Min raising early position, possibly not bad???

[chip_messiah]

Ok so first of all my friends told me if I wanted to get over the hump as a player then I had to do some research and read twoplustwo

I started at 13 and im 18 and its incredible when i used to think K 10 diamonds were the nuts. Anyway I am trying to keep transitioning as a player and I had a few questions.

First of all in situations such as low pockets 66 lower or 910 std or better or even KJ and worse.. is it such a bad idea to be raising the min early position with a stack of 2200 and blinds at 50 100 ....

I ask this because I feel as though calling is poor for obvious reasons. While min raising early gives you some information. If you get a couple callers you know they are weak ... either similar connectors or rarely Arag ... if ur reraised than u know u are a coin flip at best and its a quick fold .... the benefit is that u get to see a flop with a couple of callers and when the flop comes 2 7 J ... u can pretty much assume they missed their draw and being first to act take down the pot ....

I am open to any suggestions and to whether or not this is a noob statement.

[PantsOnFire]

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First of all in situations such as low pockets 66 lower or 910 std or better or even KJ and worse.. is it such a bad idea to be raising the min early position with a stack of 2200 and blinds at 50 100 ....

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You have 22BB. Throw these hands away in early position.

When you have 100BB and it's early in a tourney, you are going to get a reputation by min-raising these hands. And judging by the type of hand you are min-raising, you are saying "I have a marginal hand." This is very bad.

You say that the purpose of your min-raise is for information and if you get callers, you know they have marginal hands. Well, now you are looking at a decent pot with a marginal hand and opponents who have a wide range. So how do you play the flop?

What are you going to do if there is a raise behind you? Will you call OOP with a marginal hand in a bigger pot against a strong opponent.

I suppose you could play like this as a setup for min-raising AA or KK later. I'm not sure the overall EV would be + doing this.

Having said all that, there may be some circumstances where your opponent's play would dictate that this strategy might be correct. For example, near the bubble on a very tight table, you could continuously steal the blinds with min or 2.5x raises. But this situation is not related to your cards.

[Camdaman19]

DO NOT MIN-RAISE...end of story. It serves no point. You say that by min-raising and getting callers you find out they have marginal hands, well you find out the exact same thing if they limp preflop. You say if they re-raise you, you know they are strong, find out the same thing if they raise your limp, or raise your 3-4x BB raise. In conclusion...DO NOT MIN-RAISE!!!!

[chip_messiah]

fair enough gentlemen ... thanks for the advice ...

I also had a situation where i had 52K in the 10 dollar last night and the blinds were at 600 1200

im in sb with KQ ... i raise to 3600 ... bb calls

J 10 4 flop ... i bet 4500 ... he reraises to 12K ... i fold ...

could i have played that differently and if so how ... maybe a push or just checking that flop ???

[Camdaman19]

Seems fine to me, I would of folded as well. I guess you could check the flop, but I think the C-bet is fine here.

[Sherman]

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DO NOT MIN-RAISE...end of story.

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While I agree in general, I certainly do not have the min-raise out of my bag of tricks.

To the OP, you should not min-raise these hands from EP with so few BBs.

However, in some situations, min-raising might be the best play. Taking a blind approach to poker that says, "Never min-raise", while very very often an excellent strategy, is not optimal. Keep your options open.

[Sherman]

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fair enough gentlemen ... thanks for the advice ...

I also had a situation where i had 52K in the 10 dollar last night and the blinds were at 600 1200

im in sb with KQ ... i raise to 3600 ... bb calls

J 10 4 flop ... i bet 4500 ... he reraises to 12K ... i fold ...

could i have played that differently and if so how ... maybe a push or just checking that flop ???

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Check/raise the flop A/I or depending on exactly how much you have left, you might check/call and check/raise-shove the turn.

[PantsOnFire]

This situtation depends on the reads. How often have you been raising his BB? How loose is BB? How aggressive is BB? How aggressive are you? How often have you been cbetting? What does his reraise represent?

Now let's do some math. There is 23.7K in the pot and you have about 44K. If he has paired the board with a hand like AJ or Jx, Tx, then you have 14 outs and are actually a favourite. If he has QJ you have 11 outs and still look good. If he has KJ, KK or QQ, you have 8 outs which is still about 32%. With a set, you are a little less than that due to the board possibly pairing. If he has 98 or Q9, then you are ahead.

If you had JT on a K Q 4 flop, then everything changes and it's a fold. But with this flop and the possbility that your overcards are either additional outs or are actually best hand right now, I would shove here to work some fold equity into your pot equity, which is about 40% if he has you covered.

If he has less than you, then your pot equity will go up but your fold equity will go down but probably at the same rate.

[JoeyJoJo Shabadu]

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DO NOT MIN-RAISE...end of story.

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While I agree in general, I certainly do not have the min-raise out of my bag of tricks.

To the OP, you should not min-raise these hands from EP with so few BBs.

However, in some situations, min-raising might be the best play. Taking a blind approach to poker that says, "Never min-raise", while very very often an excellent strategy, is not optimal. Keep your options open.

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The only time i min-raise is when blinds get huge near end game, and I have a weak opponent with no idea of pot odds that has proven time and again he will fold his big blind to me when I steal from the button. That's the only time. I hate the idea of min-raising aces or kings... it sickens me. I'm betting everything 3 x or better early when I coming in raising and 2.5x or better very late stages in a tourney when I'm raising.

FWIW... I call almost a huge portion of min-raises when I'm in the BB since I know I have odds to.

[8Adam8]

didn't read OP, just title, its almost always bad