When to call min-raises from the blinds?

[Wish]

I play in low buy in tournaments, and the play is pretty bad. (I'm not that good yet either, so that's OK with me.) My question is about a situation that comes up a lot in these sorts of events.

I'm in the big blind. Somebody around the HJ or CO seat minraises, and either one or two folks call before it gets to me. Assuming unknown villains, can somebody help me out with proper calling ranges for different situations?

My instinct is that deep-stacked (usually early in a tourney), I should treat this like any other poker game can call any two if the pot is laying me 7:1 odds. I'm not as sure about the one-caller 5:1 or no caller 3.5:1 situations. I'm also not at all clear as to whether that decision changes as the stacks get shorter (say I've got M~7 or M~15).

I'm looking for advice on when/if I should be calling with relative trash here. If I've got a premium hand, I'll be reraising.

[Pokerfarian]

Examples are generally better than general questions.
Generally relative trash should just be folded, with shorter stacks hands like 64s also become more likely to be folded. Hand's like 72o should be folded even super deep imo.

[Wish]

OK. If I get a chance this weekend, I'll dig around in my hand histories and see if I can find some good examples to post for more specific responses.

[Sherman]

Good point Kimbell.

[ QUOTE ]
Generally relative trash should just be folded, with shorter stacks hands like 64s also become more likely to be folded.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is another good point. Stack depth. The deeper stack I have, the more willing I am to calling with ATC b/c my implied odds can be huge. With shallower stacks, I will even let some playable hands go from the BB to a min-raise.

[Wish]

Thanks guys, I'm reading all of this and trying to put it together. There are clearly a lot of angles to this that I didn't even know enough to consider, and I do appreciate the replies and the chance to learn something.

[crankalicious]

Obviously, there will be a lot of differing opinions on this subject and there are such a wide variety of possibilities that a general answer probably won't do much good, but I'll try anyway.

I would say, first, that there's a big difference between having one min-raise in front of you and having more than one. You should be extremely cautious entering a multi-way pot like that. If you're considering it, then you should raise and try to drive some people out of that pot.

Even if you have only one min-raise in front of you, you should be very cautious since you're out of position after the flop.

Frankly, this is a situation I often toy with. For instance, you're in the big blind with 4 min-raises in front of you. If you raise 4BB how many times will the 4 min-raisers fold? 5BB? Etc.

The possibilities are endless. However, I would suggest that if you think about that situation more as an information gathering exercise, it might pay more dividends. It also might benefit you down the road as the blinds increase. In other words, if you raise a few times, then perhaps players are more cautious about trying to steal your blinds later on. In fact, you might be able to create that perception at a fairly cheap price by only doubling the bet. If the people in front of you know that everytime you're in the BB, you're apt to double the bet, they stop limping.

My feeling about it in general is that limping in tends to get me in trouble because when I hit part of the flop and bet, I'm out of position, and often find myself unable to get away from the hand.

[BrandiFan]

I almost never fold with more than 15 or so BBs, but then again I am an arrogant bastard and I think I can outplay everyone after the flop. Depending on the situation, I can be VERY protective of my BB.
Edit: To answer your question, it should be a function of how confident you are of your postflop play. Keep in mind that there's alot of value in having your opponents afraid to raise your blind in later stages.

[wheels25]

[ QUOTE ]
I almost never fold with more than 15 or so BBs, but then again I am an arrogant bastard and I think I can outplay everyone after the flop. Depending on the situation, I can be VERY protective of my BB.
Edit: To answer your question, it should be a function of how confident you are of your postflop play. Keep in mind that there's alot of value in having your opponents afraid to raise your blind in later stages.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol, how do you outplay those guys in low buyin tourneys...
Do you guess they fold their bottom pair on the flop if you checkraise them in order to outplay them on turn on river? Good luck.

[levAA]

I fold all trash hands.

If I decide to play in this situation I usually reraise - shortstacked I push obv.

Playing any hand oop against multiple opponents is horrible - even with a good hand, so I try to take it down preflop - you need a somehow tight image therefor.

I do this also with SC or medium PP.

With small PP I might call and look for a set.

[Wish]

Here's a similar situation (again calling out of the big blind), with a hand history.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (7 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver Cards)

saw flop

CO (t4030)
Button (t1180)
SB (t4429)
Hero (t4860)
UTG (t755)
MP1 (t3103)
MP2 (t3510)

Preflop: Hero is BB with , .
UTG raises to t755, 5 folds, Hero ??.

This is similar, though not a min-raise, it's still pretty small. I would be calling 555 into a 1055 pot, getting not quite 2:1 on my money. What sort of range can I assign to an UTG all-in with M~3, and does that range make calling correct?

Compared to the more general situation of calling minraises from the BB, this hand has no possibility of getting bluffed out of a pot or playing out of position. It's all over but running the cards and/or pushing the pot to the winner once I call or fold.

Not results, but my thoughts on those questions below in white (which should indicate what I did, but I don't know whether it was correct).

<font color="white"> I figured that with such a small stack, villain had a pretty wide range here. Certainly any A, any pair, probably any K, Q7o+, J9o+, any suited connector. Anything that figures to be better than maybe 50% of random hands, since he'd be pot commited with a random hand in the BB if he folds here. Given that, I figured J8o, while pretty trashy, isn't hopeless, and is probably at least 30% against his range. Additionally, a call and loss would still leave me t4000, which isn't great, but isn't horrible either, so I didn't think I could pass up what I expected to be a +EV chance to earn chips. I didn't have a read on villain to tell me to do anything else. </font>