You gotta start small. For a casino n00b, you're just trying not to lose all your money in 10 minutes. With experience comes the confidence to think you can actually win. It may only take one visit.
I am reminded of a '1 and done' tourney I played.
I got 99 and raised, got reraised and I thought for a while, and even said out loud "Do I want to do a 1 and done" thingy? Then I shoved, and villain showed AA, it held and I indeed did the 1 and done thingy.
I laughed as I did the walk of shame. One of my better learning experiences actually, I will never do THAT again!. IIRC, I went to another casino and played long enough to break even for the day.
Think about it, when someone raises small into you, how much weight do you attribute to that raise and how often will you call that raise. Change the thought to a shove into you with cards that you might really want to see a flop with. DO you do the emotional call there or does your intellect take over and tell you the right thing to do.
If they see you never raise, and if you did then had to show AA, KK, QQ, you will get little action, and give away a lot of info to your villains, for little gain.
If they all of a sudden see a shove from you when what they have 'learned' about you does not warrant such a move, they will likely rethink wanting to call you. But if you limp in, or min raise, it would fit in with their thinking about you. They would call especially when you price them into the hand.
So if a big raise works against you better than a small raise, what makes you think that you doing the raising won't make them doing the backing down?
That is why it becomes a shove at 10 'M' which is typically 15 BB's. A raise of 10 BB's is significant enough to get everyones attention, You need a pretty damn good hand to call and as we all know, pretty damn good hands are not happening as frequently as any of us believe.
BTW the traditional thoughts were to shove with an M of 10 (10 orbits remaining) (roughly the same as 15 bb's) and to loosen up your starting hands at an M of 20 (30 BB's), so that you don't get beat up with a nittish table image.
Depending on the tourney, sometimes you don't start with 30 BB's (turbo's and super turbo's in particular) and you have to play those much looser from the git go.
If you are not willing to shove with 10-15 BB's, you might as well walk away from the table and let yourself get blinded out. You are playing cards, but not playing poker at that point.
Stop trying to trap, and start raising. If you have to re-train yourself to do this try doing it online in play money games. As noobs, we have/had tendencies that we do/did not realize are easily seeable by everyone else.
The only time to consider not raising with a small 'M' or very few BB's is when you are already in the money, your cards seem dead, and blinding out may help you climb up the pay ladder.
