Minraising pre flop. WHY I don't think it's all-that-bad!

[amoeba]

oh, you are doing it with a pocket pair.

you know, Xd, Xh can be construed as any 2.

[Jamougha]

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1. doesnt matter

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Does to me.

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2. they have odds, but my whole point was they're still, pre flop, paying 2*bb on a hand they wouldn't have limped with if they had to pay 2*bb all at once to do. they're being "dragged in", which makes their first call a mistake.

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This is like minbetting or minraising into someone with a flush draw and saying that it's OK because you know they'll call.

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3. I wouldnt do it with bad cards, I'd do it with cards that play well in a big pot.

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Way to define your hand.

[Mik1w]

"This is like minbetting or minraising into someone with a flush draw and saying that it's OK because you know they'll call."

it's like then calling with odds, and then someone behind them raising. both calls individually are good as they have odds, but in hidsignt, the first was a mistake because he doesn't know there's going to be a raise behind.

overall, the min raise means the draw has paid too much, but there's nothing he can do about it.

[Jamougha]

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"This is like minbetting or minraising into someone with a flush draw and saying that it's OK because you know they'll call."

it's like then calling with odds, and then someone behind them raising. both calls individually are good as they have odds, but in hidsignt, the first was a mistake because he doesn't know there's going to be a raise behind.

overall, the min raise means the draw has paid too much, but there's nothing he can do about it.

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But the second raiser still made an error. Do you see why? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[amoeba]

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"This is like minbetting or minraising into someone with a flush draw and saying that it's OK because you know they'll call."

it's like then calling with odds, and then someone behind them raising. both calls individually are good as they have odds, but in hidsignt, the first was a mistake because he doesn't know there's going to be a raise behind.

overall, the min raise means the draw has paid too much, but there's nothing he can do about it.

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we aren't playing limit poker here. this is why limping drawing hands and even small pocket pairs are rarely correct in limit.

[Mik1w]

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"This is like minbetting or minraising into someone with a flush draw and saying that it's OK because you know they'll call."

it's like then calling with odds, and then someone behind them raising. both calls individually are good as they have odds, but in hidsignt, the first was a mistake because he doesn't know there's going to be a raise behind.

overall, the min raise means the draw has paid too much, but there's nothing he can do about it.

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But the second raiser still made an error. Do you see why? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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lol... im intrigued
Ill give it some thought, ..

[AMadison]

I think as an every time all the time strategy it's no good. It will get eaten alive by somebody paying attention (although how many low limit players are paying THAT much attention). But if on the button (not the cutoff as the button will likely play this kind of hand with any 2 because of the pot) it may allow you to see 4th street for free which could be a big benefit when you don't flop a big hand/draw. But I think as a once or twice a session, to mix things up, and keep your opponents in a "gambling" mood it would be an effective way to do this that doesn't risk much else. But doing it often will likely hurt your ability to pick up pots by betting which I think is more important in NL. It's a great Limit Technique that doesn't really transfer to NL quite as well

[wslee00]

The point I think of the min-raise PRE-FLOP is only to grow the pot, not b/c opponents are making a "mistake" by calling 2 bbs instead of one. That's limit thinking and doesn't belong here. Post-flop min-raises are retarded unless it's at the river.

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3. I wouldnt do it with bad cards, I'd do it with cards that play well in a big pot.

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Way to define your hand.

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There are my types of hands that do well in a big pot, i.e., any low pp, suited connectors, suited aces. This range is quite large and opponents may not know which you have when the board comes with a straight and a flush draw.

That said, I have never min-raised pre-flop so I don't really know if this is a profitable play against certain opponents or not. I think it could be quite profitable against passive players that will never play back at a pf min-raise.

[RubbleRobble]

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OP: here is the reason why your OP logic doesnt work. a raise with a hand that does well in multiway pot is a very important weapon in limit hold em. this is because there is a betting limit, which means that you dont have all that much time to get your opponents to get their money in. another result of the betting limit is that if the pot is too small to warrent a call from them (from their perspective-- it depends on the cards they have at the time). Thus a PF raise makes the pot bigger, and lets you price yourself (or them) into the pot when you get a favorable flop.

In NLHE, however, we have a concept known as implied odds. if you hit a flop you like, you have access to their entire stack already, its not as important to make the pot big enough to hook them. you hook by betting an amount you think they will call.

Plus at NLHE players sit with 100 bet stacks, so the difference between a 5 way 5 bet stack and a 5 way 10 bet stack is not very significant.

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I understand this point, but the number of times you hit a flop compared to the number of times you take an opponent's whole stack is so low, I think the double sized pot is more than a minor change to profitable decisions you make post flop.

The idea of this minraise is to magnify your postflop decision profits because you're putting yourself at an advantage against hands that simply meet only limping criteria; you're imprvong your range while not improving theirs (as they have odds, whatever they called before theyre calling again)

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Not a single word of this makes sense to me. Who cares if you increase the pot by 1 bet for each limper? who reason you limp is because you hope to stack an unobservant opponent. the argument of "min-raise so that the times you dont stack someone, you get double the money" is bad. the value added to your total EV for limping hands like this comes almost entirely from stacking, taking the pot uncontested is almost irrelevant.

Let me also add that if you are doing this with all your hands that you arent putting in normal-person raises with, you are playing a weird version of twice the size game you should be playing (50nl compared to 25nl). while not ENTIRELY the same thing, minraising as a standard play like you describe with F you up when you look at your varience.

[Mik1w]

Ill reply and think later, but with regards the the "define your hand", IMO the min raise is an excellent red herring to throw thinking opponents.