum raise 99% of the time and so will everyone else>>>buck

i like the minimum raise with crap hands now and again, a couple fold, and some think you have a hand but dont know how to bet it. quite effective when a painted flop hits(KQJ etc)

Don't have much to add really (not like I really ever do ), but do agree with the consensus here (Chris, Liam, etc) in what they are saying.

No, I more posted here because I liked the new forum word of the day...

Question, primarily to Dorkus, but I'm sure others can supply the same or similar response.

If you're playing Sit and Go, say at Costa, 10 people, blinds at second level so 25/50, no one out so average stack is 1,000.

To not miniraise, it costs you 50 + 100 to 250, depending on what you raise, which at this point then is 15-30% of the average stack. Assuming someone calls, then if you catch a part of the flop or continuation bet, you've committed your tournament to this hand. But you're saying, this is where you have to be, given the structure of the tournament and the situation?

Just keep the raise on the lower end of that range. Raise it up to 150, 3x the BB, and don't make a continuation bet unless you're prepared to lay it down or see it through.