What to do with min-raises or small raises.
 

I am new to the forum. I mostly play for fun. Have been playing mostly low stakes games online, including SNG, cash games, and some freerolls and cheap tourneys. I hate when someone min-bets or min-raises. An example is when in BB(a hand you would like to see a flop with), two limpers and a small button raise of 3xbb. Should this be a fold, or is the money right to call with any two cards?
I get into trouble a lot with small raises. When someone min-raises or raises 3xbb with people already in the pot, i usually insta-call or raise. I sometimes end up losing alot, but i cant see folding to a minbet or minraise. I really hate when someone makes a decent size raise preflop, gets two callers, the flop comes out, and he bets the minimum. WTF. I am assuming this is mostly seen in low stakes, just don't have the bankroll to move up yet.

Re: What to do with min-raises or small raises.
 

3-4x the bb is the standard raise preflop

Re: What to do with min-raises or small raises.
 

When someone drastically underbets the pot like that, I treat it like they checked. Unless I have a pressing reason to fold (I have two red fives and the flop is KQJ all clubs, its a tournament and my stack sucks, etc), I go with one of two routes:
If I would have checked behind normally, I call.
If I would bet out, I raise.

Re: What to do with min-raises or small raises.
 

Pre-flop, the minraise can either mean a monster that's trying not to scare away the limpers or it's a big drawing hand. I will usually ignore these min-raises and just do what I would have done had they not raised. In the BB, I'll just treat it as if I was UTG in an unraised pot.

Post-flop, the min-bets are usually a donk's sad attempt at a blocking bet. 90% of the time it means that they are on a draw. If I've hit any part of the board myself or if a have a big draw (OESD or FD), I'll put in a PSB. If I've completely missed the flop, I'll usually just fold. Of course, once in a while I'll put in the PSB with air and then fire a second barrel on the turn if no obvious draws come in.

Re: What to do with min-raises or small raises.
 

I play a lot of heads up matches and if i get a guy that is constantly min-raising me i follow a simple rule that usually works out good. I raise 70% when i hit the flop, call 30% and see what happens on the turn. I'll raise their min-bets about 30% of the time with nothing and it usually stops the min-betting.

Re: What to do with min-raises or small raises.
 

raise the min-bet and you can usually take the pot in my experience

Re: What to do with min-raises or small raises.
 

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raise the min-bet and you can usually take the pot in my experience

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agreed

Re: What to do with min-raises or small raises.
 

You need to figure out why he's doing it and what it represents. Forget using some standard play against every minraiser.

If a player is minbetting/minraising, you can usually narrow it down to a few possibilities:

1) It's a small defensive bet for a draw or a weak drawing hand.

2) It's a cheap probe bet - which, incidentally, can clear out a couple of players if done from EP in a big multiway pot, which is pretty uncommon.

3) It's a cheap bluff.

4) It's to keep the action going to induce you to bluff.

5) He's confused and doesn't know what to do.

6) He's trying to around your suspicion for making what's generally consider to be a donk play.

Different actions are depending on the circumstances, and I almost universally think min-reraising is going to be the wrong response in any case (in fact, I rarely ever see minraises followed by min-3bets).

Re: What to do with min-raises or small raises.
 

min raises are the best kind.

Re: What to do with min-raises or small raises.
 

3xbb ist a normal raise, a pf min-bet would be 1xbb.

I can see several reasons for this: player is a newbie and the client has a raise button, that has 1xbb as a default.

it is annoying and can even put some players on tilt.

player thinks, he can create a bigger pot pf without chasing limpers away.

one player told me, that he used to play limit hold'em and has no clue how much he should raise.