how much and when to raise

PoolDemon · how much and when to raise

Well the purpose of raising a pot is obvious, you are representing that you have a hand worth raising with, I don't want to go into bluffing here, just a few standard raises and what one should expect.

Firstly, you should never make a minimum raise, even if you have aces, why, well, for starters the player in the BB will probabley never fold to that, and bad thing like the following could happen :

Player A is the SB, holding 10-10, the blinds are 15-30, "A" min raises from 30 to 60, the BB calls holding 8-5, the flop, 555, player A thinks, woo I'm ahead, bets ensue and finally all in and low & behold the quad gods gift, a big blind special...

Now if player A had simply raised 3 or 4 times the BB, the BB would have folded, better to take out marginal hands with a proper raise than to have that happen...

Also, it pays to make notes on the players you play against regularly, it does you no real good to push all in when the blinds are still low, in the long run you gain fewer chips than by outplaying the villians in your pot after the flop.

You have JJ for an example, you have 1 caller, & you have notes that they call with any suited cards or any ace, it's a queen high flop, rainbow, bet 1/2 up to the pot and you are probabley the winner right there, if they call & it's a turn card in your favour, bet it again, here they have no real outs left if they played the hand you put them on that they have to now fold.

If the BB was 30, instead of all folding to your preflop all in & getting 45 chips, lets pretend you had raised PF to 120, bet 100 on the flop, then the pot on the turn, & the villain folds, now instead of getting 45 chips, you gained 265 chips more than you started with, far better results, and even if you lost that hand, you raised 120PF & and ace hit, & folded, you would still be better off chip wise when you win the next pot, outplay them post flop, now that's poker...

PoolDemon

in most situations early on is what I had started above, but many situations arise, & are played differently in different stages of a tournament, so I'm hoping to see a few others thoughts on this...
thanks

Miklosik

I'm going to be really interested in what gets posted here. I've been playing online for almost three years. Playing live all my life.

I am having the hardest time adjusting to online raising. I know I have a very tight image online, but that's because pots are being raised at such ridiculous ratios that it just doesn't seem worth it to call.

3-4x bb would seem standard, but I'm having a hard time finding players like that. You're correct, I think, in that a min raise would not serve your purpose but anymore I'm not sure that 3-4x moves anyone off of a hand either.

Know-nuffin

A pre-flop raise can also be useful when selling a story. If a player bets large and the flop is low, chances are they haven't hit the flop (they may not have needed to).

However if from position a player raises pre-flop and early players check a high flop, the original raiser has an opportunity to make a continuation bet, and is more likely to be believed with say an ace or king on the board.