General Strategy Question- Cold Calling a PreFlop Raise

[seke2]

The problem is that you don't KNOW you are flipping, and when you have 88-TT that means you get called sometimes by a lower pocket pair.

Also, when you only have, say, 15xBB left, and you call 3xBB off preflop and then fold, you're down to 12xBB. Now if you double up, you're only at 24xBB, as where if you had pushed with 15xBB and gotten called, you'd have been at 30xBB on the double. That's a pretty big difference.

If you know your opponent's exact hand, sure, you can play better. But against a reasonable opening range and calling range, usually pushing mid-high pairs I think is way better.

So many people make retarded raises with 2 broadway or SCs or whatever when the stacks dictate that they shouldn't do that, and it makes them very exploitable to a resteal. I'd rather take a +EV gamble when I know I have it rather than call off 20% of my stack, fold postflop, and hope another good spot comes along before I'm out of chips.