Why are you raising?

Lately I've been mixing up my pre-flop raise sizes a lot. This is why.

There are three very different reasons to raise.

Immediate Value - You figure that for every $1 that goes into the pot, more than your fair share of it is going to you. With deepish money, this usually means you're looking at insta-profit on your flop bets.

When we raise for value we want to get as much money into the pot as possible because it's pure profit. Hence, we should have a feel for the "pain threshold" of our opponent because we may figure to make less money if we just blow him out of the pot.

Pot Building - You're building a pot to trap a loose (and sometimes aggressive opponent) by establishing that you might be c-betting (you won't be very often) and getting bets big enough to play a big pot. Very few opponents stack off in unraised pots or unexpected bets. By putting a little cheese in the mouse-trap our opponents will continue with weaker hands until they feel pot-struck.

Semi-Bluff - Kinda, rare but worth mention. Basically you're making a pre-flop raise you don't expect to be called and won't tend to continue unless you hit the board pretty hard. For example, re-raising an sTAgg who's getting out of line. You figure he will only call your re-raise with his best hands, hence you put him to the test pre-flop and shut down.

It's also worth mentioning that our raises tend to make it difficult for our opponents to enter the pot with position on us or play speculative, hard to read hands.

Against passive/predictable/folding opponents I raise for immediate value. Against tricky/aggressive/loose/retarded opponents I raise to build pots because my value from them does not come from the money in the pot, but the bets to be made later in the hand. Usually when I raise I know what I'm trying to do with my raise and size it accordingly.

This is why you'll see me make smaller raises than those commonly spouted as gospel around here.

My 2 chips.

BTW: another strategy I've been toying with is opening for 3x from UTG/HJ and 4x from CO/BN. DUCY?

Originally Posted by Fnordfish

Immediate Value - You figure that for every $1 that goes into the pot, more than your fair share of it is going to you. With deepish money, this usually means you're looking at insta-profit on your flop bets.

When we raise for value we want to get as much money into the pot as possible because it's pure profit. Hence, we should have a feel for the "pain threshold" of our opponent because we may figure to make less money if we just blow him out of the pot.

In a deepstacked game, pot equity on early streets is far less important than implied odds, and if you a build a big pot preflop with a hand like ATo or KJs that is probably the best hand, you’ll get outrun so much by weaker hands and have to pay an extra later street bet (2/3 to ¾ the size of the current pot) to find out that ur beat, hence the extra 1bb you raised preflop becomes 5, 10, even 20bb of loss postflop, due to the exponential pattern of betting in the nl format. Whereas its ok to do the same thing with the same hand in limit, because implied odds are nearly nonexistent there.

Basically, I am saying that your theory is sound against weaktight players (whom that flop be IS +EV against), but perhaps not so much vs other opponents, because I consider preflop equity to be irrelevant when there is so much money left to be bet.

Originally Posted by Fnordfish

BTW: another strategy I've been toying with is opening for 3x from UTG/HJ and 4x from CO/BN. DUCY?"

Everything i have seen and have read disagrees with this. They say you are supposed to raise more preflop when you'll be out of position after the flop, so you'll give a way less appealing implied odds and so you'll discourage action. And you are supposed to raise less in position because you know the pot will be heads up and you want to get full value out of your position (especially vs a bad player).




As far as changing the sizes of my raises for specific hands, I just don't really do this. Assuming these three standards are in place:

1. Stacks are 100bb.
2. Table is normal 30-ish vpip (im talking about sixmax in this example).
3. Mine and other images aren't defined.

... I'm always raising pot with almost any holding I choose to raise. Raising pot 1) Builds the pot when I have a strong hand and gives away not too bad of implied odds 2) Is enough to isolate the hand to a heads up situation. 3) Gives me decent immediate EV for taking the initial pot down (although perhaps not immediate +EV).

Spots where its standard for me to change my raise size:

1. Im on button with 200+bb and two decent cards (that I can play a big pot with the right flop). Villain is on the big blind with 200+bb. Im raising 5-6bb here, only so I can get a chance of stacking him after the flop without him having to put in the Xteenth bet.

2. If I am raising from the big blind with AK or something after several have limped. I usually raise pot + 2bb or so. This is for reasons discussed above.

3. If I have a pocket pair and the pot is bloated with limpers before hitting me. I will often just raise 4bb here regardless of limpers, so I can hit a set of 6's in a 30bb multiway pot on the flop.

I was about to reply and then noticed that Renton said everything I could have and more.

Im not saying everything you posted in the OP is wrong, but definitely keep in mine what Renton said.

raising less in ep is an interesting point considering what our range is expected to be and what we are actually planning to do with such a hand before we even see a flop.

Hence the reason why opening for more in lp is interesting.

FWIW, i wouldnt change my preflop raise sizes simply because i pick on certain players more than i actually play cards, as so many players are pretty predictabl facing an expected hand range preflop and an expected line post-flop. Hence changing raise sizes really kills the element of implied odds a player can create if he so chooses especially in mp or slightly oop in ep with unexpected card ranges.

good post. made me think a bit. however then i started to analyze it, for some reason my brain just needs less generalities and more specifics.. "it depends" i kept thinking.

first are we talking full ring or short handed? and we are talking deepstacked right.

so you say raise - are you talking raising after limpers, or reraising? or open raising? all mean something slightly different.

i have a hard time changing the fundamental part of my game such as when to pfr and how much to pfr.

I dont really change my pf raises based on position, does someone want to explain the theory behind it to me?

I do however change my raises based on my opponents, if I think they are too tight postflop I will raise more preflop. If they are loose postflop I want to keep more money for the later streets so I will raise less preflop.