do huge PF raises make sense? if so, when?

[shirze]

i'm new to NL and currently playing NL10 and NL25. i see this play often enough to be worried about it, but not often enough to understand how to respond appropriately.

it comes in two forms:

1. a few people limp, someone raises it to somewhere between 30 and 50 big bets.

2. someone raises to 2 or 3x the BB. then someone reraises to somewhere between 30 and 50 big bets.

so my questions are as follows?

-is this an intelligent play that is often made by solid players in certain circumstances? if so, what are they?

-is it a usually a huge bluff by maniacs or maybe just an overjealous raise by a beginner with a real strong hand?

i'm sure it could mean a variety of things in different situations, but i'm wondering if it's a common play in certain circumstances by certain types of players. any help would be appreciated.

[Antinome]

The word is overzealous, as in Zealot. Interestingly, it does sort of mean 'jealous' in ancient Greek by way of Hebrew.

Zealots were a radical political group in the Byzantine Empire. They liked to put many big bets at risk to win very few; with marginal hands, relying on fold equity to make up the difference. Usually the hands themselves are hands that look really pretty, and are slightly above average, such as KJ sooted, or a pair of eights.

The Zealot's philisophical and political enemies were the Hesychasts, sometimes called Anchorites. They are the ancient version of what we would call 'TAGS'.

Wikipedia says that St John of Sinai describes Hesychast practice this way:

[ QUOTE ]
Take up your seat on a high place and watch, if only you know how, and then you will see in what manner, when, whence, how many and what kind of thieves come to enter and steal your clusters of grapes. When the watchman grows weary, he stands up and prays; and then he sits down again and courageously takes up his former task.

[/ QUOTE ]

This describes the strategy one must take to defeat the Zealot very well. It is so cogent and clear, I don't think I need expand upon it at all.

As to you inquiry about the emulation of the behaviour of Zealots by good players- you can see it in the late stages of tournaments, or when the good player has been dealt a very high quality hand and has good reason to believe his bet will be interpreted as 'Wild Ass Monkey Tilt'.

[Mcot]

Its a very good play in low limits when you have specifically AA KK and QQ, on a table where people are calling large bets preflop. The idea is that you raise preflop with one of these very strong starting hands and then push the flop. It gives less opponents less of a chance to beat you, and it extracts maximum value out of the best hands.

[kurto]

It is a bad play unless (1) the table is so bad that a person doing this with pocket Aces or the like will get called by junk or (2) the table is so weak/tight that everyone will fold.

I have noticed there are a number of people who over-raise PF out of position with small pocket pairs. Essentially they know a pair is good but are afraid to see a pot so they raise more then usually.

#2 above is the worst (reason to do it)... I see idiots do this quite a bit and it works great to steal a few small pots and then they lose their whole stack when someone traps them with a monster. They also are gambling more then they need to to steal a small pot. I think its a dumb play.

I tend to assume its a monster hand unless someone starts do it frequently.

Regarding open pushing Aces or Kings... I believe its called the move of honor and is a great move at certain tables. You'd be surprised how often it will be called. If you've been raising a lot, its a great move since people are more likely to call.

At a tight table, its a dumb move because no one will call.

[ChipStorm]

Antinome, nh.

OP, welcome. One reason for raising big in NL is to price opponents out of their draws: to make it too expensive for them to call and try to draw out on you.

But you are not just pricing them out on pot odds and implied odds. Your raise amount must also compensate you for the possibility that if your opponent stays, YOU will make a mistake on a later street; i.e., folding when he actually missed, or paying him off when he hits.

In short, if you are very, very new, and if you utterly suck at postflop play, then raising very big preflop can potentially be justified. If there are several limpers to me, and I KNOW I'm going clear to the felt with these Queens no matter what, then I'll argue for a huge raise right now, to try and clobber their implied odds.

But of course that's pretty poor play, and as soon as one gets any sort of clue postflop, then preflop raises should more or less come into the range of pot-sized. Tons of exceptions, but very generally, standard stacks & implied odds tend to drive most people toward roughly that size.

[shirze]

thanks for all the replies- makes a lot of sense and puts my mind at ease.

(i'd edit "overjealous" to "overzealous"- maybe i should edit my posts better- but i enjoyed the response too much.)

in any case, hope this doesn't sound cheesy and i won't waste a new post on it, but i just gotta say that it was worth the switch from limit to NL just for the quality (and lack of *ssholeesque sarcasm) of the posts and replies compared to the limit forums. not to mention that NL is about 100 times more fun than limit and you couldn't pay me to go back.

[teller]

NL continues to scare the [censored] out of me, but that's what makes it interesting! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]