Preflop open raise size?

I think there is some disagreament on what to raise as standard preflop and also should you change it depending on position. Like add a bb oop.

Personally I like the small 3xbb. Seems to do the jobs with less risk and cbets can be smaller I like the pot to inflate a little slower . I also do not change it for position.

Yes, I have experimented with sizing and settled on 3bbs. Exception is if I'm opening in the sb, then I go 4bbs.

2.5 is too easy to call with junk, and 3.5-4 is too expensive for when you don't make your hand.

I ran well for a while using a theory that I would make it incorrect for anyone at the table to set mine, so made my bet over 5% of the largest stack still in the hand. The math just got too hectic...

i do 3x BB from every position....and add another BB per limper

TN is set to default to pot preflop or 3.5x + 1 bb per limper

for some reason i mix mine randomly between 3 and 4 and then +1 for every limper, probably because im a donkey. What about the idea of raising say 3bb in earlier positions and then 4bb in later positions?

3x - 3.5x is standard. Keep it standard.

Youll see people say you should raise to 6x with AA and such, but dont listen... Theyre stupid.

it becomes a little too obvious when you wake up with KK or AA and raise it like 12xBB...or an open shove all in

Cant imagine raising more in late and less in early being good. You are really asking for more players to call when your oop and less to call when your in position...

I agree but remember your range will be stronger in EP than LP. Also instead of looking to vary your opening sizes based on position maybe you should look at your opponents.

For example folded to you on the BTN with 2 nits in the blinds, min raise. Folded to you on the BTN with 2 stations in the blinds who hate folding, you have a strong hand, raise to 6x, you have a weak hand fold, you have a high implied odds hand 3x. Remember bad players don't really care as long as it's not too extreme. They look at their cards and call / raise / fold based on them. They're also not paying attention enough to know that you are exploiting them by changing your opening size based on your likely opponent. They may think you're raising based on your cards and that's OK because that's not what you're doing. Say you have an opponent who sees every flop but folds to a cbet unless he has TP+. Against this player you should be raising larger preflop, say 5 or 6 x, and cbetting smallish on every flop. So you could actually end up opening for 6x and showing down 27o against 1 player type, where against another player type a 6x raise is AK+/QQ+ only.

Anyway that was a very long winded way of saying pay attention to your opponents and exploit their tendencies instead of trying to come up with a 1 size fits all opening size.

I like to open for 2 and a half times the BB when first to open. I then like to open my range of hands a little wider. Its kind of like Daniel's Small Ball strategy except I am applying it to cash games.

If someone limps ahead of me, I will sometimes limp or increase the raise to 3 times the BB. I continue to add 1 BB to the raise to per limper.

When out of position, I will raise it 4 times the BB and add 1 BB per limper.

I like the slightly smaller raise which makes it easier and less costly to lay down to the 3 bet. I can also raise a few more hands in my range as I am opening for slightly less.

Are you playing small ball at micro stakes? I think it would be hard to do successfully at micros.

In the early part of the game bb less that $100, I raise 4-5 times the bb - after at 100 or above I usually drop to 3X bb until the final tbl. It seamt that when you get to the final tbl, it is almost a freeroll, so much more selective aboout the hands I play. At that point it depends on how the others are playing/betting and I will mix it up.

I first thought you were talking of a cash game and playing $100bbs

In Chris Ferguson's Full Tilt Poker Academy Pre-flop Play challenge he says to do the following:

In early position (UTG, UTG+1, playing 9- or 8-handed), open min-raise with: A-A, K-K, Q-Q, J-J, T-T, 9-9, 8-8, A-K, A-Q.

In middle position (UTG+2, UTG+3, UTG+4, playing 9- or 8-handed), open-raise to 2.5 times the big blind 3 times with: A-A, K-K, Q-Q, J-J, T-T, 9-9, 8-8, 7-7, A-K, A-Q, A-J.

In late position (cutoff, button, playing 9- or 8-handed), open-raise to exactly 3 times the big blind 3 times with hands other than A-A, K-K, Q-Q, J-J, T-T, A-K, A-Q.

I've been following this fairly closely since I took the challenge, and while I don't have a big enough sample size to know for sure, it seems to be working fairly well for me in the $2 SNG's.

I think it really depends on the situation, where your playing ect.
for example i play regular $2/3 at crown casino melbourne but if i raise only
3bb to $9 i am going to get 5 or 6 callers!
a standard raise there is anywhere between $15 and $20 (5-7bbs)
so how do you conquer this i mean your committing 10% of you stack by just
raising pre flop?!?

