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Some of you misunderstand.There is literally no reason to min-raise preflop. Literally none. Not for metagame purposes, not for building a pot, not for gathering information on a villain's hand, not for getting rid of player's preflop--NONE.
i'm going to start minraising just when you have my tables open.
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Some of you misunderstand.There is literally no reason to min-raise preflop. Literally none. Not for metagame purposes, not for building a pot, not for gathering information on a villain's hand, not for getting rid of player's preflop--NONE.
I hate the play, i don't use it, ever. If you were playing in a sng, there were 4 people left, and you were stealing the short stacks BB, would you consider min raising?
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I was thinking about another good time to make an exception for the min-raise...When you're three-handed and holding a powerful hand against a short-stacked opponent and another decently stacked opponent, you can min-raise the short-stack so that he'll re-open the betting when he goes all-in. This can put added pressure on the other stack and might win you a decent bit more if he just calls and you get to go even bigger.
Don't give DrawingDead any exception to his rule or he'll come down from the clouds and blast you and yours to the forum for a week in that Napoleon Dynamite voice you know he has.
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i love playing low limit online where u see NL games get min raised preflop all the time, it goes min bet, min raise then min raise again... aaaarrrg....
Just to play Jesus' advocate for a second, min-raising as an opening bet from early position has some merit against players who give a lot of respect to early position raises. On the other hand, there are lots of games that don't really follow the pattern Chris is expecting here. (E.g., some kid re-raised with AQs against my UTG raise in a 2/5 game at the Mirage twice my last Vegas trip.) I do make smaller opening raises when I'm out of position after reading this article. I'm still making it 2.5 BB at a minimum though.Chris Ferguson writes at FullTilt:One of the most common mistakes in No-Limit Hold 'em is coming in for araise that's too big. In early position, you want to keep your raisesat about two times the big blind. With four to six players to actbehind you when you're in middle position, raise to about two and ahalf big blinds, and raise to about three times the big blind from lateposition.If you're representing a big hand by raising from early position, itstands to reason that you'll only get played with by huge hands. Whyrisk four, five or more bets to win only one and a half bets in theblinds when you're often going to be running into monsters along theway? If you're holding A-Q rather than A-A and a player comes over thetop, you can lay it down without having risked much.
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The min raise play also makes me sick. One reason is that I was teaching some friends to play, and I kept seeing them do this, they didn't understand or care about the logic so I just gave them a blanket statement "you should never do this, ever. the online sites have it as an option to encourage you to screw up." It worked for the most part. I will admit in SNG's when you have an opponenet who isn't proficient at calculating odds, and they don't defend their blinds, this play may be the safest way for you to steal. For the "highjacked" portion of the threadWhen people say "i placed a bet to see where I was at" I always think that is the worst way to find out. You bet to find out then someone raised you and you folded, seems like if you would have checked you would have gotten the same information.
I don't think there is anything wrong with making a bet to see where you are at. What if you are playing against a player like Ivey? Not saying as good as Ivey, but with a style like his. If you check it, he is going to bet it 99% of the time and then what are you going to do?Not trying to be a dick, just a thought.
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I think that there might be a purpose to min-raising PF if everyone's really short-stacked. (i.e. you're at a final table and the average stack's 12 big blinds). However, I'm still not sure exactly how you'd use it there. I think that with AA in late position, it might be misconstrued as someone who's desperate to see a cheap flop, and you might get someone to come over the top of you or call with garbage and then go all-in when they make one pair.If you have even reasonably deep stacks though, I agree that it's a fundamental mistake.

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I think that there might be a purpose to min-raising PF if everyone's really short-stacked. (i.e. you're at a final table and the average stack's 12 big blinds). However, I'm still not sure exactly how you'd use it there. I think that with AA in late position, it might be misconstrued as someone who's desperate to see a cheap flop, and you might get someone to come over the top of you or call with garbage and then go all-in when they make one pair.If you have even reasonably deep stacks though, I agree that it's a fundamental mistake.
We're not talking about tournaments.NLHE cash games, only.
Just to play Jesus' advocate for a second, min-raising as an opening bet from early position has some merit against players who give a lot of respect to early position raises. On the other hand, there are lots of games that don't really follow the pattern Chris is expecting here. (E.g., some kid re-raised with AQs against my UTG raise in a 2/5 game at the Mirage twice my last Vegas trip.) I do make smaller opening raises when I'm out of position after reading this article. I'm still making it 2.5 BB at a minimum though.Chris Ferguson writes at FullTilt:One of the most common mistakes in No-Limit Hold 'em is coming in for araise that's too big. In early position, you want to keep your raisesat about two times the big blind. With four to six players to actbehind you when you're in middle position, raise to about two and ahalf big blinds, and raise to about three times the big blind from lateposition.If you're representing a big hand by raising from early position, itstands to reason that you'll only get played with by huge hands. Whyrisk four, five or more bets to win only one and a half bets in theblinds when you're often going to be running into monsters along theway? If you're holding A-Q rather than A-A and a player comes over thetop, you can lay it down without having risked much.
