Alan Goehring on min raising - do you agree?

[mephisto]

I found the latest Cardplayer interview with Alan Goehring to be really interesting for me, especially his views on his unorthodox style.

This is what he had to say specifically about the subject at hand:


"When I won the WPT championship, I would say that 98 percent of my opening raises were for exactly two times the big blind, and in the recent LAPC I won, I would say that 90 percent of my raises were exactly two times the big blind, with the other 10 percent being, at a maximum, two and a half times the big blind."

"I have never read a poker book that suggests regularly making such a small raise, and in fact some books explicitly state that this is poor play. On occasion, a player who doesn’t know me will advise me to raise more, saying I will not be able to get the blinds to fold with such a modest raise. My response is, well, maybe I don’t want the blinds to fold, because if the blinds fold, I am not going to win much. So, it doesn’t matter what I have or if I am in early or late position, it is going to be two times the big blind. Maybe it works for me because of the range of hands I play or how I play after the flop — but I would say, get used to it, because there is no way I will ever change that part of my game."

This really struck me, because the fundamental question must be asked why do we raise 3xBB with our premium hands? Don't we want action from our best starting cards in order to maximize value? Wouldn't it be great if someone re-raised us with our AA, KK, AK, QQ's when they think we are min raising out of weakness?

Anyways, I'd love to hear what some of you guys think of Alan Goehring's play and whether or not it can translate well to internet play.

As for myself, I'm going to experiment a bit with it today in the 4/180s and see how it goes.