[Assani Fisher]

Raising preflop is less necessary in NL for 2 reasons:

1. You don't need to build the pot as much with your A2s type of hands because if you're in a scoop/quarter situation then you can just overbet the pot, whereas in PL having built the pot preflop will allow you to bet more in these situations.

2. Re-opening the betting in NL can have all in consequences. Some players will limp with bad AA hands in EP hoping for this.


Postflop building the pot when you're drawing is also less significant for the same reasoning as #1 above.



The first thing you'll notice is people going all in preflop with AA. Against this you must fold anything but a better AA. If you want my advice on playing AA in NL I'd say to ask yourself this question: Do I stand to make more money on average by putting in a smaller raise and hoping to be called? If so, then I'd put in a smaller raise. If not then I'd just push. In general I'd push if ANY of the following were true:

-It was a bad AA(an AA is "bad" imo unless it has a 2 or 3 or both aces are suited)

-I'm likely to be out of position postflop

-Someone else has raised preflop

-Someone at the table has shown that they'll call all ins with poor hands that are underdogs to your AA



You can overbet the pot to make people fold or overpay for their draws. Off the top of my head, heres one example:

Say you're in the SB with QQT9. There are 6 people to the flop(there was no preflop raise). Flop comes 4-5-Q with 2 diamonds(you have no diamonds). In this situation there are obviously a ton of draws out there. What I'd do here at least 75% of the time is check/raise all in. There are obviously a ton of other examples of times in which you'd want to charge people extra for their draws.



Finally in quartering situations you can really stick it to someone good in NL. Lets say that you have A267 and you hit the perfect flop of 3-4-5. And not only that but someone bets into you and your both deepstacked. What a great situation, right? Well in NL you can truly take advantage of it. What you'd do in PL generally is just bet the pot and hope he calls in order for you to get maximum value. But in NL you can be a lot more deceptive and try to sucker him along. What I'd do in this particular situation is probably just call on the flop to make sure that I can put him on the nuts one way(A2 or 67)- if he bets into me again on the turn then I think I could do that. Then on the turn, I'd raise as much as I could be near certain that he'd call. Then on the river, its all in. This forces him into a tough situation on the river: Give up on whats now a decent pot or be quartered.

As you can see, I thinking goes into NL and you have to read your opponents' calling tendencies more closely(knowing how much over the pot they'll call with only having the nuts one way for example).

A big part of NL also is being able to recognize when you're getting quartered or when you are quartering him. Obviously this is important in PL, but the ability to drastically overbet the pot on the river makes it even more important in NL imo.