Ferguson's operates under the assumption that people understand *any* raise from early position will be respected as a 'big hand' and that people will call from mid/late position with anything other than a big hand.The central thesis makes a good deal of sense--that you don't want to play a big pot out of position. But the idea that a 2 x BB raise from EP will represent immense strength is lost on most. Honestly? If I'm on the button, I'm calling with almost any two cards for a 2 x BB raise without a read.
Don't give DrawingDead any exception to his rule or he'll come down from the clouds and blast you and yours to the forum for a week in that Napoleon Dynamite voice you know he has.
You give shitty advice and talk down to posters in this section.I don't give shitty advice and rarely talk down to posters in this section.I win.
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Nothing makes me more upset then when it is limped around then button min raises, then some idiot decides to 3 bet like its a limit game. Now we all go calling around.
i couldn't agree more!
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I don't give shitty advice and rarely talk down to posters in this section.I win.
My analysis may suck and you may be 10 times the poker player I am, but you are the condescending one. You used to be the guy in the forum who was always right, now you're just that guy who's never wrong. And I rarely "talk down," and do so no more than anyone else in this forum, so shut the **** up.
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While we're at it, I don't think betting or raising "to see where I'm at" is that good either, and that is also very common in this section of the forum.
As a mostly Heads-Up player I disagree with both saying min-raises are bad and that "see where I'm at raises," are bad.1. Min-raising is just about the only raise that is wise to make. Pumping too many chips into a pot in such a volatile game as heads-up poker with top-pair is bad.2. "To see where I'm at" raises are absolutely acceptable when you're in position and have something like middle pair. This works in conjunction with min-raising. If you start over-betting the pot you'll have 25% of your chips dedicated to the pot on the flop... ouch.
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As a mostly Heads-Up player I disagree with both saying min-raises are bad and that "see where I'm at raises," are bad.1. Min-raising is just about the only raise that is wise to make. Pumping too many chips into a pot in such a volatile game as heads-up poker with top-pair is bad.2. "To see where I'm at" raises are absolutely acceptable when you're in position and have something like middle pair. This works in conjunction with min-raising. If you start over-betting the pot you'll have 25% of your chips dedicated to the pot on the flop... ouch.
this topic almost explicitly has nothing to do with heads up poker, and even then i'll disagree and say that min raising is stupid. heads up, whats the purpose of the min raise? to get more chips into the pot so he can catch a hand he wouldnt call for a 3x raise? i dont get it.min raising is ****ing stupid. Period. .
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As a mostly Heads-Up player I disagree with both saying min-raises are bad and that "see where I'm at raises," are bad.1. Min-raising is just about the only raise that is wise to make. Pumping too many chips into a pot in such a volatile game as heads-up poker with top-pair is bad.
Then play deeper than 20 BB's...and even if all you had was 20 BB's, still, that's awful.
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this topic almost explicitly has nothing to do with heads up poker, and even then i'll disagree and say that min raising is stupid. heads up, whats the purpose of the min raise? to get more chips into the pot so he can catch a hand he wouldnt call for a 3x raise? i dont get it.min raising is ****ing stupid. Period. .
1. I bring up HU play because I don't like "play X is universally bad," mentality that people get stuck in.2. I'm not quite sure on what is so hard to understand about min-raising for 10-25% of your chips being strong enough of a raise.Blinds: 15/30Button raises to 90BB calls 90pot: 180*flop*Button bets out 180BB min-raises 360...In a game where you start with 1500 chips and blinds of 15/30 are the *SECOND* tier of blinds, my min-raise is over 20% of my stack.If you bet any more than that you are contributing a huge percentage of your stack without any information. Quite often a strong play is to raise with your draws and middle pair. You don't want to be committing 50% of your chips to get information.
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Then play deeper than 20 BB's...and even if all you had was 20 BB's, still, that's awful.
Why?You need information to assess if you have the best hand. In heads up this could be low pair, this could be high card, or this could be TPTK (but not necessarily). You need room to gallop a little, and spending 20% of your chips to find out if you have the best hand is plenty, as opposed to pushing 50% on an uninformed bet and hoping for the best.
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