How to interpret raises of uncommon sizes?

I have usually seen them in freerolls, and I usually award whoever makes the fish label. But lately I have also seen them in cardchat tournaments for the club, and I guess that someone who bothered to have 75 quality posts has a decent level of play. So, could it be a strategy to confuse opponents? In that case, wouldn't it be a very expensive strategy?

weird raises

Sometimes raises of this size are made only to confuse opponents. To make it more difficult for them to calculate the pot odds and the number of chips on the table and correlate them with the size of the pot. Sometimes such raises are made to get the maximum number of chips from you when you do call with the top pair on the flop. Or from two pairs and so on. You need to look at the previous draws of such a person. If you see that he is not playing very well, then do not pay attention to such raises from this player..But if a person plays very rationally and correctly, then such raises should be feared.:laugh::laugh::laugh:

just to clarify the question
So preflop.
Common raises online is 2.5 to 3 x
Common raise live is more like 5 to 7x
Anything higher either a steal or player has premium cards

During flop turns. The standard raises seem to be 3x the original raise. More extreme raises if the initial bet was extremely thin Anything over 3x raise on a reasonable initial bet size would be a push I think you have to figure out based on the board texture. If it a push ( I got the best hand ) or push semibluff. Or push air bluff.

On the river. 2x raise generally means players wants you call and figure he’s got the best hand. 3x or more is again a push that you have to figure out
I don’t see min raises that often

I used to think that all the players in the community are very good players, but I was deeply mistaken. About half of the players deserve to participate in freerolls and not higher.
Many do not even know the basics of poker and do not want to develop.

ANATOLII1981 said:

Sometimes raises of this size are made only to confuse opponents. To make it more difficult for them to calculate the pot odds and the number of chips on the table and correlate them with the size of the pot. Sometimes such raises are made to get the maximum number of chips from you when you do call with the top pair on the flop. Or from two pairs and so on. You need to look at the previous draws of such a person. If you see that he is not playing very well, then do not pay attention to such raises from this player..But if a person plays very rationally and correctly, then such raises should be feared.:laugh::laugh::laugh:

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I think that in community tournaments, irrational bets from a thinking player are either impossible or extremely rare due to the initial stacks of 1,500 chips, there is no room for bluffing.

Polarizing bets usually mean monster hand or massive bluff. So I guess you have to go with your guts depending on what king of play you've previously seen from that player.

jadaminato said:

I have usually seen them in freerolls, and I usually award whoever makes the fish label. But lately I have also seen them in cardchat tournaments for the club, and I guess that someone who bothered to have 75 quality posts has a decent level of play. So, could it be a strategy to confuse opponents? In that case, wouldn't it be a very expensive strategy?

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Someone who has +75 quality posts might just want to take part in the freerolls, it does not mean anything.

Never participated of any freerolls here, but usually when i see a strange bet i tend to analyze the previous hands by that player, maybe he wants to induce a call or he is bluffing really hard.

Every players a bit different so when a player bets a strange amount it could mean different things based on whos betting. You could deduce the meaning of it if you are able to learn about and read your opponent well to figure them out.

In my experience, in most cases this is a very good map - usually weak players defend in this way))

I wouldn't over-analyze it tbh.

You have good players, mediocre players and a whole lot of bad players. No matter how many posts they have on a forum.

sometimes it's a spiritual side of the player which is developed !!
the famous sixth sense !!!

:2in1:

my example of yesterday’s game in the tournament is $ 1.10, I have 88bb I’m in 15-20th place, prize drawouts will start soon who is 250 in revenge, I’m waiting for a card, about 30 minutes, AQs come, 1bb bank my opponent raises 4bb to the bank with 140bb, I don’t know why and why I shove 18bb, he calls and the flop comes out 549 out of suit and I shove everything there, he has JJ, I lost))) by the end I have zero ... I think I'm tired, and for a long time I wait for a good card for Game!

Hello.
I have been making notes for a few months about our freeroll players. By now I already have about 30 such notes. This helps me to understand how my opponents play and what to expect from them.

tarabarov said:

my example of yesterday’s game in the tournament is $ 1.10, I have 88bb I’m in 15-20th place, prize drawouts will start soon who is 250 in revenge, I’m waiting for a card, about 30 minutes, AQs come, 1bb bank my opponent raises 4bb to the bank with 140bb, I don’t know why and why I shove 18bb, he calls and the flop comes out 549 out of suit and I shove everything there, he has JJ, I lost))) by the end I have zero ... I think I'm tired, and for a long time I wait for a good card for Game!

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Actually your example serves. 18bb is a rare raise (more than 4 times the size of your opponent's bet, which was perfectly reasonable with your hand) and then you went all in waiting for a flush? Sounds like a series of bad decisions.

I think that unusual raises show either a lack of knowledge or genius (like Tom Dwan). At these stakes I do not expect geniuses, so only a lack of knowledge remains.

As the poster GrannySmit77 wrote above if you want to balance your big bluffs you must also bet big with value (like Tom Dawn and Viktor Blom on the river often do/did).

But on lower levels and especially in free-rolls it can be almost random.

Some bad players like to bet big to scare people away - and some tight players almost always have the nuts or a very good hand the they bet or raise big.

In the two later examples they are not balanced at all, and you can exploit it by either calling the first one often or in the second case fold almost everything all the time.