[pzhon]

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I have read numerous articles that says if you are first to enter a pot and are sitting in mid/late position, you should bring it in for a raise. I can see some sense in this as you could take the blinds uncontested. However, I play micro NL cash (0.5/0.10), so taking the blinds I dont see as being a big deal.

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First, it's a good result on average to take the blinds. The blinds are always worth stealing. Even at NL $10, it is common for winning players to win less than 3/4 of a big blind per hand on the button, and if everyone folds, you win twice that.

Second, you don't regret raising quality hands when you get called by a player in the blinds. Your money hasn't been thrown away. You have made the pot larger when you have a decent hand and position, so you should expect to win most of the larger pot.


It's not far from wrong to raise when you are the first player outside the blinds to enter the pot. I hesitate to describe exceptions in the beginners' forum, but here are some examples:

If someone behind you frequently reraises, or calls too many of your raises, and then uses position and aggression to take the pot away from you most of the time, then raising may be a losing proposition even with some decent hands. However, open limping may be better than folding, as the blinds will make up a larger proportion of the pot.

Against a maniac in the blinds who bluffs you out of most pots and who will often stack off with weak hands, you may want to limp in even with quite decent hands. The idea is that raising just increases your losses when you get bluffed, while the stack sizes limit your gains when you can take a stand.

Against a really bad player, say one who calls down with any pair, seeing a flop is so profitable that you don't want your opponent to fold. Players who are that bad, but who fold to preflop raises, are rare.

If your raise means your opponents put you specifically on AK, you might want to raise with everything except for AK. AK is a strong hand, and you'll still win if you limp in with AK, but not if you raise and turn over your hand.

If a player acting after you is raising very aggressively, then you might be able to get more money into the pot with a strong hand by limping with the intention of reraising.