I find it to be successful for me in NL5. I kind of look at it as a ratio of risking 12c to win 7c which is basically what I am doing over and over. Then combined with continuation bets on the flop, I feel I can further offset these odds. ex: Risking 20c to win 27c if called by someone behind me. Better yet is having the blind defend and checking to the raiser. My CB is around 83 percent.

The real advantage comes when you actually make a hand and get paid off because of your "loose" image. People will have some kind of idea you are playing more hands then the others and take shots at you from time to time.

I play on fulltilt and always pot preflop, which works out to 3.5x then 1bb per limper. I pot my 3bets too.

4x for me, i like to build the pot pre esp profitable for hands like ak refering to cash!!

I have seen Ferguson's recommendations before. Are these designed for Tournament play? For cash I think it is backwards. IMO you need to raise more from EP to discourage muti-way pots and reduce implied odds for someone set mining you as big pairs are a big part of your range. Conversely when on the button you are opening a very wide range and are more likely to get 3bet so it is better to raise smaller so you can fold more cheaply or 4bet without getting your stack in.

Typically I raise 4x-5xbb (depending on table conditions-more for looser tables and if there is a total donkey at the the table who calls almost anything I might raise 7x-10xbb. Once I open shoved with KK on a table that had suddenly become short handed and the SB called with AK so that was a nice double up!)+1 bb for each limper but on the button I bet pot which is 3.5bb for an open raise.

I think that as long as your raises are consistent based on position rather than hand strength you will be in good shape. Openng a pot in NLHE at the micro level from late position is almost not possible since you will almost always have a limper or two in these pots. With that in mind you should follow the advice of adding a BB for each limper. If you aren't comfortable doing this than perhaps that hand belongs in the much.

I thought these were for tournament play because that's what I'm mostly doing right now, but I checked and these were actually cash game recommendations. The idea, as he describes it, is that since you're only playing your strongest hands in early position, multi-way pots are okay, but with a small bet you can still get away from the hand if you need to. From late position, the bigger bet is needed to reduce the pot odds for the blinds, and having position on them makes up for the wider range of hands you're playing. The middle position recommendations are just a compromise between the early and late position strategies.

I've always done 3xbb, sometimes 4 depending on my hand. But I would stick with the usual and not venture to far off base with it, it may cost you more in the long run.

People should really clarify in their OP whether this is for tourney/sng play or cash.

The amount will vary depending on each and unless there is some clarification you are never going to get a satisfactory or useful answer on why each size is preferable.

Chris Ferguson is a definitely a smart guy but I think this is backwards, after all which hands would you prefer to play in a multiway pot AA or 55? KK or 76s? With a big pair you want low SPR's to deny implied odds to anyone calling your raise. The best way to accomplish that is to raise more preflop.
From the button you have the advantage of position on every other player so you don't need the blinds to have worse odds to call. In fact you want them to call often enough that you can flop a well concealed monster and stack them. Furthermore since you are opening with such a wide range you will probably get 3bet more so if you need to get away cheaply from a hand the button is the place to do it and if 4 bet you can do so without necessarily playing for stacks.

I click pot untill I reach mid stakes where it becomes a standard 3

this is a cash game subforum.

WVH has it again. You have to exploit your opponents. If you have someone who doesnt care how much you raise, why wouldnt you raise more with better hands?

You're right. I goofed. I just clicked on the "all new posts" function, didn't notice. Whoops.

Keep in mind that this was from a FTPA lesson & challenge, not a book on strategy. For a challenge, they need goals that are clearly defined, but not so narrow that the situation will hardly ever come up during play. Obviously, a pro will take many factors into consideration, and will not have a completely mechanical process for determining bet size.

Regarding your examples, 55 and 76s are not hands that he recommends playing from early position. AA & KK are lumped in with the others probably just to keep things simple. In his video, he states that any pre-flop raise he makes from early position represents a strong hand, so I'm guessing he doesn't get into a lot of multiway pots when he does this. (What kind of hand would you need to call Chris Ferguson's early position raise? )

I think most people would raise AA or KK a bit more, but what about JJ or AQ? If you bet 3-4xbb, do you really want to call a re-raise with those hands? If you're called and don't fit a scary flop, do you c-bet OOP? It seems to me that your decisions are easier if you get the junk hands to fold, but are not too committed to the pot.

What about when they have a well concealed monster because you gave them good odds to call with a marginal hand? Most of the time I'll be happy if the blinds just fold. If they don't, then I want them to pay a premium for calling OOP. On the flop, I should know more about their hand than they know about mine, and hopefully I can use that to my advantage.

In the end, I think the techniques in the challenges should not be thought of as hard and fast rules that apply in every situation, but they are good for expanding your thinking and adding tools to be used when the situation allows.

I must say I like the 4bb opening raise. It will generally separate the contenders from the pretenders.